Leadership

A Professional’s Journey through Manufacturing and Safety Training

January 5, 2022 By

Creating a Culture of Success – Committing to Quality and Safety Education

Faith Allem , quality and safety compliance leader at Hitachi T&D Solutions, Inc. in Suwanee, Georgia, has been taking training classes at Georgia Tech for 20 years. She started her journey in quality and ISO auditing, working at Georgia Power in quality management. She then went to Hitachi where she expanded into safety and health management as her 14-year career evolved.

“Georgia Tech has been my go-to in professional education. The courses have helped me gain the knowledge to advance the quality and safety programs for the companies I have worked for and proven that when safety is invested in and not treated as an afterthought, it directly and positively affects business performance.”

Faith has been successful driving improvement through her commitment to quality and safety. She credits her training and enthusiastic instructors, like Craig Cochran, project manager for the Georgia Manufacturing Extension Partnership (GAMEP) (who she has known for 20 years), with keeping the classes engaging and relevant.

According to Faith, “You can learn regulations and requirements anywhere, but at Georgia Tech the classes are really interactive. Not only are you learning the requirements, but you are also working on how to apply them to real life business situations. This class structure builds confidence and relationships because you can ask the expert instructors for advice right in the moment.”

In this interview, Faith reflects on her training experience and how it has helped shape her career.

After taking 10 quality and ISO focused courses at Georgia Tech, what did you expect to gain by enrolling in the safety & health certificate program and did it meet your expectations?

I knew that Georgia Tech offered a Manufacturing Leadership Certificate program, but I wanted to build on my quality training, and taking safety classes was a natural fit. Earning my Safety and Health Management Certificate allowed me to expand my compliance knowledge, apply what I learned to improve current processes, and show upper management that there is value in building more robust safety programs and investing in training like this.

Investing in Career Growth with Georgia Tech Training

What did you find most valuable about your quality and safety training journey?

The instructors have an enthusiasm that keeps you engaged and excited about the subject matter that’s being taught. They are supportive and continue to be my go-to resource even outside of the classroom. I was very impressed that during COVID the Georgia Tech team did not stop. They were creative and inventive when pivoting to remote offerings and utilizing web based learning platforms to keep the classes interactive and interesting. This allowed me to keep going and finish my certificate on time.

How have you applied what you have learned in your current position?

The first thing I did was institute proactive planning with my teams. I used the tools from my different classes to create safety kits, incident/accident forms, and a dedicated company website to reinforce good safety behavior among employees. To get everyone on board and invested in the outcome of our new program, I created incentive programs with different types of rewards to reinforce practicing good safety behavior. As a result, we have improved the quality and safety of our current systems and it has changed the company culture. Over the past six years, we have seen a dramatic reduction in customer complaints, safety related accidents, and loss cost. Just one year under my leadership, our safety risk assessment investigation findings are down over 80 percent. I think this shows that a continued commitment to self-development leads to positive outcomes personally and professionally. This program has not only contributed to my own self-growth, but to my team and company as well. It all comes full circle.

In your opinion, what does it take to be successful in the manufacturing and safety field?

Management support is critical. The more I learn, the more knowledge I can bring back, share with the team, and help them to develop and improve on our current systems. This shows value to our upper management and creates an inclusive environment where continuous improvement and safety is everyone’s responsibility. We really care about every person’s safety. It’s not just checking off the requirement box and moving on. It’s about taking that requirement and making it work for your company.

To learn more about the GaMEP Manufacturing Leadership Certificate or other training programs, please contact your GaMEP Region Manager for more information. If you have any safety needs or questions, please reach out to one of the SHES experts for a consultation.

Five Tips for Effectively Managing Change at Your Manufacturing Plant

June 4, 2021 By

Whether it’s the ongoing advancement in technology, the ever-evolving world of data, a company reorganization, or other unexpected curveballs (such as a global pandemic), manufacturers are constantly faced with change and the challenge to adapt. But just as change is a part of any manufacturing business, so is resistance to change – especially change that people don’t understand, agree with, or see any benefit from. However, it is possible to lead a change initiative at your facility while still keeping your team focused and productive. The key to accomplishing this lies within your ability to communicate with and show empathy to those who your change will impact the most. Not sure how or where to start? Follow our five tips below for achieving your change management goals in a more collaborative and effective way at your organization:

1. Understand what you are trying to accomplish and why. The first, most important question in a change initiative is: Why are we changing? It’s important to have a clear and compelling reason for why your team, coworkers, or boss should abandon what they know for something new. You should be able to explain what the reason is behind this change and how it will improve your organization in some tangible way. Don’t get too hung up on your plan for implementation until you are clear on what the overall goal is and why other people on your team should be just as enthusiastic about it as you are.

2. Start with a conversation, not a policy. So you’ve pitched your change proposal and instead of cheers and whistles, you are met with rejection. While your kneejerk reaction may be to become defensive, the best thing you can do at this point is to empathize with your audience and try to understand why they feel this way. There are several reasons as to why someone might reject change:

They may have had a bad experience in the past with a similar situation
You may not be explaining it in a way that they can understand
It may not even be a good idea to begin with

The trick is to expect this kind of reaction and hold these discussions early on to better understand what kind of impact this change will have on your team. Don’t set anything in stone right away – this will be a process where communicating and experimenting to find what works best will be the optimal approach.

3. Be open minded to other ideas and suggestions from your team. During the early stage of a change initiative, it’s important to confirm that the issue you are trying to solve is valid and that your team recognizes the issue as well. Once they agree that an issue does exist, then you can include them in on the potential solution. After all, what better way is there to solve your issue than to talk to the people who are actually dealing with the problem on a daily basis to see if they have any ideas worth implementing?

4. Experiment towards your goal. The path to implementing your change successfully is anything but linear, so it’s best to approach this process with an “experiment your way forward, instead of deciding your way forward” mentality. This method is called the Improvement Kata, which is a four-step pattern of establishing target conditions and then taking measured steps and learning from each experiment to inform the next one:

STEP 1: Understand the DIRECTION or CHALLENGE.

STEP 2: Grasp the CURRENT CONDITION.

STEP 3: Establish the next TARGET CONDITION.

STEP 4: EXPERIMENT toward the Target Condition.

This steady march towards your goal may not be in a straight line, but it will provide you with an opportunity to learn from each obstacle you encounter along the way, allowing you to make the necessary adjustments that will hopefully get you that much closer to achieving your goal.

5. Follow up. Once you’ve executed your change, don’t declare victory just yet. Go to where the change was implemented and follow up with those who were involved to learn whether the change was effective in addressing the original goal. Be ready to take whatever feedback you get in stride. To be a good leader throughout this process, you must be able to show both confidence and humility and recognize that you don’t always have the answers to everything. So if the change did not work, try to understand why, and start working on the next experiment. However, if the change was successful, celebrate and start standardizing the result by using what you learned to plan new improvements.

By keeping these tips in mind and remembering to maintain open communication at every stage of the process, you can help ensure that your change management efforts are a shared learning experience rather than something to be inflicted upon others.

If you would like to discuss your change management goals more in-depth, visit https://gamep.org/regional-locations/ to contact your local Region Manager.

By: Megan Johnson, Marketing Specialist, Georgia Manufacturing Extension Partnership

Own the Skills Gap: Workforce Readiness Starts with You

March 19, 2021 By

Hiring and retaining talent is a continuous concern and investment for every manufacturer, large or small, rural or multinational. It is hard to find and keep people with the right skills. It’s also expensive. According to The Society for Human Resource Management, in 2016 it cost over $4,000 and took 40 days to complete each new hire. Those 40 days spent looking for the right person impact productivity—and then there’s the time it takes to train each new employee and get them up to speed.

Even as the unemployment rate has skyrocketed during the pandemic, manufacturers continue reporting difficulty filling open positions. It’s not a problem that will go away by itself. Coming out of the pandemic, U.S. manufacturing is expected to increase at 3.6% annually. Manufacturers are smart to be planning now to meet future business needs — finding and hiring the right people and upgrading training to retain top talent once they have been hired.

Recently, the Georgia Manufacturing Extension Partnership (GaMEP) at Georgia Tech, part of the MEP National Network, interviewed three of their manufacturing clients, all different-sized companies, about strategies they have found successful for hiring and retaining talent.

Workforce Solution: Hire for soft skills and the right fit

Mohawk Industries is a flooring manufacturer based in Calhoun, Georgia. Founded in 1878, the company employs 10,000 people in Georgia and 40,000 worldwide. Mohawk’s leadership values technical expertise, but they also look for soft skills, which are much harder to teach.

Leadership skills, discipline and motivation can signal great potential. This was Nathan Bennett’s skill set when he applied for a job at Mohawk with no manufacturing experience. A two-time NASKA World Martial Arts Champion, he demonstrated strong discipline and leadership skills. Although he didn’t get the job he applied for, a Mohawk hiring manager saw his potential and offered him a job in chemical compounding – something Bennett had never even heard of and had to look online to understand. The hiring manager told Bennett that Mohawk wanted him for his leadership skills and they could teach him the rest.

The company’s focus on finding the right fit for their team paid off. Bennett is now the safety manager of two plants, leading more than 650 people and looking for others who are adaptable, motivated, and willing to learn new skills in order to cultivate new leaders in the organization. As a leader, Bennett feels it’s all about making personal connections with employees to cultivate their inner confidence and nurture a culture of working toward a common goal. “I’m boots-on-the-ground every day and address each person as a professional,” he said. “We are one of the biggest companies in a small town in northwest Georgia, so it’s important to have our team’s loyalty.”

Bennett is one of many leaders at Mohawk who are investing in their employees. The company fosters leadership at all levels by attracting, motivating, educating, and—just as importantly—promoting employees from within. This keeps the team loyal to each other, to the processes they’ve created, and to the company.

Mohawk runs its own internal training program, putting each person through a one-week safety course every four years. The company is also invested in their employees’ well-being. Monitors located in employee gathering places at Mohawk promote monthly health and wellness topics such as stress management that are also discussed in pre-shift employee meetings, and list training opportunities and supervisory openings. The company also encourages employee advancement through a 100% tuition reimbursement program for degree programs, certifications, and other professional development related to the employee’s field.

Workforce Solution: Create talent through apprenticeship programs

Corrugated Replacements is a 140-person, family-owned manufacturer in Blairsville, Georgia, that makes replacement parts for corrugated machinery. President Jenny Chandler spent much of her childhood observing on the shop floor of her family’s business. She knew how to run the machines by age 7 and could program them by age 11. As a child, she also observed management styles and how workers responded to them, which helped shape her management approach—leading by example.

A few years ago, Chandler worried about the company’s aging workforce—the average employee age was 53—and the institutional knowledge that could be lost as they retired. The company knew they needed to get ahead of this problem and began researching recruitment strategies to attract younger employees. Corrugated Replacements determined that an apprenticeship program would create a pipeline of skilled, younger workers and improve collaboration throughout the company — resulting in knowledge transfer through a structured, systematic training approach.

Corrugated Replacements created a 36-month apprenticeship program with the local high school. The company pays student apprentices as full-time employees and assesses them throughout the program—looking for leadership traits, initiative, assertiveness, punctuality and maturity. This program’s success led the company to create a shorter, 28-month, apprenticeship program for existing and new employees. Apprentices start in the company’s shipping department and work in each area of the plant, meeting skills requirements in each department before moving onto the next.

Chandler said, “I’ve had 25 apprenticeship program graduates and each person is still with us. When they join the team, I’m looking at how they interact with people and take initiative. That way we can groom them for supervisory and leadership positions.” A special benefit of Corrugated Replacements’ high school apprenticeship program is a fully paid college education — wherever participants want to study and whatever degree they want to pursue — as long as it’s applicable to the business. Students enrolled in nearby colleges schedule work hours into their week, and those studying farther away work during breaks. In return, the company requires a three-year commitment after graduation. In addition to the apprenticeship program participants, Corrugated Replacements pays for any employee’s higher education, as long as the degree is relevant to the business.

Workforce Solution: Invest in your employees to keep them happy

Once you find skilled employees, how do you keep them? Many manufacturers are looking for creative solutions that give their company a competitive edge in recruiting and retaining employees.

A 75-person manufacturer in central Georgia combined flexibility, performance incentives and training to help retain employees.

According to the 2018 Mercer Talent Trends Study, 51% of manufacturing employees want more flexible work options, but only 9% of manufacturers in the study report offering flexibility. While many manufacturing jobs can’t be done from home, this company found a solution that provides its employees the flexibility they desire. The location runs four 10-hour shifts per week, allowing employees to pick up shifts on the fifth day each week for overtime if available or to make up for time taken off earlier in the week for personal activities—a win for employees and for the company.

The company credits their ability to retain employees not only to their flexibility, but to their transparent, competitive pay, and their investment in employees. They offer competitive pay with team-based performance incentives. Their pay structure is transparent and employees are told exactly how they can progress in the company. Sets of requirements are tracked and tied to salary as employee’s progress through steps in their pay levels. On top of base pay, all employees receive monthly bonuses, based on the facility’s previous month’s performance—an incentive offered for more than 30 years. The team-based incentive promotes teamwork and continuous improvement, and empowers team members to impact their environment and their income.

This company uses standard work instructions at every piece of equipment and within assembly so every person who is trained on a process gains knowledge from those who have done the job in the past. They encourage their employees to cross-train in numerous jobs in order to improve team flexibility and increase individual skills. The company uses visual tools and videos for safety training and assigns a trainer in each group. The company also offers 90% tuition reimbursement for continuing education and allows employees to choose undergraduate or graduate degrees, technical college degrees, or online training as options to progress. Additionally, the company plans staffing levels to support cross-training and encourages continuous improvement in safety and quality programs as well as process improvements.

They keep their employees happy, and their employees stay and grow within the company. The average tenure of employees at this location is over 15 years. This enables the company to primarily promote from within—over 90% of the current leadership team has been promoted from within. To accomplish this, the team scouts potential leadership talent within their employees and encourages team members to get their degrees so they are ready for management positions when they open.

Find a solution that works for you

While there is no one-size-fits-all solution to workforce challenges, there are many ways to proactively tackle the problem. Finding the right mix of strategies for your company and employees is key. Your efforts can result in lower turnover, higher employee morale, and a culture where employees are invested in the long-term success of your company.

This story was originally published in IndustryWeek – view it here.

By: Katie Takacs, Industry Services Marketing Manager, Georgia Manufacturing Extension Partnership

Leaders: Are they Built or Born?

March 9, 2021 By

Have you heard someone say, “He or she is a born leader”? I don’t believe leadership is a quality that one is born with but rather a learned and practiced skill that develops over time. John Maxwell, in his book The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, supports my beliefs and says “Leadership develops daily, not in a day. Successful leaders are learners.”

Everyone has the ability to be an effective leader no matter their background or positional equity. Leaders influence, persuade, inspire, motivate, and spearhead change in an organization. Here are a few simple tips to enhance your role as a leader in your organization.

It’s important to accomplish your organizations’ goals through your team
With three generations represented in the workforce, you must be emotionally self-aware of your behavior and the behaviors of those you lead. According to Daniel Goleman (2002), Co-Author of the book Primal Leadership, emotional self-awareness involves a leader’s ability to be in tune with their inner signals, as well as their respective counterparts. Various personality/behavioral style assessments are readily available to assist with this. Identifying your own personal style will help you to identify with others, thus, assess an individuals’ “fit” on the team or within the organization. Through this approach, (Bolman and Deal, 2008) your team will recognize how feelings, emotions, and behaviors affect their reactions and job performance.
To be a successful leader, you must lead by example
You cannot separate character from leadership. Character communicates consistency, potential, and
respect. People buy into a leader before they buy into a vision. Trust is the foundation for success. Who you are is who you attract. One must be transparent in his or her actions and intentions. This can be demonstrated through open lines of communication and displayed through emotion, passion, and enthusiasm towards individual and group success.
A leader touches a heart before he or she asks for a hand
You can’t move your team to action unless you first move them with emotion. Get out on the floor and walk around and talk to your associates. Be empathetic towards what is going on in their lives. Practice open and frequent communication so they are aware of what’s going on in the organization. People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. To lead yourself use your head…to lead others it’s important to use your heart.

Remember…“you can compete through technology but you win with people.” As a leader, everything you do sends a message to all those around you. I challenge you to ask yourself this question, “If I no longer had my title/position, would people still want to follow me?” Make an effort to identify your own individual strengths, your own behavioral style as well those around you, and develop an action plan to improve your effectiveness as a leader – by doing so you make great strides in your organization.

By: Hank Hobbs, Project Manager, Georgia Manufacturing Extension Partnership

7 Tips for Sustaining Your Manufacturing Company During COVID-19

April 10, 2020 By

During unprecedented times in which your company is facing monumental challenges and uncertainty, it is more imperative than ever to be proactive and follow best practices to ensure business continuity. But as pressure mounts and the stress of the current COVID-19 situation continues to grow, the best path to sustaining your company may not be as clear as you would hope. Some companies are left with no choice but to halt production, send employees home, and wait out the storm, while other companies are looking at ways to improve their processes, reduce costs, boost employee morale, and even create new business opportunities. While it’s easy right now to focus on the negatives, there are still a variety of actions you can take to help your company’s long-term success. Not sure where or how to start? See our 7 tips below for using the time and resources you have now to help sustain and stabilize your company:

Examine Your Supply Chain. Many manufacturers are working to respond to business disruption and supply chain challenges from the global spread of COVID-19. Rethinking your supply chain and evaluating alternative logistics options or identifying new sources of, or alternatives to, raw materials, equipment, packaging, or more could be essential to helping you manage some of the challenges you’re currently facing. If time and resources permit, you could even look ahead to the future at how you can optimize or transform your supply chain even further. Research some of the emerging supply chain technologies and new models that will help equip your organization with the ability to deal with the unexpected.

New Business Opportunities. The state of Georgia is looking for manufacturers to switch gears during this time and begin producing, distributing, and storing critical health care items needed to fight the spread of COVID-19. This is a great opportunity to keep your employees engaged and keep your operations up and running during this time. Examples of items included in the critical item list are gowns, face shields, ventilators, masks, PPE, hand sanitizer, and more. For a complete list of needed items, click here: https://www.georgia.org/newsroom/press-releases/gov-kemp-calls-georgia-businesses-aid-critical-health-care-needs. If you are able to produce any of the critical care items, complete this online form: : https://www.georgia.org/gamep-c19. Additionally, the government has multiple contracts available for manufacturers to bid on. If you are interested in working with the government during this time and need assistance navigating the process, connect to your GaMEP regional manager at https://gamep.org/regional-locations/ and we can introduce you to the Georgia Tech Procurement Assistance Center program.

Increase Communication. Currently, the chances of your employees feeling frustrated and uncertain are higher than they’ve ever been before. Increased two-way communication can play a vital role in improving your company’s culture and fostering a positive work environment (remote or not) even during difficult times. Help your people feel heard and acknowledged by communicating often and taking this opportunity to ask the questions you wouldn’t normally have the time to ask. You may come away with an idea for improving a process or identifying an issue you weren’t aware of before. Whether it’s by phone, video conferencing, or email, be an advocate for your team and let them know that what they say does provide value. GaMEP recently wrote a business guide, which includes the importance of communication, to help manufacturers get through this pandemic. Download the guide here. In addition, click here to find out more about the Managing for Daily Improvement (MDI) process that GaMEP has implemented in manufacturing plants across the state and learn how you can utilize MDI even in a virtual setting to keep the lines of communication open.

Get Lean. Utilizing Lean tools and techniques can significantly impact your business for the better and help set the stage for long-term success. If you haven’t already become familiar with these process improvement methods, now is the time for you to start or continue your journey towards becoming a Lean manufacturing company. By using Lean principles, you’ll have the ability to better examine the processes within your operations to identify and eliminate non-value added activities to increase capacity and flexibility, as well as reduce costs. In addition to your processes, look at your utilities and see where you can reduce energy spending. Both of these are great opportunities to communicate with your employees, as they may be more privy to an element of your operations that could use a reassessment. Know that not all improvements have to involve spending. It may just require looking at a process from a different perspective – utilizing creativity over capital to achieve your goals.

Study Your Financials. If you’re a small or medium operation that does not have the benefit of having your own procurement department, it may be a good time for those in leadership roles to examine the company’s financials and investigate any anomalies that may have occurred. Focus on individual categories of expenses and items that you don’t always get to spend much time reviewing. See something that doesn’t exactly add up? Take this time to investigate why and seek out an explanation if possible.

Investigate Tax Credits for Energy Efficiency Products. Have you wanted to purchase new equipment for your plant, but hesitated because it would interrupt your operation? If your company has now halted or reduced production, now would be a good time for you to research the benefits of investing in new energy efficiency products. Discuss different options with your employees and determine what could help improve a product or process. Be sure to do your due diligence and take advantage of available tax credits and utilize appropriate tax forms to eliminate sales tax from qualified purchases. Here is a link that provides more information: https://www.georgia.org/competitive-advantages/incentives/tax-credits

Tackle the “Business Wish List”. Many manufacturers have a list of items they’d like to eventually research or implement, but continue to put this list on the backburner because they either don’t have the time or assume taking on these projects would interrupt operations. If this sounds like a familiar situation, take advantage of the downtime you have now to revisit this list and see how many boxes you can check off with the help of your employees.

As we navigate this uncertain time together, GaMEP at Georgia Tech would like to remind you that we are committed to our mission, which is to help you, the manufacturers across Georgia. We have been helping manufacturers with many of these items during the COVID-19 pandemic, including supplier scouting, tightening up communications within a plant, developing a crisis recovery plan, and more.

We would like to be your resource for the latest information on the virus, and how this will impact your business. Please visit our resources page for the latest in helpful links, webinars, current information, and how you can connect with us so that we can assist you during this time at https://gamep.org/coronavirus/.

By Megan Johnson, with the Georgia Manufacturing Extension Partnership