Genysis Brand Solutions
The perfect formula
By providing its partners with a full range of back-end services, Genysis Brand Solutions assists brands of all sizes in the sports nutrition sector in creating, developing and producing their next great products
Based in Salt Lake City, UT, Genysis Brand Solutions is a customer-centric, turn-key powder manufacturer that specializes in delivering best-in-class powdered nutritional supplements. Starting from sourcing, the company delivers a full service that includes product development, CGMP testing, blending, packaging and logistics services.
“As a high variety, high volume manufacturer, we run more than 700 unique SKUs annually and develop 300 new products while also re-engineering 100+ existing formulas for customers each year,” says Dustin Ott, Chief Operating Officer at Genysis Brand Solutions. “We differentiate ourselves from traditional contract manufacturers through superior natural flavouring capabilities, stringent quality control standards and speed-to-market.”
Brand partners of the company range from the largest sports nutrition firms and global direct sales organizations to health food companies and niche retailers. These partnerships are developed and maintained through the consistent delivery of exceptional quality products in a timely manner that are then distributed through the retail, direct sales and direct-to-consumer channels. Additionally, the company’s clients are assigned a dedicated in-house account manager who is entrusted to service the day-to-day operational needs of the customer. On top of this, the company employs a larger group of experts to facilitate the timely formulation, flavouring and product development needs of both existing and new clients. By combining the experience of both operations and product development, the company is able to form an integrated partnership that is based on trust, with Genysis acting as an extension of its customer’s business.
Getting lean
“We have developed outstanding partnerships with our clients, which enable us to complete orders in days instead of weeks. We can’t achieve these turnaround times without clients who are willing to share large amounts of information with us. We have also worked hard to develop systems and processes that allow us to be flexible with scheduling and manufacturing,” comments Beau Stoker, VP of Manufacturing at Genysis Brand Solutions.
Indeed, playing a strong role in Genysis’ ability to deliver high quality products in a quick and efficient manner is its transformation into a lean organisation, which has resulted in it being able to deliver goods, from PO to fulfilment, in as little as four weeks. Meanwhile, product launches, from concept to development and on to finished goods shipment can be completed in a mere eight weeks.
Discussing the company’s progression into lean production is Dustin: “In 2006 Jeff Reynolds and a long-time friend joined the company as managing partners. In 2009 they bought out two other partners and became co-owners, with Jeff becoming the sole owner in 2014. From here he introduced lean thinking to the company, which has resulted in the Genysis Operating System successfully adding 50 per cent capacity through increased efficiency in 2016. With compressed cycle times, we now offer an industry best of four-week order fulfilment lead times.”
“We can also manufacture small, frequent orders as we don’t rely on long, extended runs to create efficiencies, which allows us to deliver multiple products to our clients in short time periods. In turn, our customers are able to carry less FG inventory because they can rely on us to deliver on time,” adds Beau.
In addition to enhancing efficiencies, Jeff has also spent more than $2 million in staff and leadership development over the last eight years, with the majority of this investment spent on an in-house developed training curriculum called ‘Journey to Excellence’, as Dustin comments: “Journey to Excellence is comprised of six attributes that distinguish a Genysis leader; these are: collaborative winner, innovatively competent, motivating communicator, fully committed, confidently humble and organized to drive quality.”
Digital workloads
“We have also improved processes to make working here easier for staff, with the physical strain it once took to work in our plant substantially decreased; we are continually trying to make improvements that will result in our people being more comfortable and their jobs easier through the introduction of new processes and automation,” adds Beau. “Additionally, we have introduced a profit sharing programme where our employees earn bonuses twice per year, which is frequent enough to help our people to stay focused on finding ways to help the company, and themselves, earn more money.” Another enhancement within Genysis is the progression into digital workloads, which was developed with the goal of building on quality and the creation of a mistake-proof process where any potential errors were eliminated.
Eight initiatives
With these enhancements in place and an ethos of continuous improvement at the heart of Genysis, the company will be focusing on the eight strategic initiatives it has in place for 2017. “One of these is to develop a total quality culture where everyone has a fierce resolve to ensure that doing things right resonates in all that we do,” says Dustin. “Looking further ahead, from a manufacturing perspective, we have high targets to reduce costs, improve our service capabilities and add capacity to a rapidly growing organization. We also have a target to double our bottom line, which is fortunately where our continuous improvement culture will shine,” Beau concludes.
Genysis Brand Solutions
Products: Manufacture best-in-class powdered nutritional supplements