Manac is Canada’s largest and most diverse trailer manufacturer, offering a range of vans, dumps and belt trailers, low beds, grain hoppers, chip and logging trailers. The company also manufactures heavy-duty chassis, and has five manufacturing facilities in North America.
Founded in 1966, Manac is a family owned business based in Saint-Georges, Quebec that services the heavy trailer industry for road transport, construction, energy and mining sectors. The company has been a recognized brand for more than 50 years and currently manufactures over 200,000 trailers per year.
The company’s products have been embraced by many of its customers throughout the country and abroad. Its extensive network of dealers in both the US and Canada are known for their professionalism and customer service. The manac dealership program offers value-added services and products to its dealers.
Today, the company is a major player in the North American market and continues to grow its sales through the production of specialty platforms. In particular, the company focuses on dumps, low beds, grain hoppers and chip and logging trailers.
To meet this growing demand, the company has invested in new manufacturing plants in the US and a remodeled factory in Quebec. The company currently employs more than 1000 people in Canada and more than 400 in the US.
Charles Dutil has been president of Manac since 2009. He and his wife, Mary Demers, are committed to improving the organization’s performance, and their leadership style is reflected in the strong focus on operational excellence that permeates the organization.
For the past six years, Manac has partnered with Tervene, a provider of connected manager software, to help them transform their organization. The platform enables frontline teams and top management to align daily control, communication, collaboration, problem-solving and improvement processes to support the company’s strategic goals.
In addition, the system empowers managers with a mobile solution that can be used to support and facilitate shift handovers. It can also be used to structure meetings, monitor daily activities and track issues on the production floor.
The software also helps managers to keep the production line on schedule, which is key for the business. By helping to identify bottlenecks, supervisors can focus on preventing problems and ensuring that quality is always at its highest level.
With the Tervene system, Manac’s management teams have been able to implement strong daily control practices across the entire manufacturing process and use real-time data to monitor progress and improve productivity. This is especially true for the production and engineering departments.
For example, the Tervene software is now used to conduct Gemba walks and audits that focus on identifying issues on the factory floor that are hindering the company’s operational excellence. This is done in order to improve the company’s five pillars of performance: safety, quality, delivery, inventory and productivity.
With the Tervene system, the company is able to ensure that every single employee is engaged in these activities, and that everyone understands their responsibilities as well as their own objectives. This is key for the company to stay profitable and grow.
