Page 16 - MetalForming January 2016

Best Practices
By Bob Dobrowsky
Four Key Takeaways from
the Women in Manufacturing Summit
This past fall, Women in Manu- facturing ( WiM) held its fifth annual summit in Minneapo- lis. It featured keynote speakers and presenters from companies such as Valspar, Amazon, Medtronic and Intu- itive Surgical, as well as manufactur- ing associations such as the Manu- facturing Leadership Council and the Women’s Business Enterprise Nation- al Council.
Plante Moran supported the sum- mit as a sponsor for a CEO
apprentice programs. We also dis- cussed how to recruit millennial women into manufacturing positions. Manufacturers need to paint the pic- ture for millennials—how will they fit into the role?—and engage them with tours, websites and videos. Millennials long for an insider’s view and authen- tic relationships; tell them what works at your company.
2) Innovation was a critical focus.
During the Fishbowl, we discussed
where culture becomes so critical. One recommendation involved develop- ing an entrepreneurial operating sys- tem—a more formalized plan for com- pany culture so that it survives from one generation to the next—that includes room for growth and evolu- tion. After all, we have an owner’s manual for nearly every tool out there, but how many of us have a manual for our business? Employee engagement was another area of focus. One attendee used the phrase, “write up or light up,” a variation on the old carrot vs. stick argument, as in, “Would you rather write your employees up or light them up?” We agreed that a strong culture isn’t just about perks or parties but instead about under- standing what motivates employees and what they’re passionate about, and then igniting those passions— lighting them up.
4) Exercise caution when consid- ering an international presence. “Cau- tion” was the word of the day when considering international operations. One attendee relayed a personal expe- rience where a customer had asked her to open a site in Mexico to produce a new product. She explored the opportunity and was close to signing a lease when the customer cancelled the contract. Just because a customer asks you to go global doesn’t mean that you should. One suggestion was to locate a site in Texas, close to the Mexico bor- der. Another was to house inventory, rather than locate an operation, in Mexico.
Throughout the two-and-a-half days, approximately 290 women engaged in discussions, education and networking, and the GE Foundation awarded WiM $100,000 for scholar- ships. The future continues to look bright for women in manufacturing.
MF
Fishbowl, which my col- league, Kristen Stumpo, an assurance partner with Plante Moran, was hon- ored to facilitate. Here are her four key takeaways from that discussion.
“Manufacturers need to paint the picture for millennials—how will they fit into the role?—and engage them with tours, websites and videos. Millennials long for an insider’s view and authentic relationships; tell them what works at your company.”
innovation through the lenses of diversity and technology—the impor- tance of building teams with diverse backgrounds and the use of technol- ogy and automation. But innovation was a theme that ran throughout the entire summit. The Manufacturing 4.0 session, where we dissected the digitally connected plant including digitization of all processes, digital- manufacturing simulation, 3D print- ing and even 4D printing, was par- ticularly memorable. We discussed the limitless possibilities of 3D tech- nology, but mass production scale is still hindered by environmental issues and energy use required for industri- al 3D printers.
3) Corporate culture is key. It’s one thing to successfully recruit women into a manufacturing organization; it’s quite another to retain them. That’s
1) Talent management
remains a hot topic.
CEOs at the Fishbowl put
talent management at the
top of the importance
scale and discussed sev-
eral nontraditional options and roles for employees, including leveraging skilled, part-time staff; flexing volume with offsite staff; engaging commu- nity college students in nontechnical fields such as graphic design; and making these students aware of
authored the annual PMA Benchmarking Report since 2003, serves as a member of the board of directors for PMA’s Cleveland district, and has pre- sented at various district level meetings. www.plantemoran.com Bob.Dobrowsky@plantemoran.com
14 MetalForming/January 2016
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Bob Dobrowsky is a part- ner with the Cleveland office of Plante Moran, PLLC, and is one of the leaders of the firm’s Ohio Manufacturing and Distri- bution practice. He has been delivering profes- sional ser vices to private- ly held companies for the past 21 years. Bob has