KEP brought our A-team out – which has had hundreds of successful Kaizen events – to partner with a local nonprofit, the Ben Curtis Family Foundation, to reevaluate their warehouse. The goal of these Kaizen events are to identify areas of inefficiency by breaking down processes and looking at ways to make it more efficient.

Growing to Meet Community Needs

The Ben Curtis Family Foundation uses their warehouse to store nonperishables and pack Birdie Bags, which are bags of food and toiletries that are distributed to local children in need throughout the school year. Since moving to their current location, the Foundation has grown from serving two to now nine school districts! Due to this growth, they were concerned they would need to find or build a new location to continue to help meet the food insecurity needs of the communities they serve.

Finding the Right Solution

The Foundation brought in our KEP team to see if they could make their current facility meet their growing needs so they could stay there. Our experts came in to see how they do their packing for Birdie Bags, and if there were inefficiencies to their process according to the Lean process that is followed in our manufacturing facilities.

By the end of the week-long event, it was determined that not only would a new building not be necessary, but that they could grow and expand in their current facility! We are happy to have been involved with such a great non-profit and are excited to see them continue to expand to serve more of our local communities!