Lean manufacturing
DNS also survived its difficult period by remaining highly flexible, able to increase or decrease production tenfold as needed.
“I focus on ‘lean’ manufacturing because I’ve spent a lot of time in the past fixing problems on the shop floor,” Douglas says. “I’m always tweaking, adjusting and improving our processes. And because of all the attention we pay at the front end, not only do we specialize in short manufacturing schedules, but we’re also excellent at eliminating failures.”
“We specialize in high production runs of 200 to 400 pieces, but we can also handle a high-end one-off custom piece,” says Robert. “Productivity and efficiency are extremely important in this business and you need research and development (R&D) to yield improvements in those areas. We’ve entirely changed how some of our pieces are made, reducing costs by 30 per cent and standardizing new processes.”
Serving customers
These strengths have helped maintain business relationships with many major clients, including Tim Hortons, Adidas, Samsung, LG and Home Depot.
“In most cases, our customers are the vendors displayed in the stores, not the stores themselves,” says Douglas.
DNS manufactures floor and wall displays for Adidas, for example, to promote new shoes and clothing in Sport Chek stores across Canada. For Tim Hortons, DNS produces a range of small-format pieces, including card displays, handheld payment device modules, countertop merchandisers and even coin donation boxes for charities.
“In cases like that, we can design directly with the retailer,” says Robert, “but we also have lots of marketing firms coming to us that represent retailers.”
Among all of the various displays and fixtures, traditional signs represent a small part of DNS’ business, but are all the more noticeable for their size and profile, such as backlit letters that were both CNC-routed and waterjet-cut for a division of Bentley Motors.
“We’re mainly a millwork and plastics operation,” says Robert. “We don’t print graphics in-house, for example. Nonetheless, we do find ourselves building sign systems, like hand sanitization stands that are free to hospitals because they carry banners with paid ad space.”
Renewed focus
With broad capabilities and a renewed sense of sales focus, Douglas and Robert are both optimistic for the future of DNS.
“We’re zeroing in on other markets like hospitality and sports,” says Douglas.
“More global business will help reduce geographical risk,” says Robert. “Canada’s light on manufacturing, but there’s a lot of demand for our products. I’m also excited about opportunities right in Ontario.”
Already, business has ramped up.
“We now have 19 full-time employees, along with temporary workers on certain projects, so we’re back to the company’s pre-recession levels,” says Robert. “We have a three-year plan for this facility and then we’ll need to move to a larger one.”
A Sign That Sanitizes
