Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1330321
20 PCB007 MAGAZINE I JANUARY 2021 every weekend just to keep up with other de- partments, to smoothly running 800 to 1,000 panels per day, keeping up with other depart- ments. Couple the engineering efforts to dial in those processes cutting out waste on the en- gineering side, with a manager doing likewise on the production workflow side, and you can really drive out the waste working in tandem creating the start of smart processes. Johnson: That's a great example. Did that cre- ate a sense of urgency to do similar things in other departments? Has this spread? LaBeau: It has spread, although it's not conta- gious yet. We have a significant number of op- erators, young and old, working on reducing waste and increasing efficiencies within their workflow. And we are continuing to do this daily coupled with advancements in machin- ery and smart processes. If you don't allow young engineers to par- ticipate at the supply chain level, then they're not going to learn or innovate. Audra and her team have direct channels into any equipment supplier, especially our material suppliers. We must extend the innovation cycle all the way down to the raw ma- terials since this is a holistic eco- system for advancing technologies. We work with suppliers to do sup- plier technology summits where we collaborate on new technolo- gies to advance solutions for all our end customers. If you can harness this culture in the supply chain, then you're going to advance faster and develop smart engineers, tech- nicians and operators. Johnson: You're staffing with young, motivated engineers who have a different perspective and aren't weighted down with the tradition of the industry. Then, you're giving them problems to solve with room to fail as long as it's failing forward. How do you integrate longtime in- dustry expertise into this process? Thurston: I am still a young engineer and there's another generation coming up behind me, but one thing that has helped our young engineers, myself included, is just asking ques- tions. We don't always know why we are doing something a certain way in a 50-year-old busi- ness. If a senior engineer can't give a great an- swer, it also opens their eyes. We both ques- tion why we are doing it this way. Then, the teams works together to answer the question or develop new systemic ideas for traditional processes. I am also asked these types of ques- tions and sometimes I can't answer them ei- ther. That's when we take the time and dig in and find out if this is the right way to do it. Can we do it in a different way? Is this the smartest way? Let's find those answers together. LaBeau: When we started bringing in new en- gineers, we moved every engineer into a new process. The engineer may have been man- aging that process for the last 15 to 20 years, and we decided it was time to continue the ever-evolving learning process and move them to a different factory and to open their eyes Calumet young engineers at work: (Left to right) Cole Van Camp, engineer 1; Chris Davis, engineering intern; Audra Thurston, R&D engineer manager; Rob Cooke, director of design engineering and Engineering Services; and Ian Huibregtse, senior engineer.