About Efco and their products
Dave Anderson provides an overview of Efco's operations, focusing on their specialization in steel forming equipment for concrete construction projects, from stadiums to bridges. Efco, headquartered in Des Moines, Iowa, with a manufacturing presence in Georgetown, Canada, and strategic locations worldwide, serves the global construction industry. The company has transitioned from coiled to sheet steel, employing advanced manufacturing technologies. Dave highlights Efco's role in major projects, such as the Las Vegas Sphere and Dallas Cowboys Stadium, underscoring its significance in the construction sector.
Transcript

00:00 - 00:12
Efco, basically what we do is we make steel forming equipment for concrete construction, and that is anywhere from football stadiums to high rise casinos on Las Vegas.



00:12 - 00:21
That I've personally experienced to bridges, culverts, we provide the formwork for those projects, concrete projects.



00:21 - 00:38
Mostly we've transitioned from coiled steel to sheet steel, and we're running production mostly with lasers and weld machines here and with form presses as well on any parts that needs forms. Just depends on what the product mix is where we have a lot of them.



00:38 - 00:54
We’re currently, I believe, in this building, we are sitting about 210-215 shop floor employees. As a whole company, the last I've heard worldwide we’re between 1500-2000.



00:54 - 01:06
We manufacture our products here in Des Moines, Iowa. And we also have a small manufacturing facility in Georgetown, Canada, that's basically producing all the Efco products available for the world.



01:06 - 01:22
And we have strategic locations throughout the world. Malaysia. Seattle, Washington. Dallas, Texas. Memphis, Tennessee. Even that Georgetown location in Canada is a warehouse as well. And Great Britain. I believe that's it.



01:22 - 01:29
Efco supplies products to big construction firms. Whatever major projects are going on, Efco is usually involved.



01:29 - 01:36
For bridge work we've done the Minneapolis bridge that not the one that collapsed but the rebuild on that.



01:36 - 01:46
Even the Las Vegas sphere, we provided formwork for that. Dallas Cowboys Stadium, AT&T Stadium, big fan!



01:46 - 01:50
We're everywhere. Wherever a bridge, - you name it, we are there.

Unifize Results

10x
Speed to compliance
Unifize accelerates compliance, delivering 10x faster regulatory approval for medical devices
4x
Faster time-to-market
Map Unifize to your processes and streamline workflows, process automation
70%
Fewer meetings
Less meetings with in-app collaboration, real-time updates, and decision logs
Transcript

But what we've known from what I experience was, is we were able to get there with the system. We still there with the system. The system has what is needed to provide us what we're looking for, because every company, admittedly, is trying to get compliant. If we educate people, if we get people the education that they need and to get over the fear factor, I think 90% of those things can be resolved because most people will go to what they're most familiar with.What I worked with from a different company, but they're not willing to sit down and look at what the demographics are saying. People are into social media now. People are moving fast into fast paced world. But technologies are still antiquated. So there's a disconnect here, right? So while we're moving at a fast pace at home with dragging at work, so why can't we continue that speed while we at work?If your supplier has issues and you're not informed on time, you want to have an alternate supplier in place. If your suppliers are not qualified, you may not know that that needs to happen. And so when you have an integrated system that speaks to itself and is giving you all this data, you literally have the pulse of the organization in your hands as an executive at a money bound access.

Related Case Study Videos

04:59
How Denis builds a quality culture in MedTech companies
Denis Machoka, a Six Sigma black belt, highlights his transformative approach to Medtech companies. He shares insights on assessing an organization's current state and vision, the critical role of communication in building a quality culture, and the essential tools to foster knowledge and improvement.
05:37
Streamlining Change Control on Unifize
In this video, Clarissa shares her experience with Unifize, emphasizing its impact on change control and document management in quality management systems. She highlights the challenges of maintaining up-to-date engineering drawings and documentation, particularly in a traditional pen-and-paper environment. Clarissa illustrates how Unifize streamlines these processes, ensuring engineers access the latest revisions, understand changes, and comply with FDA requirements. She praises Unifize's integrated checklist feature and approval process, which simplifies change orders and prevents delays, even when key personnel are unavailable. Clarissa's testimonial underscores Unifize's efficiency, detailing how it transformed their change control process from a lengthy endeavor to a more manageable and efficient system.
01:13
Optimising employee efficiency by setting priorities using Unifize
Seth Bozman discusses how Unifize has optimized employee efficiency at Efco, particularly among supervisors. He emphasizes the platform's role in prioritizing tasks and ensuring that rework and remake cards are processed in a timely manner, reducing unnecessary delays. Seth's account highlights how Unifize supports better resource allocation and task management, contributing to a more efficient operational flow and reducing idle times.
01:41
How Unifize speeds up change control
Jesse Kolstad emphasizes Unifize's prowess in managing change, navigating the challenges of either over-documentation or under-documentation in some companies. With features like versioning, Unifize ensures comprehensive tracking, offering unparalleled visibility and accountability in change management at Biovation Labs.
02:54
What other eQMS are missing- Separating conversations from data
Denis Machoka pinpoints a critical shortfall in many eQMS: the division of conversations and data. He critiques the inefficiencies of navigating isolated data and scattered emails, championing Unifize's innovative fusion of both. By merging discussions with data, Unifize presents a unified, actionable view, streamlining decision-making and collaboration.
01:04
How the Unifize team helped build our customisations faster
In this engaging video, Erica offers a fresh perspective on Unifize's standout customer support. She praises the promptness of the team, often responding within an hour, sometimes even in 10 minutes, ensuring immediate assistance. Erica shares her initial experiences as a new user of Unifize, emphasizing the value of regular team meetings in her learning process. She is particularly impressed by the platform's ability to tailor features to specific needs, such as creating custom PDFs, and the team's proactive approach to fulfilling complex requests. Erica's account highlights Unifize's dedication to responsive and personalized support, making the user experience both seamless and adaptable.
01:25
Taking faster decisions on Non-Conformances with Unifize
Jesse Kolstad underscores the agility Unifize brings to decision-making on non-conformances at Biovation Labs. The platform fosters rapid issue identification and enhances collaboration for swift resolutions, ensuring effective and timely corrective actions.
01:33
How to make facing FDA audits easy
Clarissa Archer talks about the daunting experience of preparing for audits, especially from rigorous bodies like the FDA. She stresses the importance of a robust documentation system, serving as a "source of truth" during these audits. With Unifize, they could effortlessly produce, present, and recall documentation, simplifying the audit process and instilling confidence in their decisions and actions.
03:46
Speed to market in Medtech is about empowering the quality team
Denis Machoka discusses the factors influencing speed to market in Medtech, focusing on the complexities of implementing a quality system. He underscores the detailed understanding of workflows, IT support needs, security considerations, and the potential high costs and maintenance of many systems, emphasizing their impact on the final product's cost.
01:35
The simplicity of the Unifize onboarding process
Denis Machoka praises the effortless onboarding process with Unifize. Pre-established access matrices ensured a smooth transition. He lauds the platform's ease of setup, where users quickly received access links on their devices, and emphasizes the consistent user experience across multiple platforms, highlighting its adaptability.
01:19
My role and prior MedTech QMS experience
Clarissa Archer, a Quality Assurance Engineer at Harmonic Bionics, shares her decade-long journey in the medical device industry. Beginning in product development, she transitioned to quality assurance, drawn by her passion for risk analysis and compliance. With a biomedical engineering background from Texas A&M, she emphasizes the importance of hands-on experience in understanding regulations in the medical device space.
00:48
How Unifize links raw materials to lots, formulas and finished products
Jesse Kolstad highlights Unifize's capability to seamlessly link raw materials to lots, formulas, and finished products. Providing a comprehensive view of the production process, Unifize ensures unparalleled traceability and accountability, enhancing production oversight at Biovation Labs.
00:35
How we use Unifize to manage SOPs and their revisions
In this video, Erica discusses the practicality of Unifize in managing and updating Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs). She appreciates the platform's robust feature that meticulously tracks revisions, highlighting its significance in an environment where procedures are frequently changing. Erica points out that Unifize is particularly useful in overseeing these changes, ensuring that every modification is clearly documented and traceable. She emphasizes the convenience of being able to instantly access any SOP, as all documents are centrally stored in Unifize. This capability not only saves time but also enhances the accuracy and efficiency of managing operational processes. Erica's insights illustrate how Unifize serves as a vital tool in maintaining up-to-date and accessible SOPs, crucial for the smooth functioning of quality assurance processes.
01:52
How Unifize helped us streamline Change Requests
Mikala shares her experience with streamlining change requests using Unifize. She talks about how the platform has simplified the process, improved tracking, and increased transparency. Mikala emphasizes the importance of efficient change management in maintaining product quality and compliance, and how Unifize has been instrumental in making these processes more manageable and effective.
01:12
Onboarding and adopting Unifize
This video outlines the swift and efficient onboarding process to Unifize for managing corrective actions, risk assessments, and change control within their quality management system. Highlighting the collaborative effort with the Unifize team, the speaker details how they were able to upload historical data and fully implement these crucial aspects within just three to four weeks—a timeline significantly shorter than anticipated. This rapid deployment, compared to previous experiences with other systems, underscores Unifize's ease of adoption and its immediate impact on enhancing the company's quality management processes.
03:51
How Unifize helped reduce $60,000 of material cost on just one product
Jesse Kolstad shares a transformative experience at Biovation Labs, emphasizing the power of perspective. With Unifize, he could holistically evaluate their ingredient performance and volumes, enabling him to whittle down from 16 SKUs to just two. This consolidation not only simplified management but also resulted in substantial cost savings for the company.
03:29
Impact of lockdown on cosmetic ingredient manufacturers
This video discusses the significant challenges and adjustments faced by cosmetic ingredient manufacturers during the lockdown. It highlights how the industry navigated supply chain disruptions, shifts in consumer behavior, and the rapid pivot to digital platforms to maintain operations and meet demand.
05:38
Risk Management made easier on Unifize
Clarissa explains the criticality of risk management in the medical device sector, emphasizing patient safety. With Unifize, they've streamlined risk management, integrating their documentation and analysis seamlessly. The platform facilitates creating input-output matrices, linking design choices directly to user needs and demonstrating the impact on safety, thus simplifying compliance and ensuring a clear path to safe, effective medical solutions.
00:47
Catching rejections by objectively looking at data and taking better decisions
In this video, Seth Bozman discusses Efco's transition from an outdated, cumbersome database system to Unifize for managing their scrap and rework data. He emphasizes how Unifize has enabled a more effective analysis of rejection reasons, offering insights into process improvements. Seth appreciates the platform's role in streamlining data management, making historical data more accessible and actionable for making informed decisions to enhance quality and efficiency.
00:39
Enabling collaboration across multiple shifts
Dave Anderson highlights Unifize's role in fostering seamless collaboration across multiple shifts at Efco. He introduces a novel discussion process within Unifize that allows for more than just quality action tickets, addressing the challenge off-shifts face without direct engineering support. By initiating discussion boards for any arising issue, supervisors can communicate problems in real-time, ensuring that the first shift can immediately see and decide on the necessary actions. This approach has significantly improved decision-making and problem resolution, enhancing operational efficiency across shifts.

Experience the benefits of Unifize

4x Faster time-to-market

Map Unifize to your processes and streamline workflows, process automation, and prioritization

70% Fewer meetings

Less meetings with in-app collaboration, real-time updates, and decision logs

10x Speed to compliance

Unifize accelerates compliance, delivering 10x faster regulatory approval for medical devices

View More Case Studies
Video icon

Here’s how Biovation Labs reduced testing costs from $146K to $65K in two months

Learn how and why Biovation Labs, an FDA regulated nutraceutical manufacturer based in Salt Lake City, took the decision to transition from MasterControl to Unifize for their product lifecycle (PLM) and quality management (QMS) processes.

Video icon

Here’s how Harmonic Bionics slashed time to market by 80%

Clarissa Archer shares her experience integrating Unifize into Harmonic Bionics, underscoring its value in streamlining change control, facilitating communication, and ensuring robust documentation for regulatory compliance in the medical device sector.

Video icon

Will-Burt's game changing boost to quality process cycle times

Learn how The Will-Burt Company was able to implement and adopt a new quality management system across 8 collaborating teams in less than a day and streamline internal / supplier non-conformances, customer complaints (VOCs), internal / supplier audits, 8D reporting, corrective actions and preventive actions.