Award honors Quest Aircraft

SANDPOINT — It takes 5,000 parts for Quest Aircraft Co. to build one Kodiak airplane.

Between 2,500 and 3,000 of those parts are made on site by the rapidly expanding number of employees. So just imagine how mind boggling it would be to keep track of that many parts.

And that's just for one airplane.

Faced with an order backlog that a year ago numbered 100, CEO Paul Schaller said Thursday the company's leadership knew they needed to speed up production time, reduce production costs and create a work culture aimed at continuous improvement.

"They stepped forward and said we could use help," Schaller said of production manager Danny Hiner, director of operations Justin Wootan and aircraft expert Mark Cahill.

That decision has earned the company a Spirit of Continuous Innovation Award from TechHelp for successfully implementing the Lean Manufacturing process.

"For us to receive an honor like this is incredible," Schaller said.

Once a quarter, the National Institute of Standards and Technology-Manufacturing Extension Partnership and TechHelp select an Idaho company that "best embodies" the award, said BSU employee Bill Mulane in an e-mail.

"The winning company must have made product and process improvements that created positive economic impact in the areas of employment, investment and bottom line savings and sales."

The company's goal for its backcountry airplane, which is capable of making short takeoffs and landings for humanitarian and mission work in remote areas, is to reduce its production time goal per plane from 10 days to just 2 1/2 days.

Currently, it takes about a month to turn out one plane. By early next year, the goal is to produce two planes a month.

They turned to an aviation consultant and TechHelp — a consortium of employees from Boise State University, the University of Idaho and Idaho State University which provides Lean training instruction to optimize the flow of services and products, according to the Lean Enterprise Institute.

Lean training is a very successful process used by Toyota in its automobile plants, said Gary Alvardo, a TechHelp staffer and engineer employed by the U of I.

The employees underwent Lean training and have implemented  a visual-aid process using large-scale boards to move and track parts used in different stages of the manufacturing process (called "cells") to the location where they are used, and created and hung signs identifying the different production phases and their locations.

Many of the work stations and pieces of equipment are on wheels so they can be moved as more equipment is added. Employees working on the left wing, for instance, can look at a work station with all the required parts attached to the side of it to make sure they have everything they need.

Not only has Tech-Help and the Lean process helped them move from casting a vision to fulfilling one, but "they make you realize how far you have to go," Schaller said.

So far, Quest has produced five planes — including a craft being used by a British military jump team. Also in production is a float plane for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Quest now employs 247 people — 98 of them added just this year in jobs ranging from manufacturing to accounting.

State Rep. George Eskridge, R-Dover, recalls seeing a wooden model of the Kodiak when he visited Quest's Priest River plant.

The partnership between Quest and TechHelp is proof of that government and private partnerships can work, he said.

"No way did I envision what we have here today," Eskridge said.