Company Profiles
Garrison Guitars - St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador
www.garrisonguitars.com
Chris Griffiths was 12 years old when he first picked up a guitar at his family's home in Newfoundland. A "tinkerer" at heart, Griffiths was more fascinated with the mechanics of how the guitar worked, than with hearing himself play. From the beginning, he was obsessed with the thought of "building a better mousetrap."
Fast forward to 2002. Griffiths, now 28, is the founder and president of Griffiths Guitars International Ltd., one of the largest acoustic guitar companies in Canada, with 55 employees and a 20,000 square foot state-of-the-art manufacturing plant in St. John's. In less than a year, the company has sold 16,000 of its custom-built Garrison guitars throughout Australia, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and North America.
Getting there was no easy task. After high-school, Griffiths apprenticed at the Gallop Guitar Hospital in Big Rapids, Michigan, then spent years running a one-man guitar repair shop while developing a revolutionary method of guitar construction. The system replaced the 30 pieces of individually-machined wood traditionally installed in guitar bracing systems, with a single glass fibre component that enhances structural stability, improves resonance, and cuts production time from several hours to 45 seconds. The result a better guitar for less money.
After years of prototype development, testing and retesting, the Griffiths Active Bracing Systemª was patented internationally. "The concept was quite simple," says Griffiths. "Making it work was the hard part."
The innovative thinking required to make it work wasn't a one-shot deal. Griffiths invented a new guitar but also the processes, tools and equipment required to produce it. Since production began in the summer of 2001, employees have struggled to streamline production and to increase capacity and efficiency. In eight months, one department was retooled four times.
What drives employees - engineers, designers, production people - is an innovative management approach to sharing the fruits of their labor. The company has implemented a pay system tied to production efficiencies, a profit-sharing plan and gives employees a chance to become shareholders.
"I want them to think of money wasted on glue as being their own money," says Griffiths, "because it is." Griffiths credits much of his business savvy to his involvement with the Genesis Centre in St. John's, a start-up incubator partially funded by the Atlantic Canada opportunities Agency (ACOA) that offered peer counseling and mentoring.
Griffiths considers innovation to be a better way of doing things that applies not only to inventing a new product. The approach to rewarding employees is only one example. His approach to marketing is another. Traditionally, guitar manufacturers have dozens of distribution centres throughout the country. He asked: "why does it have to be done like that?" So far, the company's entire production has been sold worldwide by one salesperson.
In 2001, Griffiths won the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters' "Canadian Innovation Award for Process Efficiency in Lean Manufacturing."
"Innovation means having a mindset of wanting to continuously improve, not just your product but every aspect of your company," says Griffiths. "But you don't get to be innovative one day and ride that to retirement. You have to be innovative every day."
