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Deschutes Brewery bartender Casey Carhart pours a Black Butte Porter at the Public House in downtown Bend on Tuesday afternoon. Deschutes is among a group of local businesses that received federal grant money to train employees — from factory workers to servers and bartenders — about reducing waste and improving efficiency in the workplace.
Andy Tullis / The Bulletin
Efficiency grants
With the goal of strengthening an existing work force, federal funds are being distributed to 6 local companies so workers can become versed in ‘lean' business practices
By David Holley / The Bulletin
Published: October 28. 2009 4:00AM PSTEmployees at a few local companies will soon get a lesson in efficiency, thanks to about $100,000 in federal work force training grants.
The money will pay for training sessions meant to help employees develop skills that could translate into greater job stability and higher wages, as well as cost-savings for their employers, said Andrew Spreadborough, program administrator for the Central Oregon Intergovernmental Council, the agency that awarded the federal grant money.
It's a type of training that promotes reducing waste through simple changes in the work environment and was popularized by the Japanese car manufacturer Toyota.
“The goal is to help them develop skills to remain employed,” Spreadborough said.
The workshops, which focus on teaching employees “lean” business practices, can be taken at each company's leisure. Lean business practices, often known as “lean manufacturing” or “lean production,” focus on improving efficiency in a business by promoting planning and minimal waste in all tasks, according to the Massachusetts-based Lean Enterprise Institute. How a company implements lean practices varies from business to business.
COIC named the six grant recipients in September:
• American Licorice of Bend received $15,000.
• PV Powered of Bend received $23,250.
• Keith Manufacturing of Madras received $13,500.
• Deschutes Brewery of Bend received $2,200.
• High Desert Enterprise Consortium (manufacturing businesses in Central Oregon) received $15,000.
• Metabolic Maintenance of Sisters was awarded $35,000 on behalf of the Central Oregon Biosciences Industry Consortium.
Metabolic Maintenance, a nutrition and wellness research firm, is the only organization that won't be taking lean practices seminars.
Its grant money, which will be shared with other businesses in the biosciences consortium, is focused on biosciences industry training.
In addition to learning lean practices, most of the businesses can also use some of the money for training that is specific to their field. Deschutes Brewery, for example, can also pay for some financial analysis training. That could teach the brewery's employees how to track which beer is consumed the most in Colorado, for example, said Deschutes Human Resources Manager Pat Gerhart.
At Deschutes, Gerhart said the lean training could improve their inventory process or it might help them improve their scheduling system for servers at their restaurants.
“Sometimes there wasn't as much thought put into that as there should be,” Gerhart said. “How I take a look at it is how we're going to work smarter and not harder.”
The companies pay for the training programs and then are reimbursed by COIC, Spreadborough said. COIC has been providing local businesses with similar training grants for about six years through federal work force development funds, he said.
This is different than most other work force development programs because it targets people who are already employed, Spreadborough said, particularly those in higher-wage occupations.
“If we're going to spend public resources on training, we want to train on higher wage occupations that pay more to the worker and contribute more to the economy,” he said.
David Holley can be reached at 541-383-0323 or at dholley@bendbulletin.com.
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