How to Build a High Performance Maintenance Team

December 19, 2019 By

Many years ago I inherited perhaps the world’s most under-performing, unreliable, unpredictable, and unacceptable – and all other antonyms that are an antithesis for anything positive – maintenance team. The extreme lack of performance left all sorts of carnage piled up at the front door of the unemployment office. Maintenance managers did not last longer than eighteen months before quitting or getting fired. To be fair, it was the result of long term neglect and a few bad decisions by upper management. Nonetheless, my job was to roll up my sleeves, do a deep dive and fix it.

At the bottom of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs are food and shelter. Simply put – SURVIVAL. It was exactly where the company was and its maintenance department was not helping the situation. However, my personal goal went beyond survival. It was to reclaim a higher quality of life by eliminating the late night and weekend calls that started out like, “boss, you ain’t gonna believe this!” Conditions were so bad that I personally helped extinguish two fires in one year that could have burned down the facility, which at the time did not seem like a bad plan. Just in case you or someone you know is experiencing a similar undesirable work environment, I will share a brief recap of the maintenance turnaround plan that was used.

Warning: Leading a maintenance turnaround is not for the faint at heart.
It takes guts, vitamins and a lot of prayers in addition to a good plan.

▶ First Things First: Deliver a State of the Union Address.

Pull together the facts, no matter how ugly they are and present them to the entire maintenance team in a clear and succinct message. It is best that all team members hear it at the same time. This is a message that you cannot afford to have delivered second hand or get misconstrued. Once the bad news is delivered, which is probably old news, begin painting a picture of the future which we will call “target condition.” Demonstrate passion and convey what a critical role the maintenance department plays in the execution of the business strategy, achievement of operational performance targets and safety. Next, highlight some of the initial steps that will be taken to get the turnaround process started. No need to communicate a long, boring comprehensive plan. Just stick to the key areas that will receive a laser focus so that the journey and dedication to achieving the target condition is crystal clear.

This meeting is not about searching for agreement or reaching a consensus. It is about setting a new direction and establishing a starting point for the turnaround. It is about encouraging those that want to change, converting those that are on the fence, and firing a warning shot to those that are dead set on maintaining status quo. Will there be teamwork, employee feedback and participation? You bet! It is impossible to reach target condition without a fully engaged workforce.

▶ Develop a Code of Conduct & Daily Standard Work.

This is the first team assignment. Pull together a mix of formal leaders and informal leaders. Why informal leaders? Because often they are the ones that others are going to follow. On a flip chart begin documenting the characteristics of a high performance maintenance team. At this point nothing is too basic. In fact, most of the items on the list should be fundamental and include such things as: start and stop times, protocol for shift hand-off, documenting work performed, providing feedback to operators, behaving in a courteous and professional manner, and so forth. Take the feedback and create two formal documents: a Code of Conduct and Daily Standard Work. I recommend that each document is no more than one page in length. Once completed, ask the sub-team to present the documents to the team. It is critical that everyone hears the message, understands the documents and signs a training record. Post the documents in very conspicuous places throughout the maintenance shop. It is also a good idea to have some of the maintenance team members report out on the new mode of operation at a monthly all employees meeting or at the operational team meetings.

Now that expectations are clear, all future group meetings will be conducted with a sense of urgency and in a celebratory manner for each accomplishment achieved, even the small ones that look like baby steps. Long term success is going to be built by putting points on the scoreboard, not by a single silver bullet. Will there be tough discussions? Yes, but probably with only a small percentage of the group. From this point forward those discussions will be held in private and on an individual basis. Everyone else will be receiving praise and encouragement.

▶ Purge the Junk.

This is not glamorous work. In fact, it can be extremely nasty. However, the result will make a huge impression, improve efficiency, safety, morale, and generate a cleansing feeling. It is like a new beginning. When we started purging the junk, over 14 flatbed trailers full of scrap steel and obsolete equipment was sent to the recycler – no kidding! Start with the red tag process. Expect some pushback because someone will insist that you keep that “one-of-a-kind inoperable 1968 strain gauge that was made by a company that no longer exists.” Target purging the junk in the maintenance department first, then attack all the other hidden areas scattered throughout the factory. Tackle the MRO tool crib, red tagging all junk and obsolete parts. Be sure not to forget or overlook cabinets and drawers.

During this process, keep the finance department or controller informed so that assets can be properly accounted for. Before hauling everything to the recycler, pull a team of engineers, operators and maintenance technicians together to review the red tag area just to make sure that there really is not something expensive, unique and still vital to maintenance and/or operations in the hold area. When completed and the junk is on its way to the recycler, the accomplishment will feel refreshing. Make a point to give the team positive feedback and celebrate! But don’t stop there, because this is only the first step in the 5S process.

▶ Conduct a Skill Assessment.

This is optional based on the demonstrated strengths and skills of the individuals within the department. But if you suspect that the skills are insufficient, then they probably are insufficient. Do not swing at this assessment alone. Team up with human resources and you local technical or community college. There are several great resources and tools already developed, tested, validated and ready to use. This assessment will be the starting point for building a strong competent team. I should add that the skill assessment we conducted was accomplished in a union environment. It was a result of working closely with the union leadership, sharing the vision, and getting their buy-in to the plan.

▶ Start the Training Process.

Once the job requirements have been determined and the individual capabilities assessed, provide individual feedback in a confidential manner along with a prescribed training plan. Again, this is best done through human resources and outside support. Establish a fair and reasonable timeframe for completing the prescribed training plan. There will be pushback, but there also will be those that are trail blazers and set the course of action for being the first to complete the training. The good news is that course work is now conveniently available on-line and the lab work can be conducted on-site or possibly at the technical school.

▶ Develop a Critical Equipment List.

Identify the key equipment that can bring operations to a halt. It can be a part of the process in which most of the products manufactured flows through a single piece of equipment. Or, it can be equipment that does not have a back-up or alternate process. Do not overlook infrastructure when evaluating critical equipment. If the facility or process is dependent on a boiler, compressor, cooling tower or electrical substation, then be sure to include those items on the list of critical equipment. A substation that has been ignored or overloaded can be dangerous, create costly repairs and cause significant downtime.

A good approach for dealing with critical equipment is to: 1) have a robust PM plan; 2) inventory critical spare parts; and, 3) have a back-up plan for a catastrophic failure. For example, identify and pre-approve a contract manufacturer for temporary outsourcing. Redundant equipment is also something to consider, especially if outsourcing options are unavailable or control of intellectual property is critical.

▶ Construct a Capital Plan.

Now that the junk is purged and a critical equipment list is constructed, identify the equipment that needs to be placed on an intensive care list. This list is for the equipment that is currently on life support. Engineering support or an OEM equipment technical representative should be able to help evaluate the options – e.g. invest in repairing and upgrading the equipment or purchase new equipment and unplug the life support. The costs and ROI for replacing or upgrading equipment on the intensive
care list are the beginning of the capital plan. Depending on the company’s health, a short term repair may take precedence over replacement until funding can support a long term solution.

Based on the size of operation, equipment condition, complexity, and advances in technology, the capital plan may be a 3-5 year outlook. This type of planning and detail will help with budgeting and eliminating surprises. There are other options to consider if capital is limited or non-existent, such as vendor financing. This is more common for very expensive equipment, like
machining centers, lasers, etc.

▶ Hire a Reliability Engineer.

I have found that a reliability engineer is extremely valuable, especially if sophisticated or complex equipment is involved. The ability to evaluate machinery, identify its weaknesses, develop a thorough preventive maintenance plan, and make engineering modifications to improve reliability will break the chains of unpredictable performance and reactionary maintenance. It is not unusual for a good reliability engineer to generate a savings of 6-8 times their salary in the first year.

▶ Toss the Spreadsheets and Flash Cards – go with CMMS!

There are many low cost options for a CMMS (Computerized Maintenance Management System). The ability to track and measure performance in real time is critical to achieving the target condition. A CMMS enables the maintenance team to optimize the usage of replacement parts, properly assign resources, plan for performing PM’s, and evaluate the effectivity of the work being performed. If your company can afford it, install a wireless system and purchase iPads so that entries and pictures can be made at the point of service. This is a big time saver versus going to a computer terminal and getting in line to make entries.

▶ Implement the Right Metrics.

It is not unusual to jump right to an OEE metric and wonder why performance is not better. Although OEE is an excellent metric, it is better to start off with basic metrics and master the simple things. For example, understanding equipment downtime and reason codes will provide guidance to root cause evaluation and corrective action. Understanding where resources (people and parts) are consumed can help with determining if there is a skill deficiency, equipment misuse, design issue, or some other assignable cause. Once these metrics are clearly understood, posted and discussed daily at the equipment, add metrics like MTBF (mean time between failures) and OEE to gain a deeper understanding on how to improve performance. The target condition should be great uptime (100%) and a strong, favorable ratio of time spent conducting preventive maintenance versus performing reactionary maintenance for unplanned downtime.

▶ Develop a Lean Maintenance Methodology.

What applies to operations applies to maintenance. 5S, SMED, Standard Work, Kanban and etc. can all be exemplified in the maintenance department. I admit that I am OCD when it comes to 5S. Everything should have a designated place and be in its place. (I even built a shadow board for my kitchen utensils at home.) Therefore, when we implemented a parking lot for maintenance buggies with clear visuals and signage, it sent a message that everything we do matters and should be done in an organized and efficient manner. This simple idea made it very easy to determine who was at work and who wasn’t. It
prevented a traffic jam at shift change and made it convenient to conduct a 5S inspection. Other simple ideas and techniques include quick disconnects for hydraulic units, standard work for tool maintenance, visuals for TPM plan and a Kaizen schedule for targeted areas of improvement. Value stream mapping events can be used for processes like the MRO procurement cycle. If there is a tool crib, implement a Kanban system for spare parts and consider vendor managed inventory (VMI) for small parts like nuts and bolts. Converting to VMI can reduce time spent managing small parts and swap inventory on the balance sheet for cash.

▶ Engage the Operators.

Many of us have used the phrase, “please treat the equipment like you would your house or car.” Then one day I had an epiphany and realized that many folks in fact treat the equipment they operate exactly the same way they treat their house or car – very poorly! So I changed my approach to, “please treat the equipment in a way that our target condition of being ready to run, clean and well maintained is achieved.” This can be a major cultural change. So the onus is on leadership to work with the operators to establish and achieve the target condition. It can be a challenge and requires a lot of training, auditing and follow-up. The best tools to use are a good TPM plan and 5S check sheets. Eventually the behavior will change, new habits will form and the target condition will be achieved on a daily basis. Make it fun! Have a competition and reward the shift or team that does the best job achieving and maintaining target condition.

▶ Summary:

Building a high performance maintenance team is not a three month undertaking. It is not a part time initiative or approach. Depending on where the department is on the maturity curve, the age and deterioration of equipment, and the overall health of the business, it can be a three to five year journey. However, significant improvements are often realized in the first three to six months by being relentless, firm and encouraging. Our company did survive and posted some impressive profits during its third year in the turnaround. However, perhaps the biggest reward that I observed during the turnaround was the bond and respect that the operators and the maintenance team developed for each other. It is a behavior that becomes contagious based on a common purpose of making the equipment better today than it was yesterday.

▶ Contact:

For more information on how you can build a high performance team, contact Mike Stonecipher at
ude.hcetag.etavonninull@rehpicenots.ekim.

Just Add Engineers to the Mix

December 5, 2019 By

For the state’s food manufacturers, a Georgia Tech partnership is the secret ingredient to growth.

You would expect a building where vinegar is made to have a sour smell, highly pungent, perhaps with a whiff of apple. World Technology Ingredients (WTI) smells nothing like this. Their manufacturing facility, off a county two-lane in Jefferson, Georgia, has a vaguely mineral aroma. More dry than dank, and not altogether unpleasant.

Maybe that’s because the vinegar made here isn’t destined for grocery store shelves, but for food preservation. It’s called buffered vinegar, an all-natural additive that protects meats and other products from microbes. WTI makes a lot of this vinegar, more than they used to in fact, and that’s partly because of Damon Nix.

On this Friday afternoon, Nix is taking a visitor through WTI’s plant, pointing out its sectors and stations. Here’s the wet vinegar, seven titanic tanks and even more smaller ones, emitting a hiss-and-motor chorus of mechanized blending. Over here’s the powdered version, mixed in towering contraptions on chalky floors (that will later be cleaned), then heated, blended and bagged.

Nix stops at a white board with dry-erase markings that tell another story of what’s going on inside the plant — one of continuous improvement. Sketched out are five days of the work week, four areas of focus (safety, performance, schedule, issues) and an assortment of metrics. One of WTI’s workers happens by, and after glancing at the white board, Nix congratulates him.

“I think y’all are doing great,” he says. “These are good numbers.”

Nix doesn’t work for WTI. He’s an industry manager for the Georgia Manufacturing Extension Partnership, or GaMEP, a Georgia Tech-based, engineering-centric program that helps small and mid-sized manufacturing companies in the state perform better. As the partnership’s food and beverage point person, Nix applies his industrial engineering education from Tech to help manufacturers up their game and lower their costs.

“What I really do is facilitate problem solving,” says Nix (B.S., ISyE, ’01). He is careful to emphasize the facilitation part. He doesn’t arrive as the dreaded efficiency expert, handing down mandates and new processes to those on the floor. Rather, he operates as the quintessential engineer — conducting research, listening to people, and fostering ownership of change. When he introduces new knowledge, such as time-tested principles of lean manufacturing and quality control, it’s more as a coach guiding a player who’s motivated to improve.

“In organizations that really succeed, teams are empowered by top management,” he says. “The team has to own the process. I could go to a meeting and offer a bunch of ideas, but half of them wouldn’t be nearly as good as what people inside the company put forward and act on.”

Rise of an engineering partnership

Georgia Tech has been in the game of helping small and mid-sized manufacturers for a long time. A century ago, the idea of creating an engineering counterpart to America’s agricultural experiment stations was being debated in Congress. But the Georgia General Assembly didn’t wait for the debate to conclude — it voted in 1919 to launch an “engineering experiment station” (EES) at Georgia Tech.

Curiously, lawmakers didn’t fund the new enterprise. It wasn’t until 1934, midway through the Great Depression, that EES got its first state allocation of $5,000 and was assigned an acting director, Harry Vaughn, who described the experiment station as “Georgia’s first agency designed to aid in a comprehensive development of industry.”

In 1960, the General Assembly ratcheted up Georgia Tech’s assistance to industry, passing a bill to form an Industrial Extension Service as part of the earlier EES. That authorized Georgia Tech to create field offices around the state to provide “technical advice and assistance to local development groups and to establish(ed) business and industry.” The new service was the forerunner of today’s GaMEP. The partnership sharpened its focus on manufacturing in 1988 after Congress passed a national program, the Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership. The Industrial Extension Service was later designated GaMEP as one of 70 MEP affiliates. (EES, by the way, later became GTRI, the Georgia Tech Research Institute.)

GaMEP, which turns 60 next year, is today housed inside Georgia Tech’s Enterprise Innovation Institute — a good fit, given its economic development focus. With 10 offices throughout Georgia, it now has a solid track record of helping small and mid-sized manufacturers grow. One of these is Dalton-based Precision Products, which manufactures a wide range of parts to order and has achieve two crucial ISO certifications that opened the door to new customers and industries. Sales grew by more than $3.5 million. And Goldens’ Foundry and Machine Co., a 130-year-old enterprise, wanted to strengthen employee communication and problem solving. GaMEP helped them introduce a management system designed to bring company conversations to the plant floor and improve information flow.

Packaging insight into food processing

One area historically underserved by GaMEP is the food and beverage industry. “It’s the state’s top manufacturing sector,” Nix says, “yet it had not been our number one customer.” So, in 2016, he was assigned to develop an initiative to broaden and deepen partnerships with businesses in the industry.

Driving much of the food and beverage industry’s growth in Georgia are companies of 50 or fewer employees. These are the makers of local craft beers, hometown jellies and artisan mustards. Nix says about eight of 10 food processing companies fit that size profile, though they are dwarfed in sales by the other 20 percent, the larger manufacturers.

So he developed a market analysis and concluded that super-sizing a commitment to food and beverage would be a good fit. The demand was there, too. Food processing employs nearly 70,000 Georgians and accounts for $12 billion of the state’s GDP every year, according to a 2016 report from Georgia Power. Since GaMEP stepped up efforts to serve the industry in 2017, the average number of projects with food and beverage companies more than doubled, from 20 to 45.

When asked to describe the greatest problems facing these manufacturers, Nix quickly cites compliance with safety regulations, which, to a small food business, run from complex to bewildering. “If you’re in a business of 10 to 20 people, you may not have a food scientist on staff,” he says. “So, you’ve got to figure out compliance on your own, or else bring in consultants.”

Safety, he notes, is more than just following protocols in production. It involves attending to details in reporting and paperwork, all the way down to the product label. Nix shares the cautionary tale of an Oregon maker of seasonings that neglected to include hazelnuts in its list of ingredients on the label. “Of course, nut allergies are a huge issue,” he says. “That one mistake could have ruined their entire product distribution. The damage to the brand, and the cost of bringing back the brand, is so significant.”

While GaMEP knew it could help food companies in an array of ways — from process management to energy usage to business growth — leaders found they had a gap in food science expertise. Food science determines the safety profile of every jar, tin, box and bag of product. So they brought in a food manufacturing safety whiz, Wendy White, who had experience overseeing a portfolio of food products. White is now leading a new GaMEP program on safety, funded by a three-year grant totaling nearly $1 million.

For the ingredients company WTI, the primary challenge has not been safety but improving processes and efficiency. When asked what impact he’s seen from GaMEP’s help, Stephan Georg, the company’s director of strategic sourcing, recounts a conversation between a shift foreman and consultant in front of one of the Gemba white boards.

“The foreman said the plan was to make two batches of a product,” Georg says, “but the consultant answered, ‘Well, I think you can do five batches. The foreman thought that was unrealistic. So we brought in Georgia Tech, and the first thing Damon does is conduct time studies. It gave us that baseline information we needed. After that groundwork, we determined that three batches would be a good goal.”

Since then, Nix has visited with workers from WTI’s round-the-clock shifts and consulted with management. Together, they work through improvements born out of lean manufacturing, which are processes engineered to reduce waste and improve customer satisfaction. The goal is to reach 40 percent OEE for producing buffered vinegar, a metric built on several components of the manufacturing process.

More recently, Nix introduced a new tool to these efforts: A software platform called Impruver, developed out of Georgia Tech’s Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC). It’s designed to help small and mid-sized manufacturers of consumer products spot trends in metrics, track performance and monitor ongoing issues. “It’s great to have another entity inside ATDC working with us and our clients,” Nix says.

While all of GaMEP’s contributions are welcomed, Stephan Georg has special praise for the non-engineering side of Damon Nix. “While he looks at the facts and explains things in a scientific way, he also treats people here with respect,” Georg says. “They see that he’s not here to get them fired. He’s the guy who’s here to help.”

By Michael Baxter, with the College of Engineering at Georgia Tech

Achieving Your Company’s Long-term Goals

September 30, 2019 By

As with any pursuit that is worthwhile, unfortunately, there is no “magic wand” that can create long-term change and growth for a company’s operations or culture. Instead you need a lasting commitment from your leaders for change to occur and be sustained.

Implementing an Organizational Excellence Model is about more than an assessment or incorporating shiny new visual management boards on your plant floor. It is about the willingness of an organization and its leaders to want to pursue greatness and take their company to that next level.

In order to achieve Organization Excellence a company must be willing to do four things:

Get out of their comfort zone
Gain top management’s buy-in
Commit time and resources
Be willing to push forward, even when it gets hard, the team gets busy, or the “new excitement has worn off”

Seasons-4 Inc., an industry leader, in commercial and industrial HVAC manufacturing company, is seeing long-term growth and impressive results from their continued pursuit of Organizational Excellence. Mike Stonecipher, GaMEP project manager said, “We first started with an assessment and interview of their team to get a better understanding of their actual needs and base recommendations off of those needs. From there, we’ve helped them implement a Management Daily Improvement system, problem solving strategies, and lean tools for consistent job training.”

Once those plans were in place and had become part of the team’s daily routine, Seasons-4 has worked with GaMEP to move onto developing their leadership skills. The team has since sent more than 40 team members through eight modules of training on everything from “building and sustaining trust” to “driving change” to “resolving workplace conflict”, all as part of their overall approach to improvement.

Saibal Sengupta, President Seasons-4 Inc. said, “The advanced leadership training conducted by GaMEP has been greatly beneficial to Seasons-4’s frontline supervisors. All our supervisors have great product knowledge but most of them needed the required soft skills to lead, engage and motivate their employees. After this training we have seen a noticeable improvement in employee engagement, accountability, productivity and team performance. The training provided tools to tackle some of the most difficult employee related situations. We believe that this training helped them to make the transition from a good supervisor to an effective leader. Ultimately, all these have a direct positive impact on the continued profitability and success of Seasons-4.”

Stonecipher said, “I’ve trained a lot of organizations, but there’s a difference between conducting training for a tactical reason versus the strategic pursuit of the organization to improve as a whole.”

In manufacturing, as in anything else, if you look at the entire picture, instead of just pieces of the pie, you are better able to position your company for the future while tackling the most pressing issues you are facing.

How Industry 4.0 is Driving Changes in Modern Manufacturing

July 18, 2019 By

Industry Trends: Manufacturing

Manufacturing makes the modern world possible, from the food we eat to the devices we use to communicate. But just as our technology evolves, so too does the approach to making it.

But, manufacturing encompasses multiple technologies and disciplines — and change occurs in all of them. Here are the key trends in manufacturing today and how they’re shaping the factories, supply chains and workforce of tomorrow.

Trend #1: Industry 4.0

By some estimates, the world is currently in the throes of its fourth industrial revolution — one defined by interconnectedness, decentralization, automation and analytics.

“It’s basically the deployment of what a lot of people are calling ‘smart factories,’” says Mike Demaline, director of Industry and Strategic Partnerships at Georgia Tech Professional Education.

Of course a smart, data-driven factory doesn’t thrive in isolation. Large firms exist as part of the greater manufacturing ecosystem and depend on numerous small and mid-size companies. Associate Director of the Georgia Manufacturing Extension Partnership, Timothy Israel believes that one of the most significant shifts in manufacturing is the ubiquitous implementation of new technologies.

“I think the most important trend is the adoption of technology throughout the manufacturing supply chain,” Israel says. “It’s industry 4.0, the internet of things, the whole connection of the plant floor, automation and the related cyber security issues.”

So you might think of Industry 4.0 as the meta-trend in modern manufacturing. It entails all of the subsequent trends on our list.

Trend #2: Analytics and the Internet of Things

You can’t have a smart factory without data — and thanks to the information generated by the ever-expanding sensory capabilities of manufacturing technology, a smart factory has more data about its processes than ever before.

According to Chris Luettgen, Professor of the Practice and Associate Director at Georgia Institute of Technology, the advantages of big data analytics go well beyond the ability to troubleshoot problems.

“When there’s trouble, as engineers, we tend to look at the data and try to find where things got out of control. Big data analytics and predictive process control allow us to manage our process so we never get out of control. Therefore, we could actually use that data every second.”

When combined with sophisticated statistics and processing techniques, the vast amounts of collected information allows smart factories to identify problems in a production process well before a catastrophe or even a minor error occurs.

Trend #3 Project Management

Let’s face it, when most of us think about the future of manufacturing, we think about robots. We may even cling to the notion of machines replacing all the human workers in a given factory. But while automation is indeed a strong trend in manufacturing, such a dystopian vision remains a piece of science fiction.

“I would say that the idea of robots taking our jobs was very much overblown,” says Timothy Israel. “Now, the robots are being put in to help with very manual, repetitive processes. Small scale cobots are helping protect the worker from repetitive motion injuries and things like that.”

Cobots — or collaborative robots — work alongside human workers. Like all automated systems, they require skilled technicians.

“The jobs have shifted,” Israel says. “They’re still there, but now it’s a question of ‘Who works on the robots? Who are the maintenance folks who can keep them running well? Who can program them?’”

These requirements produce higher skilled and better paying jobs to manage the automated systems, sensors and integrated systems that define the smart factory. As a result, many companies are choosing to upskill and reskill existing employees, rather than depend on layoffs and new hires.

Trend #4: Redefining Manufacturing to the Workforce

The manufacturing workforce is changing on multiple fronts. Not only are jobs becoming more skilled, but an aging and highly experienced generation of workers — especially manufacturing engineers — continue to slip into retirement.

With all that employee wisdom ready to walk out the door, companies are moving very fast to capture it. To bolster manufacturing’s future, companies have to appeal to the millennial and post-millennial workforce. Part of the challenge is to promote the changing face of the manufacturing industry. The technology is increasingly advanced, the jobs are skilled and the pay is better.

In redefining manufacturing for new generations of workers, it’s also essential to dispel the misconception that U.S. manufacturing jobs are all going overseas.

Mike Demaline points out that, for years, many commentators believed that U.S. manufacturers simply couldn’t compete in the global market due to heightened costs. This view, he stresses, simply isn’t true anymore.

“That’s why you see so much manufacturing coming back into the county right now,” Demaline says, “because with the use of automation, with the use of technology, with the broad deployment of sensors, the overall cost of manufacturing has declined greatly. And we’re able to be much more flexible and do some things that we weren’t able to do in the past.”

What’s Next?

What does the future hold for manufacturing? For starters, automation will continue to improve the efficiency of the supply chain.

According to Demaline, cost reductions and increases in computational and sensor capabilities are enabling new generations of autonomous hardware. Plus, the advent of self-driving vehicles in coming years will revolutionize the transport of materials.

Additive Manufacturing — or 3D printing — also promises to improve manufacturing efficiency. Instead of subtracting raw materials into required parts through milling or grinding, it allows manufacturers’ increasing ability to assemble three dimensional slices of their intended product.

Prepare for Manufacturing of the Future

Georgia Tech has several professional education offerings to enable manufacturing professionals and employers to prepare for success in the manufacturing environment of tomorrow. We offer training courses, a Certificate in Manufacturing Leadership, and a Professional Master’s in Manufacturing Leadership.

Written by Robert Lamb

Kia Plant Tour Drives Student Interest Towards Careers in the Automotive Industry

May 16, 2019 By

In April, a group of Georgia Tech students had the opportunity to tour the Kia Motors Manufacturing Georgia (KMMG) automotive plant, an impressive facility spanning over 2,300,000 square feet located in West Point, Georgia. Hosted by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) Atlanta Section, the tour provided students with an in-depth look into KMMG’s history and manufacturing process for the three Kia models produced in the plant: The Optima, Sorento, and most recently the Telluride, which debuted in spring of 2019.

Mike Stonecipher of GaMEP at Georgia Tech, Joy Johnston and Ted Arnold of KMMG welcome Georgia Tech students to the Kia Plant

Before witnessing the plant’s assembly line in action, the students met with KMMG employees, Ted Arnold, Head of Quality Assurance, and Joy Johnston, Public Relations Specialist, to learn what sets KMMG apart from other automotive manufacturers. Arnold and Johnston highlighted several of the company’s quality accolades, including its recent award for ranking number one among all mass market brands for four consecutive years. The pair was quick to credit its success and continued growth to its incredibly diverse and highly skilled workforce.

“The Kia Georgia Training Center and Georgia Quick Start have played a key part in the Kia Continuous Improvement mindset, helping us to sustain a work environment dedicated to fostering teamwork, safety, and world-class training,” said Johnston while discussing some of the company’s core values and training methods.

Following a Q&A session, the students experienced the final part of the visit and what they had been anticipating since their arrival – a golf cart tour through the different stages of the Kia assembly facility. During the tour, the students were driven through multiple buildings on-site as Johnston explained the operations performed in each one. In addition to watching employees work together on the assembly line to build vehicles, the students got a firsthand look at how the plant incorporates automation into its process. Stopping at one point in front of a group of industrial robots, the students observed how the robots welded together the inner and outer panels of a vehicle.

“Seeing the automation that surrounds the process was really interesting,” commented Reed Clark, a Georgia Tech senior majoring in mechanical engineering. “I had never been in an automotive plant before so I enjoyed seeing how the assembly line works and watching all the car bodies and parts move overhead from one area to the next until you’ve ended up with a full-blown car. It was easy for me to identify all the different steps of production as they were happening on the assembly line.”

Accompanying the group of Georgia Tech students during the tour was Mike Stonecipher, Project Manager for the Georgia Manufacturing Extension Partnership (GaMEP) at Georgia Tech and Board Chair for the SAE Atlanta Section. Having significant work experience within the automotive field, Stonecipher is an industry expert and has been involved with the SAE Atlanta Section for the past five years. After being named Board Chair three years ago, he has played an integral role in revitalizing the section through strong leadership and strategic plan development and execution. Generating excitement and interest in the field of automotive has been an important goal of the SAE Atlanta Section’s strategic plan. To accomplish this, the SAE Atlanta Section works with Georgia Tech and GaMEP throughout the year to develop successful events that not only increase interest within the community of students, but also champion manufacturing in the state of Georgia.

“The SAE Atlanta section is heavily involved with promoting STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) and serving the automotive industry,” Stonecipher said. “We have some of the best colleges in the world developing the next generation of engineers and leaders. As a result, one of our objectives is to support local manufacturers and students by providing an opportunity to connect.”

The Kia Plant tour is one event choice that aligns well with the SAE Atlanta Section’s objective. According to Patrick Sands, Public Relations Manager, KMMG is excited to offer students ranging from middle school age to college level an inside look at the automotive industry as well as provide an example of an advanced manufacturing opportunity that could be available to them once they join the job market.

“During a plant tour, students are able to see up-close-and-personal the quality that Kia puts into its products,” Sands said. “We hope these tours not only inspire students to think higher of the brand, but to also consider joining the Kia team once they graduate.”

About Kia Motors America

Headquartered in Irvine, California, Kia Motors America continues to top quality surveys and is recognized as one of the 100 Best Global Brands and 50 Best Global Green Brands by Interbrand. Kia serves as the “Official Automotive Partner” of the NBA and offers a complete range of vehicles sold through a network of nearly 800 dealers in the U.S., including cars and SUVs proudly assembled in West Point, Georgia.*