Overview

Miller Industries, Inc. was founded in 1990. Since its inception, the company has provided innovative high-quality towing and recovery equipment worldwide. Listed on the New York Stock Exchange, Miller Industries has a total of four manufacturing facilities in the United States, one in England, and one in France.

Miller Industries markets its products under the well-known brands of Century®, Holmes®, Chevron®, Vulcan®, Boniface®, and Jige®. As the World's leader, Miller Industries provides a complete line of quality equipment including carriers up to 30 feet in length with deck capabilities of up to 40,000 lb and towing recovery units with boom capacities of 100 tons. Products are sold and serviced through the largest distribution network in the industry.

Supernova Award Category

Future of Work: Employee Experience

The Problem

Just prior to the pandemic, Miller Industries was challenged in finding labor for a third shift (weekend/night hours) to meet growth and manufacturing demand. Instead of making a large capital investment in opening a new factory location, the company knew there had to be a better way to utilize the people/assets already owned.

The Solution

a data-driven company, Miller Industries being heavily dependent on Infor Birst to innovate used the tool to test a new workforce scheduling system to increase manufacturing capacity and asset utilization. By splitting the workforce in half with a four day on, four day off schedule in the Welding Department, Miller found that that employees were happier and more productive. When the pandemic hit and forced essential businesses to social distance, Miller Industries implemented the four day on/off schedule across all departments and locations since this new workforce system increased the square footage per employee.

The results

The new four day on/off workforce schedule not only achieved increased productivity which fulfilled manufacturing demand, but also created safer working conditions by increasing the square footage per employee. Employees were happier because they felt safer during the pandemic, and with the days off their job satisfaction improved.

Metrics

The four day on/off schedule was tested, validated, and deployed using Infor Birst. As a result, we achieved:

• 12- 16% increase in efficiency based on new, data-driven scheduling
• Expected double asset utilization due to new split workforce
• Improved employee satisfaction with four days off
• No widespread COVID outbreak

The Technology

Infor's cloud technology platform underpins Infor’s suite of business applications, with the following interconnected services being used by Miller Industries to deliver workforce innovation:

• Infor OS—Foundational cloud platform with process integration and data management
• Infor Birst—Business intelligence and analytics

Disruptive Factor

The pandemic gave Miller Industries the opportunity to implement the new workforce system because it reduced the density of people in the factory since half of the workforce worked for four days, while the other half had four days off. As the world enters post-COVID, Miller Industries is continuing with this new schedule and increasing the density of people in the factory by hiring more people to increase manufacturing capacity and asset utilization across all factory locations. With an increase of people in the factory, innovation in the workforce is ongoing as Infor’s technology platform offers flexibility in extending Infor business applications to streamline manufacturing workflows and capture data at the lowest level possible to find opportunities to improve performance.

Infor CloudSuite Automotive kiosks or mobile terminals are being deployed throughout the factory floor for more efficient time and work management. Prior to kiosks, much time was wasted for employees to walk to different parts of the factory floor to clock in/out and manage work orders. With hundreds of kiosks across the factory floor, completed work orders are entered in real-time so that the next work order in the chain of the manufacturing process can begin. With user-friendly kiosks deployed, Miller Industries expects an increase 5-10% in reporting efficiencies and improved production activities.

Shining Moment

User adoption of kiosks & modern software across the organization is important to Miller, using Infor’s business applications is an opportunity for employees to better understand the business and grow within the company, using Infor Birst to build dashboards to track how employees are getting trained and using the software. Adoption rate has been phenomenal - employees know how they are being measured, making it easier to take pride in and ownership of their roles/responsibilities.