The Honourable Melanie Joly, Minister of Economic Development and Official Languages and Minister for Western Economic Diversification Canada was in Edmonton to announce that Western Economic Diversification Canada will provide an investment of up to $596,300 to support GO Productivity through our ARC Program in improving the competitiveness of western Canadian businesses.

Our ARC Assessment-Roadmap-Coaching program helps businesses on sustainable improvements and sustained growth. The announcement was hosted by IMARK Architectural Metals who participated in the ARC program and were able to gain a 43% increase in time savings on material handling. This improvement at IMARK not only saves time, it also has improved the ergonomics of carrying out the task which has significant positive health and safety impacts on the workers themselves.

“The ARC program has really acted as a springboard for changes we want to see in our business; a culture focused on continuous improvement, better service for our customers and new growth opportunities. Having already implemented over 10 of our ideas since the program ended, we are a third of the way to completing our idea list but the real benefit we are seeing is that more ideas are continually being added to the list—an indicator to us that the program worked and that our culture is beginning to change.”

– Chris Sims, Operations Manager, IMARK Architectural Metals

It is important to celebrate the successes. GO Productivity would like to once again thank IMARK Architectural Metals and their team for their hospitality and eagerness to participate in both the ARC Program, and this announcement. We also want to thank Western Diversification and the Honourable Minister Joly for their continued support of Western Canadian businesses to help them reach their innovation and productivity goals on their journey to become global leaders.