Viwinco 2023 Recap
As 2023 comes to a close, we would like to take this time to reflect on all that has happened throughout the year as we look forward to the upcoming year. Without a doubt, 2023 has been another busy year with many significant projects being completed, big achievements being made and a couple of key employee events that took place. As we say goodbye to 2023, here is a snapshot of some of the events that have happened this past year!
Company Projects
New Glass Shop Completion
One of our biggest focuses for 2023 has been to complete our new glass facility. At the end of the second quarter, we announced that the new glass facility was 100% complete and that all our glass manufacturing had been shifted over to the new building. This milestone signified Viwinco’s transition to the future state of insulated glass fabrication. Using the latest glass manufacturing equipment, we now manufacture our glass units with a more streamlined flow, at a higher capacity, and with remarkable product quality. Although the new glass facility project has been completed, in the spirit of Lean Manufacturing and continuous improvement, there is still room for improvement. We continue to look for ways to improve our processes to provide our customers with an even higher level of service.
Launch Viwinco Core Tenets
At the beginning of the year, one of our internal focuses was to launch the Viwinco Performance System (VPS) to realign our focus as a company as we look toward the future. One of the main components of the VPS is the Viwinco Core Tenets. The ten core tenets reflect our focuses, behaviors, and targets that are critical for our company’s continued success and growth while guiding us to Be the Best! As we established the core tenets, we prioritized establishing awareness throughout the company and getting our employees on board with the new mindset.
We did this by creating new signage that listed the ten core tenets and hung them throughout our three buildings. This ensures that the core tenets are easily accessible and provides a strong reference point throughout our facility. Additionally, since Viwinco is a bilingual company, we had the core tenets translated into Spanish for our predominately Spanish–speaking employees. Another way in which we influenced our employees to adopt the core tenets was by tying a component of our quarterly bonus to them, providing a reward for exemplifying the core tenets throughout our day-to-day operations. Over the course of the year, we witnessed remarkable buy-in from our employees which has been actively shared through our “wins of the week” emails that are sent to our employees at the end of every week. The wins of the week emails highlight progress, achievements, and innovations our employees experienced throughout the week. As we continue to integrate the Viwinco Core Tenets throughout our business, you—as a customer—can expect to see the benefits as we improve!
Viwinco Academy Launch
Windows and doors are among the most complex products incorporated under the building materials umbrella. As a manufacturer, we understand the importance of educating our end users on our products, equipping them with the knowledge and comfortability to sell our products effectively. Therefore, we created a comprehensive training portal—Viwinco Academy— to provide our employees and customers with a powerful window and door resource.
In typical Viwinco “controlling the source” fashion, we created the portal entirely in-house with the collaboration of our Marketing and IT Departments. Viwinco Academy contains five short modules designed to establish a baseline education on Viwinco products and general industry terminology. The five modules include: Terminology, Viwinco Brands and Styles, Viwinco Performance Information, Viwinco Product Installation and Viwinco Warranty Info. After completing the Academy, users should be comfortable discussing Viwinco products and will have ongoing access to the portal to be used as a great reference tool.
Since the launch of Viwinco Academy, we have witnessed a steadily growing user base and have received great feedback regarding the existing content and content users wish to see in the future. We already have a few additional content areas we would like to add that we plan to work on in the upcoming year. The portal is only available to Viwinco employees or employees at Viwinco distribution sites. If you are not yet enrolled in the Viwinco Academy and would like to do so, please reach out to your Viwinco Sales Rep for assistance.
Lean Implementation at Viwinco
Viwinco’s commitment to Lean manufacturing predates COVID-19, back when we began construction on our new glass facility and had identified a growing need to improve our internal efficiencies. After a few planning calls with the Lean Enterprise Institute (LEI), followed by onsite visits from our Lean Coaches and a successful initial kaizen event, we witnessed the benefits of Lean Manufacturing. After a series of successful kaizen events centered around establishing our model line (Line 1 — Edgemont), we entered 2023 with a co-learning partnership with LEI. Given our continued success with Lean implementation at Viwinco, the team at LEI invited our General Manager Mike Duncan Jr. and Line 1 Supervisor Travis Klewiec to speak at a session titled: Understanding the Interdependent Roles of Operations and HR.
The session catered to businesses either at the start of their Lean implementation Journey, or businesses looking to Learn more about how to implement Lean. Much of the discussion revolved around creating a Lean-centric work environment and getting the team to become participants in the Lean implementation. Both Michael and Travis provided invaluable insight from different perspectives. Michael’s insight was important for understanding how we aligned our company’s goals, developed leadership capabilities, and cultivated a learning environment. With Travis being the supervisor for our model line, he provided real-life examples of how this process empowered him and his team and discussed the challenges they faced when the process first began.
Later in the year, our Director of Manufacturing, Zach Kauffman was invited as a speaker for LEI’s 2023 Lean Global Connection. During the webinar, Zach spoke with our Lean Coach Karen Gaudet regarding our work on our model line and developing our people’s capabilities. This session was broadcasted to Lean professionals around the globe and gave us an opportunity to reflect and share our Lean journey with others. Overall, this has been an exciting year for our Lean implementation. We are excited to have had several opportunities to share our experiences with other Lean professionals worldwide.
Company Events
We are always looking for ways to support our customers or get involved with the community. This year, we were fortunate to have several opportunities to do so. Here are some of the ways Viwinco got involved in 2023!
Customer Events
This year, we also attended multiple events as a company for our customers and companies we work with. Some of the bigger events we attended for our customers include the annual Universal Supply Expo, the Marvic Supply Trade Show and the Erie Materials BBQs. These events are a great opportunity to support our customers and meet with some of our end users!
What’s so Cool About Manufacturing?
This was our fifth year as a sponsor for the Pennsylvania What’s So Cool About Manufacturing (WSCM) competition. The WSCM competition challenges a group of students to partner with a manufacturing company and conduct an on-site visit. During the visit, the students are tasked with capturing footage and conducting interviews to piece together a short documentary-styled clip to answer what is cool about manufacturing? The goal is to educate students that there are variable career paths in manufacturing that are worth considering. This year, our Governor Mifflin students won the local competition and were invited to the statewide competition in Harrisburg!
2023 Viwinco Class of Interns
At Viwinco, we are passionate about what we do and are grateful to have several opportunities to share that experience with others. One way in which we do so is through our summer intern groups. 2023 was our second year of hosting a group of summer interns, and for this group, we incorporated various disciplines from Engineering to Supply Chain. As we continue to seek daily improvement, these interns were involved in significant projects and directly impacted the daily operations here at the company. At the end of the internship, our students were responsible for conducting a report out to Viwinco management and leadership team. They showcased the progress they made and reflected on what they learned while working at the company. Our interns made significant contributions while only being with the company for a few weeks, and gained real-world experience, as they continue to pursue their education. This year we were also excited to announce the hire of one of our previous engineering interns, Jack. Jack has shown great initiative throughout his first year with the company and continues to be an asset to our engineering department!
GlassBuild 2023
GlassBuild—the glass and fenestration industry’s largest event—is held annually and attracts professionals from around the world. This year’s event was hosted in Atlanta, Georgia and included manufacturers, businesses and speakers who came together to discuss the latest industry topics and showcase new industry technology and machinery. Although Viwinco did not have a booth setup this year, we did send a small team down to Atlanta to see some of the industry’s latest innovations. We learned a ton from the show and look forward to sharing more updates as we head into 2024.
Quanex Customer Advertisement
Earlier in the year one of our key suppliers Quanex came onsite to film a customer advertisement video at Viwinco. Quanex manufactures the Duralite spacer system that we use in the majority of our products. The Duralite spacer provides a strong seal to our insulated glass units that traps the insulating argon gas between the two glass lites. The spacer is automatically applied to our glass units across our four automated Erdman IGU Lines in our new glass facility. The video included manufacturing footage from our new glass facility in addition to testimonial videos from Viwinco’s leadership team.
Employee Events and Holiday Spirit
As a family-owned and operated company, developing a sense of community is very important. Throughout the year, we are actively looking for ways to give back to our employees and get them and their families engaged with the company to thank them for their hard work. In 2023, we hosted some family events and got into the holiday spirit with a couple of new ideas we had not done before.
Giveaways, Lunches and Celebrations
Throughout the year, we find fun things to do for our employees, as a thank you for their hard work and dedication. This year, we maintained some events we had done years prior while including some events we had not done before. For Easter this year, we ordered large chocolate bunnies from local chocolate manufacturer RM Palmer for each of our employees. At the start of Summer, we brought in a Kona Ice truck to serve flavored shaved ice during lunch breaks and then ordered an ice cream truck to serve ice cream at the end of Summer. Leading into the Thanksgiving break we did our annual turkey giveaway for all our employees.
Trunk or Treat & Halloween Costume Contest
This October, we looked for additional ways to celebrate and engage our employees and their families with the company. One way in which we did so was by conducting Viwinco’s first trunk-or-treat event. Trunk-or-treating is something that has gained popularity over the past few years. The premise is that a group of people gather in an open area, such as a parking lot and decorate the trunks of their cars, while handing candy out to trick-or-treaters. This is an alternative to traditional trick-or-treating and is often done by companies, schools, daycares, sports teams or large groups. For this event, we had employees sign up if they wanted to decorate a car and give out candy, and we invited all of our employees to stop by with their families for a fun night of trick or treating. We also conducted a contest and gave out prizes to the best decorated cars. With this being our first trunk-or-treat, we had a great turnout!
In addition to the trunk-or-treat, we also held our first official costume contest on Halloween day. After seeing employees dress up throughout the years, we decided to make it more official and have a contest for the best costume. Our employees went above and beyond with their contests, which made picking a winner difficult for our judges.
Holiday Party
We held the annual Viwinco Holiday Party this year at the start of December. This year, we had our party at the Doubletree Hotel, located in Reading, Pennsylvania. The Holiday party is always a great time where our employees can come together with their significant others and coworkers and celebrate the end of another year. At the Holiday Party, Viwinco employees can enjoy a night of eating, drinking and dancing. We included a photobooth to capture group photos, a holiday raffle for a series of great prizes and a separate raffle open to Viwinco employees of ten years or greater. As always, we had a good time and are grateful for all the employees who came to celebrate with us!
Looking Ahead
It is rarely a slow or quiet year here at Viwinco and 2023 was no different. We managed to squeeze a lot of big projects into 2023 that will allow us to shift focus to additional areas for 2024. Over the next few weeks, we look forward to solidifying our planning for 2024, before we close the final week of the year for our planned annual preventative maintenance week. 2024 is shaping up to be an exciting year already as we continue to focus on our Lean implementation and make significant renovations to our main building. Thank you to everyone who contributed to another successful year at Viwinco and our employees for their hard work and dedication. We hope everyone enjoys the holidays and we look forward to an exciting year in 2024!
