Efficient Plant March 2020 - 4

column | editorial

Foster
Culture
Gary L. Parr
Editorial Director

NE OF manufacturing's biggest challenges is establishing and sustaining a
culture of transparency and collaboration. Companies that put forth the effort and truly
engage employees at all levels find that they make
significant gains with every KPI they track.
In an article, "Reimagining manufacturing: A
culture makeover," Jeff French, National Managing
Partner of Grant Thornton LLP, Chicago (grantthornton.com), makes two statements that accurately describe what needs to be accomplished. Regarding overall perception, he tells us, "The industry
needs to change the perception of manufacturing.
Companies need to create an environment that
looks and feels like what they are talking about."
When we look at the people aspect, French tells us,
"Manufacturers are very good at setting goals such
as safety, quality, efficiency, on-time delivery, and
measuring against those. They do that really well
but need to focus on communicating to workers

how their roles impact the big picture. Employees
need to understand how their role helps in achieving increased quality and linking operational KPIs
with the overall business strategy." You can read the
entire article at grantthornton.com/library/articles/
manufacturing/2019/reimagining-manufacturing-culture-makeover.aspx
In the article, French sites a recent Gallup survey
that states workers in manufacturing companies are
the least engaged in the overall workforce-they are
a full eight percentage points behind all other industry sectors. While 59% of manufacturing executives
rate their company cultures as healthy, that number,
whether it reflects reality, is not an indicator of what
the outside world sees. French refers to a Fabricators
and Manufacturers Association survey that found
52% of U.S. teenagers expressed little or no interest
in pursuing a manufacturing career. When asked
why, respondents described manufacturing as a
declining field with unprofessional, dead-end jobs;

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Efficient Plant March 2020

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