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Hear Me Out: Creating and Maintaining a Safe Place to Work

February 16, 2022 By

This is a guest post from our partner, the Georgia Tech Safety, Health, Environmental Services (SHES) program.

Every year approximately 30 million workers experience hazardous noise exposure on the job. Over 9 million are at risk for severe hearing loss from occupational exposure to noise, which remains a persistent cause of employee illness in the workplace, and can even put you at risk for heart disease.

Noise-induced hearing loss is one of the most common occupational diseases and is the second most self-reported occupational illness or injury.*

Many manufacturing processes, machinery, and equipment produce high noise levels, which can lead to hearing problems. For reference, a normal conversation is typically about 60 dB, cars and trucks range around 70 to 90 dB, and sirens and airplanes can reach 120 dB or more. Anything over 70-80 dB is considered unhealthy.

Estimates suggest that roughly a third of people in Europe and the US are regularly exposed to unhealthy levels of noise, and numerous studies link chronic exposure to environmental noise like traffic and airplanes to a greater risk of high cholesterol, elevated blood pressure, and increased stress.+

Providing proper Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and worksite health and wellness programs that target noise-exposed workers are several ways you can help employees feel safer. However, manufacturers also need to make sure their company complies with the OSHA regulation for noise hazards to maintain a safe working environment and avoid paying heavy penalties for serious violations.

Here are three ways that we can help identify and manage potential hazards within your facility:

Get Educated – Register for our Introduction to Noise Evaluation and Control Course offered several times a year in-person or online as a self-guided class with live office hours.
Be Proactive – Schedule a Free Safety Consultation with our experts. We will conduct noise monitoring at your facility to determine what actions are needed to protect your employees and keep you in compliance with the OSHA regulation.
Think Long Term – Whether you are creating a safety plan, scaling up production or reassessing the plant floor layout, utilizing the 5s and 6s principles of Sort, Set in Order, Shine, Standardize, and Sustain (and Safety), you can strategically turn work areas into clean, organized, and safe spaces.

To learn more about our safety training and services for manufacturers visit the SHES website at oshainfo.gatech.edu and sign up for our Quarterly Newsletter.

*Us, Department of Labor, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, OSHA Regional Instruction, Regional Emphasis Program (REP) for Noise Hazards, 2019

+Hansen, C., 2021, Why noise pollution is bad for your heart, https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210315-why-noise-pollution-is-bad-for-your-heart

Get Your Strategic Plan Off the Shelf: Plan Deployment and Management

January 11, 2022 By

Strategic Planning is a powerful tool that can help companies define and meet both their short- and long-term goals. However, when we talk to companies about strategic planning, too often we hear, “We tried that, and it didn’t work.” Many companies develop a plan, only to see it collect dust on a shelf or in a filing cabinet. This often results in frustration and a negative opinion regarding the value of strategic planning.

The truth is that building a strategic plan is only half the battle in reaching your strategic goals. Effective deployment and management of a strategic plan allow you to get that plan off the shelf and use it in a practical way to guide daily activities. It will also help you say “no” to distractions that consume valuable resources and don’t support your long-term goals.

Strategic Plan Deployment

To achieve long-term success, it is critical to put the plan into action in a way that includes clear communication, employee participation, and traceable metrics to monitor progress and make adjustments. These proven elements are critical to successful deployment of a strategic plan:

1. Communication: Companies thrive when leaders build trust, practice proactive communication, and address the personal and practical needs of their team. This takes hard work, but the payoffs are well worth the effort.

2. Organizational Alignment: Successful plan deployment requires more listening than telling. To achieve group commitment and alignment with strategic goals, employees must be encouraged to actively participate in aligning their daily work with the strategic goals of the organization.

Many leaders attempt to simultaneously facilitate and participate in the strategic planning process. Our experience is that this approach limits team buy-in and commitment to the plan and commonly undermines the entire well-intentioned process. Consider an outside planning facilitator, such as GaMEP, to help you achieve the best results. As an alternative, appoint a team member who is not the most senior leader to facilitate the process.

Companies demonstrate organizational alignment when they can answer “yes” to the following:

Can the leadership team describe the mental models for the desired future state of the organization?
Do everyday decisions and actions support strategic priorities?
Does everyone in the organization know and understand the company’s vision and how their work contributes to reaching the desired future state?

“If you could get all the people in an organization rowing in the same direction, you could dominate any industry, in any market, against any competition, at any time.” – Patrick Lencioni

3. Performance Metrics: Meaningful performance metrics that measure progress toward your strategic goals and objectives are critical for success. This includes daily functional and plant-level information as well as corporate activities linked to the strategic priorities.

However, defining the metrics is only the beginning. Effective plan deployment not only identifies what those metrics are but also develops specific tactics to easily track and analyze those metrics. This often includes visual management tools created and maintained by team members on a daily or weekly basis.

Strategic Plan Management

Companies achieve their strategic goals when they apply the Plan, Do, Check, Adjust (PDCA) model to manage the plan. Effective plan management requires diligent attention to the following aspects:

1. Consistent Tracking – Many good strategic plans fail because companies get overwhelmed with daily disruptions. Companies must incorporate tools that support a culture of accountability and maintain focus on the plan. Some of the tools we recommend are Management for Daily Improvement, Gemba Walks, A3 tracking sheets, and routine short stand-up meetings.

2. Leadership Development – Strong leaders aren’t born, they are made. They have learned how to separate daily tactical needs from important strategic decisions. The process takes time and intentional effort as managers evolve from subject matter technical experts to transformational leaders. GaMEP can provide Leadership Needs Analysis and Advanced Leadership Skills training to help fill gaps and strengthen the team.

3. Cadence and Momentum– Momentum is maintained and builds on itself when team members understand their roles and witness progress toward the goal. Successful plan management includes routine, short, and productive meetings to communicate progress. Leadership must be committed to and consistent with this process. This requires thoughtful analysis of available time and resources during the planning phase and a process to react immediately to any abnormal results.

Next Steps

Whether your company is large or small, strategic planning is a critical tool for future success and growth. GaMEP’s strategic planning process helps manufacturers establish and execute a relevant and effective strategic plan and is broken into 4 distinct phases: Discovery, Development, Deployment & Plan Management.

This tip sheet describes the process of the last two phases; Deployment & Plan Management. Read How to Write an Effective Strategic Plan, for more information on the Discovery and Development phases.

By: Adam Hayes, Senior Project Manager, Georgia Manufacturing Extension Partnership

How to Write an Effective Strategic Plan

December 15, 2021 By

Despite our best intentions, strategic planning often gets postponed due to the urgency of daily tasks. In addition, the ambiguous nature and magnitude of strategic planning can lead to not knowing where to start the process. This can result in a plan that is poorly developed, not actionable, or even non-existent.

In contrast, a well-developed strategic plan provides a “true north” to help guide decision making and align your team around common goals. It identifies key areas of focus and execution required to achieve long-term business objectives. Most importantly, it provides a framework and justification to say “no” to distractions that consume valuable resources and don’t support your long-term goals.

Strategic planning doesn’t have to be cumbersome, but it does need to be thought out, written down, and focused on specific priorities. Here are five proven steps that are the building blocks of developing an effective strategic plan.

Step 1: Internal Analysis

Internal analysis should be the start of an in-depth SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis that will help guide your plan. Understanding your current state is critical in determining where you are going, how you are going to get there, and how quickly you can realistically expect to reach your future goals.

Identify in-house capabilities by objectively answering questions about your company that reveal Strengths and Weaknesses:
- What is it about your business that separates you from the competition?
- Do your employees have skills that would be difficult to replace?
- What complaints do you regularly hear from customers?

Step 2: External Analysis

If we have learned anything in the past few years, it has been to expect the unexpected. Unfortunately, we don’t have a crystal ball, but investing time and thorough research into the second half of your SWOT analysis will help you work resiliency and flexibility into your plan, allowing you to respond to future challenges and opportunities more easily.

Identify changes in the business environment by answering questions related to Opportunities and Threats:
- What supply chain challenges are imminent? Are material costs and availability expected to change?
- What products/services are your competitors introducing? Who are your potential new competitors?
- Are there technology/society changes that we can take advantage of?

Step 3: Prioritize Issues and Opportunities

Using the data collected from steps 1 and 2, customer feedback, and input from other stakeholders, identify the key issues of concern that need to be addressed and key opportunities that can be pursued. Then, you MUST prioritize by ranking them according to risk and return. You only have so many resources, so prioritizing will help you use them wisely.

Step 4: Identify Success Factors

Develop goals and metrics by identifying success factors. How will you know if your plan has been successful? Ask yourself and your team where you want the company to be in 3 to 5 years and then identify metrics that help you track your progress towards individual goals and towards your ideal future state. These should be easy to track and analyze on a quarterly basis.

Step 5: Determine Strategic Priorities

Choose the focus areas that allow you to make the greatest impact on your goals, while keeping in mind the key resources (people/time/money) available. Do you have the resources to support all of your strategic priorities? If not, consider reducing the number or scope. It’s proven that focusing and executing on a few priorities is more effective than struggling with “too many priorities”.

Using a structured strategic planning process can help you establish and execute a relevant and effective strategic plan. Whether your company is large or small, strategic planning is a critical tool for future success and growth.

GaMEP’s strategic planning process helps manufacturers establish and execute a relevant and effective strategic plan and is broken into 4 distinct phases: Discovery, Development, Deployment & Plan Management.

This tip sheet describes the process of the first two phases; Discovery & Development. Read Get Your Strategic Plan Off the Shelf, for more information on the Deployment and Plan Management phases.

By: Andy Helm, Senior Project Manager, Georgia Manufacturing Extension Partnership

How Food Supply Issues May Affect Your Thanksgiving Table

November 16, 2021 By

GaMEP Food Industry Project Manager, Wendy White, discusses how food manufacturers have had to pivot to beat supply chain challenges & meet Thanksgiving demand. Learn More About GaMEP Food Industry Training and Services.

This month, many are marking their calendars and planning to gather around the Thanksgiving table with family and friends. But with supply chain concerns, there might be some added anxiety around rustling up all the ingredients for a feast this year. Many of us may not understand how complicated it is to get cranberries from the bog to the processor, then cooked down and into a can and shipped to a distribution center and finally a store so we can buy it and have it on hand beside the turkey.

“Supply chains are convoluted,” explains Wendy White, a nationally known food safety and supply chain expert who works with the Georgia Manufacturing Extension Partnership at Georgia Tech. Before joining academia, White spent 17 years focused on safety and regulatory compliance in the food manufacturing and distribution industry.

“Formulated foods encompass a lot of ingredients, and shortages can be caused by breaks in the supply chain for any of those ingredients,” she says.

These issues are not always apparent to the public, but we may feel the effects. Supply chain concerns can mean grocery stores aren’t getting shipments on time, and manufacturers don’t always have all the ingredients needed to make their products.

“We have a large global market, and shipping something from another part of the world has become so easy for us in this day and age. Sourcing cheaper and different ingredients from different parts of the world has become commonplace,” says White. “Now, we’re seeing bottlenecks in the shipping and logistics segments of our food supply and it becomes apparent how we sometimes are reliant on those imports.”

So what can shoppers expect and how can they be prepared this holiday season? White, who watches the food industry closely, shares her insights.

Don’t freak out.

White says the American food industry is robust and resilient. Throughout the pandemic, manufacturers have had to continuously pivot, and have done so with surprising success.

“We are lucky to have a wide variety of raw agricultural products here in America — the breadbasket in the Midwest, or tropical climates in California and Florida where fruit can be grown. We’re not quite so dependent as other nations on foreign imports,” she explains.

While there will be some changes in prices and availability, there’s no need to panic, White says.

Expect higher prices across the board.

According to White, there are two primary drivers of price increases right now: labor shortages and higher transportation costs. This isn’t limited to the United States, the United Nation’s FAO (Food & Agricultural Organization) Food Price Index states that across international markets, we’re seeing the highest food prices in 20 years. Domestically, some food manufacturers are having trouble staffing their facilities. To attract workers, they increase wages, which in turn increases price tags on products. Also, when oil prices rise, the cost of transporting products to stores increases. That gets passed on to the consumer at the grocery store as well. White says that while prices will go up, she’s optimistic that it won’t be enough to break the bank.

Watch out for specialty items, especially from abroad.

The challenges of unloading and shipping items at many of America’s ports will affect the food industry. “We’re going to see some disruptions with food ingredients and components that are only available overseas,” says White.

Specialty products that are typically imported may be more difficult to find, or more expensive. Think imported Parmesan cheese or cinnamon shipped from Sri Lanka. Often these products are transported by ships, and congestion and backups at America’s ports may mean delays or scarcity.

Sometimes a shortage is created by frenzy.

“We had a run on paper goods during the heat of the pandemic,” White explains. “There was no shortage in supply. This was a fabricated increase in demand.” A rumor circulates that may send people running to the grocery store and hoarding products. “It’s hard to predict what the next crazy in-demand item is going to be that works consumers up into a frenzy and artificially inflates demand.”

Right now, White says, the food supplies are there, but there are complications with processing, packaging, and transportation capacity to meet rising demand. Some spice companies like McCormick have announced a shortage of glass bottles, meaning their gourmet spices are on hold right now. A drought in the Midwest has wheat prices soaring. Some meat and poultry plants aren’t operating at full capacity due to fewer employees on hand and fewer truckers available to transport items.

Food companies are preparing for the holidays.

“The food and beverage industry is versatile and very good at contingency planning,” White says. Turkey companies are processing birds and freezing them now to build up a surplus in anticipation for demand. Many companies are holding extra inventory — keeping three or four months of supply on hand instead of the more typical one or two months.

White describes the versatility of the American food manufacturing industry as “incredible.” She says this may mean consumers will see different types of packaging or different products this holiday season as companies pivot to handle supply chain issues. How might consumers see this? Fewer boneless, cured, or smoked hams, for example, where processing companies had fewer employees available to do the extra processing work.

To save costs, be flexible if you can.

If you’ve got time to shop around, check different retailers and grocery stores in person.

“They are continuing to use specials and deals to entice shoppers,” White says. “During the pandemic, many shoppers making grocery purchases online have actually been spending more because it’s a bit more difficult to make selections by brand.”

By perusing a store shelf in person, you may see six different types of canned green beans — and you can choose a store brand or a lower-cost item to save money.

Buy shelf-stable items such as canned cranberry sauce, boxed stuffing, and pumpkin pie filling ahead of time if you are feeling concerned. Planning in advance will help you make sure you’re not part of a last-minute, frantic search if supply chains become more disrupted than they already are.

Wendy White is one of America’s leading food supply chain and food safety experts. As project manager at the Georgia Manufacturing Extension Partnership at Georgia Tech, White helps food manufacturers improve their food safety and quality systems. She is also on the editorial board of Food Safety Magazine.

Learn More About GaMEP Food Manufacturing Training and Services.

Cybersecurity Horror Stories from the GaMEP

October 19, 2021 By

Since its inception in October of 2004, Cybersecurity Awareness Month serves as a reminder of the importance of cybersecurity, providing individuals and organizations with the information and tools they need to be safer and more secure online. However, even as the cybersecurity industry continues to grow at a rapid rate each year, many organizations – especially small and medium-sized manufacturers – remain vulnerable and should start implementing processes now to protect themselves from the risk of cyberattacks.

According to Cybint, 95% of cybersecurity breaches are caused by human error. If a cybercriminal or hacker infiltrates your company, it’s generally through your weakest link and rarely in the IT department. This staggering statistic could be reduced if employee training at all levels was a critical component of every organization’s cybersecurity plan. With adequate training, employees can better understand what kind of vulnerabilities and threats their business operations are more likely to fall victim to.

Unfortunately, implementing a robust cybersecurity plan can sometimes prove to be intimidating and many organizations may not know where to start or how to engage their employees in the process. To keep things simple in the beginning, encourage your employees to abandon their practice of bad cyber hygiene habits. Not sure what some of these habits may look like? Read below for a list of the top 10 scariest cybersecurity mistakes our team has come across in the field:

1. Office staff with several computers all sharing the same login information on a post-it note in clear view.

2. Opening attachments on emails from unknown senders.

3. Allowing staff to transfer secure files to a USB stick to allow them to work on a home computer and then retransfer the file back to the office network computer the next day.

4. Not backing up critical manufacturing data and files to password-protected cloud storage or a secured server.

5. Failing to realize that the third-party service provider responsible for backing up critical manufacturing data did not complete the backup, or was not completing the backup daily as agreed upon.

6. Having your data unavailable due to a cyberattack and having to pay ransomware because you cannot resurrect your system data.

7. Not running recommended Windows or Mac system updates for known security issues regularly.

8. Assuming that cybersecurity is your MSP’s (managed service provider) problem since you pay them to keep your network safe.

9. Failing to keep your staff educated on and aware of phishing scams – which account for more than 80% of reported security incidents (CSO Online).

10. Believing that your organization is too small to be affected by a cyberattack because you only have a few computers connected to the internet.

Help reduce your organization’s vulnerability and cybersecurity risks by not committing any of these cyber-cardinal sins. For more information on how you can combat cyber threats and implement an effective cybersecurity plan, check out the following resources:

View our flyer on GaMEP’s General Cybersecurity Assistance Service

Visit the GaMEP Technology Services webpage

View the NIST MEP Manufacturers’ Guide to Cybersecurity.

By: Megan Johnson, Georgia Manufacturing Extension Partnership