Podcast: From frontline worker to plant manager — Leadership lessons in manufacturing

PS: Let me ask a technology question. Is there a specific technology or best practice like ultrasound or vibration analysis that stands out as particularly effective at helping your teams getting their arms around these kinds of projects?

JL: Some of our plants at Trivium, we do have a lot of vibration analysis. We have sensors on critical pumps, motors, blowers, that sort of thing, where we can monitor those things and they'll send alerts. Specific to Youngstown, we've got a bit of a homegrown system that we're very proud of called our central monitoring system. That's where we've deployed a sensor network of IFM sensors across critical support equipment such as our pneumatic supply, our water treatment, our reverse thermoxidizers, our vacuum systems. And we're looking for a change, so we're looking for vibration to change for bearing temperatures, water quality to change, differential pressures to be outside of thresholds. 

So we monitor these and we look for a change in state so we can predictively anticipate a failure and get ready for it, and also understand mean time to failure throughout that process. What happens is we sense a change with the sensor, it's going to trigger an e-mail to technical managers, maintenance managers, and then they're going to kick that over to the team to investigate and go out there and see what is the urgency of this. Was it in fact a reading that we need to respond to? Is it something we need to plan into our next opportunistic downtime event or into regularly scheduled maintenance? 

It’s been good for us, it’s helped us. I can tell you since I've been here in the last few years, I can't remember any support system downtime we've had that's taken the plant down, and again this our largest plant, 14 production lines, 24/7 running. So you can imagine if you lose a compressor or a vacuum system or your water is not within specification, you've got a lot of lines that are going to go down and a lot of volume that's lost.

PS: Holy cow, this program I'm guessing didn't develop overnight too. How long did it take to implement the sensors and then get the data moving where it had to go, and then get the notification the right people? Was that a one-year process? Or multi year, sort of growing over time?

JL: Yep, it’s grown over time, it's probably a 3 or 4 year project to get everything in place, understand where's the best ideal optimal location for the sensor network, getting the communication stream in place, and getting our people to understand the e-mail triggers to investigate, and working that into the PM cycles and updating PMs and that sort of thing. It's been a multi year journey.

PS: One last question before we focus more on leadership. Did your training in the Air Force inform your approach to asset management? Because it's sort of a truism among the reliability folks that I know that a lot of best practices are drawn from aircraft maintenance. I was struck that you mentioned an Air Force background. Did that influence the way you think about these things?

JL: Absolutely, I worked on fighter jets in the Air Force, the F15 and the F16 specifically. And you can imagine with the Air Force it's incredible training and standards and expectations that need to be met, and the maintenance cycles are non-negotiable on a $30 million jet. 

We had an incredible standard of work. So when we talk about standard operating procedures and work instructions, they were in fact orders, they were direct orders that we had to follow this process to maintain or to remove and install a new weapons launcher, to do an operational check, that sort of thing. That was my background for six years of knowing that that the maintenance schedule and the standard of work involved with maintenance was non-negotiable. You can imagine being in a position as plant manager, you know, I've got an eye towards making sure that we have standard work, that we've got feedback from the team when the standard work needs adjusted or updated or is no longer relevant. Those motions need to be happening quite continuously to be in the optimal state.

PS: If we can move to leadership in general, one of the things I've noticed at recent conferences is that the next generation of plant leadership is moving into place. As millennials move into these leadership positions and GenX takes over from Boomers, how do you approach training new leaders from different generations? Do you modify your approach based on the generation that you're speaking to?

JL: Very interesting question. Having been born in 1980 I think I've fallen into the GenX category here. So again, 19 years ago I entered this business and it was very much a command-and-control dynamic from leadership. Top-down decision-making, decisions only seem to have been made at certain levels, and then we just had to carry out the orders. Thankfully that dynamic it feels has eroded away quite a bit with the generational shift, because I feel the workforce now desires a bit of a work environment that offers empowerment and autonomy. They want to feel vested in the results, they want to feel like a shareholder, they want to be impactful and they want some space to make decisions at the appropriate level. 

As a consequence when I look to grow and develop leaders – and I have several leaders here that you know are younger than me that have come up and are leading some folks – I would say it’s all for a leadership style that the frontline workers can buy into, that they can get behind and they feel like they're truly impacting the business. My coaching is, as a leader, we need to be empathetic, we need to be authentic, transparent, and most importantly servant based. That's what I found to be most impactful to motivate and to inspire folks to own their piece of the business and maybe even get some discretionary effort. You know, I talk about pay above and beyond maybe what they feel like we're already rewarding them for. 

So I want my leaders to direct their efforts to ensure that the team they're leading is successful. Our success comes from the success of the team we're leading, so the more we orient our mind towards that, toward our coaching and development, towards the empowerment and autonomy of the team. We want a very structured training plan to develop the skill sets and confidence of the team. But most importantly, I want my leaders to be humble enough to roll up their sleeve shirts and get dirty alongside the frontline leaders or the frontline workers when a situation calls for it. That’s kind of how I earned a lot of respect without really endeavoring for that. My last plan was I got down there and I did what we were asking them to do. I had the empathy to understand what we were doing, and I was there as an hourly entry level anyway. 

I think overall just driving decision making down to the lowest level, and coaching and developing this new generation of leaders is probably the most impactful way to unleash potential and discretionary effort. It’s kind of my focus to push away the top-down decision making and drive decision-making down to the best level possible to motivate the team.

PS: Your answer covered two interesting poles of what especially millennials and GenZ seem to want – both a formal training expectation, sort of the plan going forward, but also the autonomy to make decisions and help inform their own progress. So I'm curious to know, you said you did sort of a formal training track in places. Is this homegrown Trivium-based training? Do you borrow methods from other trainers to build that sequence out for new leaders?

JL: We do have a homegrown Trivium leadership platform. We call it Leadership Essentials, where our new leaders in position, or even some of our tenured leaders, will go for a three or four day class with several leaders. We generally bring leaders in from different plants, so we have a nice dynamic of folks, and we'll step through some critical characteristics that we think would unleash the potential of the team and discretionary efforts and just give some solid leadership perspectives to take back to their teams.

PS: We'll get you out here on this question. We’ve got a lot of frontline workers these days who are curious on how you advance into leadership. When I was a kid, I simply thought it was inevitable, as many kids do. What advice do you give frontline workers who are looking at the next step and might not be sure how to get there? Would you tell them to do?

JL: So, this has been my experience. I came in entry level 19 years ago in this metal packaging industry and so I can speak from experience. My first six years was a frontline worker in a union plant in fact, so I never, never thought I'd be a plant manager of one of the biggest plants in the world, in this industry. 

The first piece of advice I'd offer is in whatever position you're in, be awesome in that position as a frontline worker. If you can exemplify your ability to pursue excellence and deliver excellence just in your daily task, and whatever assignments come your way from the leadership team, it's going to land you on the radar of being somebody that's potentially in a position to promote. It's really marketing yourself just by doing an awesome job in your area of responsibility and showing the team that you're already moving the business forward or you're already an informal leader amongst your peers. So that's Step 1, promote your own exposure through excellence. In fact, excellence is one of our core values here at Trivium along with passion and teamwork. It's a great way to distinguish yourself not only in your organization, but among your peers. 

I would say the second piece of advice is really lean into developmental opportunities as a leader. This can come from many different areas. You can volunteer for a continuous improvement project and be a facilitator on that team and step up. You can join a team that’s looking to boost efficiencies or drive down scrap and spoilage in the plant, and take a lead role there. Even outside of the plant, activities committees or community engagement opportunities to market your employer and your business in the community is a great way to step up and lead. Or even a coach with your kids is a great way – if you can influence and lead kids, it's a pretty good chance you can do it in a manufacturing environment. 

But I would say the ideal situation to press in your leadership, is look for those opportunities to backfill when leaders are out on vacation or leaders have gone into a different assignment. Step up, put your name in the hat and say, :hey, I would like to lead the team, I would like to lead the crew, give me a shot.” And that gives you two things. It gives you the opportunity to understand whether it's a worthy ambition, whether it's what you think it is, so you can run through the position for a week or two weeks, or a month and you can decide, yeah, this what I want, this is where I feel I can be more impactful as an individual contributor. But it also gives the leadership of the organization an opportunity to understand your capabilities, and potentially develop a plan to ascend you into leadership and help you grow there. 

My final piece of advice here what I try to endeavor to role model myself, just as lawyers and doctors practice their crafts, leadership is also a practice that's also a continual process of self-education, reflection, and refining your leadership skills. It's not a one-size-fits-all approach, so you've got to adjust to every one of your followers where you might need a different leadership style, and you've got to understand how to motivate and influence those folks. I've read a lot of books, and leaned into a lot of books to understand different perspectives of how to unlock leaders and grow leaders in their career. But I would say most important thing that anybody wants to do that can lead or is already leading, is to be a student of leadership. Understand the skills and the traits that good leaders are exhibiting to be successful, and understand what's working well, what's not working well, and adjust where you need to.

PS: That's all terrific and sound advice, and I love the part where you said, where there is an opportunity to backfill, to give folks a taste of what you can do and also to give yourself a taste of what it's like, what a terrific idea. That sounds like a life hack but one that was well earned by you, experienced by you in a way.

JL: Yeah, we do that here in the Youngstown plant. There's a path, a definitive path from entry level employee to plant manager. Everybody has an opportunity to step up at all ranks of leadership, quasi leadership, and see what they can do. It’s important to seek out those opportunities. I mean, they may come to you, they may not, but you’ve got to stretch for them as well.

About the Podcast
Great Question: A Manufacturing Podcast offers news and information for the people who make, store and move things and those who manage and maintain the facilities where that work gets done. Manufacturers from chemical producers to automakers to machine shops can listen for critical insights into the technologies, economic conditions and best practices that can influence how to best run facilities to reach operational excellence.

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