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Home / Washington Business - July/August 2005 / Made in Washington - Columbia Vista: Small Company, Big Niche |
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Made in Washington - Columbia Vista: Small Company, Big Niche |
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Written On: July/August 2005 |
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Written By: by Shawn Sullivan |
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A local family started a small Vancouver lumber mill in 1952, attempting to compete with more than 50 similar operations in Clark County. By the mid-1980s, wood producing powerhouses dominated the lumber industry, causing the majority of the local mills to shut down. Columbia Vista Corp. made a decisive move to transition its production from standard two-by-fours to a smaller market involving kiln-dried four-by-fours and utility pole cross arms. When Bob and Sharon Lewis took over, the housing industry was dwindling and Columbia Vista needed an edge over its competition.
By focusing on smaller markets in Japan, Australia and the United States, Columbia Vista survived the lumber industry collapse. "Our philosophy and strategy is not to be big but to be smaller and to concentrate on niche markets like the Japanese markets or cross arms," Columbia Vista’s co-owner Bob Lewis said. It is currently one of only two remaining lumber mills in all of Clark County, and because of the niche it created, it does not need to compete with large commodity lumber producers like Weyerhaeuser.
"Columbia Vista manufactures more than 60 percent of all cross arms used in the North America," Lewis said. A cross arm is the full sawn four-by-four block located on the top of utility poles.
It also produces small kiln dried four-by-four squares for the Japanese housing market. Columbia Vista ships the rest of its lumber to several Home Depot stores in the Pacific Northwest, Midwest and Hawaii.
The reason for Columbia’s success in the smaller Japanese market is due to its standardized process of kiln drying specialty sized lumber. “Percentage wise, about 40 percent of our total production is kiln dried," Lewis said. "Our goal is to get that up to 80 percent within the next 15 months." Most large-scale mills do not kiln dry anything bigger than two-by-fours. "It takes about seven days to kiln dry a four-by-four, while it only takes 24 hours to dry two-by-fours," Lewis said. "So if you are a large volume producer, you aren’t going to give up your kiln capacity to dry four-by-fours when you can dry a lot more two-by-fours."
Columbia Vista’s manufacturing and kiln-drying processes requires employees trained in geometry and physics, but the labor pool, and local colleges, did not provide adequately trained employees for its day-to-day operations. Instead of giving up on Washington’s education system, Bob Lewis achieved the impossible—he created Columbia Vista University.
"What people sometimes misunderstand about saw mills is there is a lot of math and physics involved," Lewis said. "We had employees with high school diplomas but [they] couldn’t read, write or balance a check book, let alone have the math skills required to operate some of our machinery." Columbia Vista University’s primary focus was to try to work with Clark College to develop an internal training program. Lewis began to educate his employees, providing the mathematical knowledge base necessary to operate Columbia’s automated manufacturing facilities.
"We started doing internal classes on safety, lumber grading and equipment operation, how our equipment functions, and how the pneumatics or hydraulic equipment functions," Lewis said. "We took each job and broke it down into three primary levels—basic, competent and skilled. I explained to the employees that they were now required to attend classes as a requirement of their employment."
The main objective of the new program was for all employees to reach the skilled level in their primary job. At the end of the first year, more than 70 percent of all employees passed the skilled-level tests. "These were not easy tests," Lewis said. "The millwright test takes somewhere between one-and-a-half to two hours. They are very comprehensive and detailed exams."
Columbia Vista also began basic life skills classes to teach employees about things like budgeting and balancing a checkbook. "What is challenging about teaching life skills is that most of our employees didn’t receive this type of education as they grew up," Lewis said. "If we do not provide the vehicle to teach it to them, who will?"
The results from Columbia Vista University have been staggering. "What is gratifying is that they have really gravitated to this learning process, and you can see a huge difference in our productivity," Lewis said. "You can see a mass reduction in our waste measurements and a change in people’s attitudes in terms of how they hold themselves, even in small things like how they care for their vehicles."
Another way Columbia Vista succeeds in the lumber industry is through its cost reduction practices. "Fifteen percent of the electricity we use comes from solar or wind power," Lewis said. "We have enough room to build enough solar power to become self sufficient, but Washington does not have incentives in place." Even without any business-friendly incentives in place, Lewis manages to make at least one capital investment each year to keep current with the lumber industry.
Additionally, the company qualified for certification in two environmental programs: International Organization for Standardization’s ISO 14001 and the Environmental Protection Agency’s Performance Track Program. It just completed a Washington Industrial Safety and Health Act audit that will lead to its certification in the Voluntary Protection Program as a Star site for promoting workplace safety, an accomplishment that less than 1,300 companies in the United States have achieved. "The investments we make in managing our environmental impact, the safety of our employees and the training are an integral part of our current and future success," Lewis said.
Columbia Vista developed a practical strategy to succeed in an industry that typically runs smaller operations out of business. The niche it created helped it to survive numerous economic downturns, and its ability to adapt to market demands will ensure its success in the future. Columbia Vista Corp. is one of the last remaining Davids in a land controlled by Goliaths.
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