Twin Creeks Greenhouse Inc.

Twin Creeks Greenhouse Inc. can be considered as the “new kid in town” in Canadian greenhouse horticulture. Construction of the first 10 acres greenhouse started in 2016, and the first red bell pepper crop was grown in 2017. The following years Twin Creeks rapidly expanded and at the end of 2020 they reached a greenhouse area of 40 acres. “We are trying to scale up”, says Mike Cornelissen, owner of Twin Creeks. These days Mike is more focused on the crop and the people working in his greenhouses for the next couple of years. “We want to get everything up and running in the best way possible. We want to make our workers lives as easy as possible and at the same time get as much work done as possible.”

A big help in improving business efficiency, employee satisfaction and crop quality is the Hoogendoorn Work-IT system, which is operated by smartphones at Twin Creeks. “The best thing about Work-IT is that it is an app-based program. It means that it can change and develop rapidly. The operation through smartphones is very efficient. I don’t have to chase my workers to use them, because it is so convenient for them; it is right there.”

Mike extended his basic Work-IT system with the Unlock-IT and the Check-IT module. Almost all of the doors in the greenhouse facility is equipped with the Unlock-IT system, which allows Mike to manage the flow of people in his greenhouses. In addition, it also helped with improving the quality of the bell peppers. “We don’t have random people walking in the building anymore, and we can control who is allowed to enter the greenhouse. This enabled us to make our greenhouse bio-secure. It’s now harder for pests, bugs and diseases to spread around, which really improved the quality of our crop.”

With the use of the Check-IT module the quality of different tasks is guarded and secured.
“We started using Check-IT to give the workers some input on the quality of their workmanship. It gives them a goal to work for.” Twin Creeks’ workers are scored, on a scale of 1 to 5, on both quality and quantity. Mike found out that this improved the performance for almost all his workers. “The first month we had a lot of workers scoring a 3, while right now it is rare to see a score of 4. We see a 99% score of 5.” This shows Check-IT helps to increase employee motivation.

Addition to improved quantity and quality of the harvested crop and increased employee motivation, Check-IT also helps to improve employee satisfaction. “In the past we judged people only on their work rate. Now that we also score quality, the workers that were always a bit slower but harvested top-notch quality also feel appreciated. Another thing is that we found out that some of our employees were great pickers, but not so good in pruning and vice versa. Check-IT allows us to see these things so we can replace our employees to the jobs that suits them best. These insights will help us to create an efficient labor planning.”

As for the future Mike is planning to expand his Work-IT system. “We will have more doors installed with the Unlock-IT. We also want to use Check-IT on as many places as possible.
For example also at my grading machine. I want to track everything and collect as many data as possible. Analysing this data helps me to make decisions based on facts which are provided by data.”

Before Work-IT Mike was using another labor registration system. “I liked it, but I wanted to step up my game from both a labor and quality standpoint. Work-IT allowed me to do this.” The extensive features of Work-IT is a big help for both Mike and his employees. The greenhouse workers are more satisfied with their job and motivated to perform well. This resulted in increased work speed and crop quality.