Dos Gringos: August 2015

Florida. Missouri. Texas. Georgia. California. The Dos Gringos team logged a lot of miles and covered a lot of ground this summer – for good reasons with great clients!

Invited by several of you to show and tell what’s new and next from DG, we gladly assembled samples of everything from late fall to Christmas, Valentine’s Day to Mother’s Day – even our line for Spring 2016. A special planting in anticipation of five separate line reviews this summer helped a lot, and I think we showed up well. Special thanks to Gabby, Robin, Jenny, and Rich for all the hard work and preparation that went into our presentations!

Fall Marigolds are getting ready for lift off. Can you say Dia De Los Muertos?

ENHANCING PRODUCTION EFFICIENCY
We had visitors in Vista as well and were happy to show how California growers approach product and production and how DG sets itself apart with specialty items and arrangements. A Lean Six Sigma project is aimed at cutting time, cost, and waste from the flower-buying experience, and we’re already picking up some efficiencies. Gabe Gill and team have added a number of tools and resources on the production floor:

• A jumbo thermometer ensures everyone knows exactly how we’re doing on daily department metrics;

• Productivity boards are the result of a detailed data collection process that tells us WHERE we can lower costs and HOW we can track real-time performance;

• Our QC team – the folks in the red vests – meet weekly to discuss checkpoints for the day/week.

• “GO SEE” is a new discipline that sends supervisors out on the floor on a regular basis to identify areas of waste;

• All department leads are being trained in the A3 problem-solving method to drive process improvements;

• Feedback channels are up and running to support better, faster communication among all departments.

Hats/Sombrero's off to our Quality Control team who continue to crush their monthly goal of 99.5% of client satisfaction!

EXCITING EXPANSION INTO MEXICO
One of the most exciting developments is our continued expansion into Mexico. The “Grow Team” is spending more and more time there, trialing and testing more than 30 different, new varieties. It’s all about innovation, and we’re seeing interesting colors, hearty flowers and foliage, even some branching, sprouting Sunflowers. More to come on what’s available when, but early results are promising – and very pretty.

Check out the Pumpkin Tree video below!