Leadership at CFN

"A good leader does not always lead, he teaches others to lead."

The CFN Leadership Objective is to develop a culture that inspires and draws out leadership qualities in every employee of the company while at the same time ensuring alignment, i.e. working on the right things at the right time. Effective business leadership is built upon a solid corporate cultural foundation (“The Toyota Way”).

Leadership that allows others to take leadership requires a strong framework to maintain alignment of company purpose. At CFN we refer to this as our Visioning and Continuous Improvement / Management of Change Process.

CFN’s Vision Statement, developed by a team of 20 people from all levels in CFN, is an inspiring call to action:

Global Value-Chain Leadership:
Responsive people. Relentless improvement. Flawless execution.

This presentation will discuss the cultural underpinnings and core values by which we work and as a group how we articulated our core values. It will then describe the visioning and continuous improvement/management of change process employed by CFN. This process, based on a model developed and used by Dow Chemical, fosters cross-functional alignment of continuous improvement activity and helps optimize the allocation of scarce resources. Barry Wood will present the team meeting and improvement activity monitoring tools so essential to success that Dow developed. He will then discuss some of the results we have obtained. Implementation of lean processes including 5S & Visual Workplace, Heijunka, Kanban/pull, SMED, value-stream mapping, one-piece flow, value-stream supervision, standardized work, gemba/daily report-out will be shown and discussed.

CFN Precision specializes in the manufacture and assembly of complex, tight tolerance precision parts and components from metals and plastics for the instrumentation, aerospace, defense and electronics industries. CFN is a recognized leader and award winner in the application of lean manufacturing processes. CFN operates 60 CNC and conventional precision milling, turning and grinding machining centers. CFN utilizes the latest CAD/CAM software tools in support of our customers’ design and manufacturing needs. CFN’s 90 highly skilled and experienced personnel consistently and promptly deliver parts to specification at the lowest overall cost. CFN operates out of a state-of-the-art 65,000 square foot facility in suburban north Toronto.

Barry Wood, President & CEO

Barry Wood is currently the President & Chief Executive Officer of CFN Precision Inc, one of the largest precision machining and assembly facilities in the Greater Toronto Area. CFN primarily services the analytical instrumentation, aerospace, electronics and defense industries. Mr. Wood also serves as Chairman of the Board of TNR Industrial Doors Inc. TNR specializes in selling and making to-order overhead rubber roll-up doors for the worldwide durable industrial door marketplace.

Mr. Wood has over 16 years experience as President & CEO of manufacturing companies. Before acquiring CFN, Mr. Wood was Executive-In-Residence at Working Ventures Canadian Fund Inc, one of the largest venture capital funds in Canada. Prior to that, Mr. Wood was President and CEO of M&I Door Systems Inc. Mr. Wood has also run a large automotive stamping and automated stamping equipment manufacturing company as well as a plastics company.

Prior to focusing as a manufacturing executive, Mr. Wood, a Chartered Accountant, worked at the management level in the merchant banking field and before that as an insolvency consultant to a major Crown Corporation. Mr. Wood spent the first seven years after university at Clarkson Gordon (now Ernst & Young) in a variety of capacities. Mr. Wood holds a BA (Honours, Magna Cum Laude) degree from the University of Alberta.

Mr. Wood is on the Board of Directors, Canadian Region of the AME and is a member of the AME Champions’ Club. Mr. Wood is married and has two daughters. The Wood family fund-raises for the Canadian Cancer Society. The entire family is crazy about downhill skiing.