Rogue Truck Body Facing Doubling Demand

Rogue Truck Body is a family-owned business with 45 employees in Kerby, Oregon, and Lake Elsinore, California. Rogue Truck Body serves most of the West Coast, with trucks the company produced in the 90s still on the road. The company builds an average of 8-10 units per month, including transfers, dump boxes, tag boxes and super dumps.

OMEP partnered with Rogue Truck Body on several key initiatives designed to eliminate waste and improve flow. All teams completed a lean principles class that includes a Lego factory simulation. Trainers conducted classes in Oregon and California. A steering team was then selected and started the value stream mapping process. OMEP and the Rogue Truck Body team mapped the current state and identified many areas for improvement, zooming in on bottlenecks in inventory, assembly, and the sales order process.

The Oregon team worked on the end of the line final assembly to improve exit cycles, and also participated in a Kaizen Event in final assembly to improve the flow and staging of parts. The California team created a kitting system to stage parts for the assemblers. The first planning phase for the new warehouse was also initiated at this time. The sales and operations team worked on improvements in scheduling, reinstituting an order read meeting, and many software system improvements with engineering. 

Rogue hired a new CEO, Steve Retherford, with a lean manufacturing background.  His leadership and support through this engagement was the catalyst for the great impacts and success at Rogue Truck Body. Steve’s vision, mission and planning skills created an environment for improvement and earned the trust and respect of his team. The teams responded in a positive impactful way as reflected in the results.