LSC and the Jamar Company Receive State Job Skills Funds
Lake Superior College and The Jamar Company received a $162,000 Minnesota Job Skills Partnership (MJSP) grant to create a Lean construction training program for The Jamar Company’s workforce.
“The goal of this project is to train a cross-functional team of employees, ” said Steve Wagner, LSC’s Vice President of Workforce and Community Development. “Applying Lean concepts to the construction industry are a unique approach to continuous quality improvement that has not yet been tried in that industry.”
Based on Toyota’s production system for continuous process improvement, Lean principles are being deployed in a variety of settings as a means to increase efficiency, enhance quality and improve employee satisfaction at Jamar.
“The construction industry continues to be challenged by high cost of materials, supplies and transportation as well as a shortage of skilled labor,” explained Mike McParlan, Jamar Company President. “For The Jamar Company to remain competitive, our employees will have to find ways to perform their jobs with more efficiency and less waste. The Lean construction training developed through this project will give the Company and the employees a process for meeting these industry challenges.”
All of the training will take place at Jamar’s corporate office in Duluth, Minn. Jamar also has offices in Wisconsin and Michigan. Cindy Luoma, Executive Assistant to McParlan, will act as project coordinator for the grant over the course of the next two years. A minimum of 75 employees in several locations and departments throughout Minnesota will be trained on Lean concepts.
The project will get underway with a special grant signing ceremony at 2 p.m. on Friday, Dec 19. Paul Moe, Executive Director of the Minnesota Job Skills Partnership; Mike McParlan, President of The Jamar Company; and Steve Wagner, Vice President of Workforce and Community Development, will participate in the signing. Members of the press are invited to attend the event, which will take place at The Jamar Company Training Center at 4701 Mike Colalillo Drive, Duluth.
The Minnesota Job Skills Partnership acts as a catalyst between business and education in developing cooperative training projects that provides new job training or retraining of existing employees. MJSP grants are given to educational institutions with businesses as partners. The program is part of the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED), the state’s principal economic development agency.
The Jamar Company has been a leader in the mechanical, industrial and architectural construction fields since it was established in 1913. Today, the company achieves healthy annual revenue by providing exceptional quality through their solid base of knowledge, project execution, and company-wide value system that promotes excellence in each area of specialization. The company employs an average of 363 workers a year in Minnesota.