Thursday, March 8, is International Women's Day, with events across the globe scheduled in support of promoting gender parity and this year's IWD theme, #PressforProgress. Industrial leaders including Caterpillar (an official IWD 2018 partner), Schneider Electric, Amazon, Northrop Grumman, and McKesson are among the big names supporting International Women's Day, which was first formally observed in Europe in 1911.
In honor of the day, we at Plant Services wanted to highlight just a few of the perspectives of women working to shape manufacturing in the U.S. today, from design-for-reliability advocate Marie Getsug (PMP, CMRP, CRL) to Eli Lilly & Co. global plant maintenance and reliability engineer and U.S. Army veteran Rendela Wenzel to our newest Big Picture Interviewee, industrial workforce development executive Mollie Dowling of OAI Inc.
Hear more from them and other women leading industry in the stories that follow, and thank you to all of the women on the plant floor, in the control room, and in the C-suite who have shared their stories and thought leadership with Plant Services over the years.
She leads industrial innovation
Plant Services contributing editor Sheila Kennedy, CMRP, speaks with seven women leaders in manufacturing and asset management on what’s driving industry’s new revolution.
Design for reliability: Long may your assets run
In this feature story, Marie Getsug, currently of Jacobs Engineering Group, and Stephen Holland of Abbott Laboratories/Abbott Nutrition tackle everything you need to know (and do) to ensure success with asset installation – because asset management is everyone’s business.
Manufacturing Hiring 101: Stop chasing unicorns
In this new Big Picture Interview, Mollie Dowling, executive director of the not-for-profit, Chicago-based workforce development organization OAI Inc., explores how current and looming labor shortages demand more-strategic hiring, retention efforts.
Making enterprise performance management work for your plant
What does an hour of downtime cost your plant? How can you get to the point where you can prevent that downtime, whether through early warning of emerging equipment problems, procedures that the workforce more efficient, or improved access to contextual data that allows you to make smarter operations decisions? Schneider Electric's Kim Custeau considers how to achieve maximum economic return for assets in this feature.
Prevent robotic welding accidents
Although robotic welders are one of the most expensive pieces of equipment on a plant floor, welder manufacturers may not provide the safeguarding needed for compliance with Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) regulations and American National Standards Institute (ANSI) standards, Rockford Systems' Carrie Halle warns in this installment of Automation Zone.
Facing workforce change: Do recruitment, retention, engagement better
"For Amanda Saam, the path to greater financial security and better career prospects ran through Somerset (KY) Community College’s Industrial Maintenance Technology program. Saam, 36, graduated from the program in May, and after a summer busy with both job-hunting and spending time with her 13-year-old daughter, she started a job as a maintenance technician at Hitachi in August," Plant Services managing editor Christine LaFave Grace writes.