Tony Gilleland is the plant manager at Packaging Specialties and today he shares his 22-year progression with the company and what he has learned along the way. In this episode of The Industrial Movement, you will hear a brief history of the company, what Packaging Specialties does, and the biggest challenge their industry is facing today. Tony also gives some advice to manufacturing leaders, tells us about the resources that have helped him, and discusses some of the most influential people in his life. Next, Tony describes the biggest lesson he learned and what he took away from it before giving us some insight into the methods Packaging Specialties uses to maintain efficiency and productivity. Finally, Tony looks into his crystal ball and tells us where he sees US manufacturing in 10 years. To hear all this, and more, tune in now!
Tony Gilleland is the plant manager at Packaging Specialties and today he shares his 22-year progression with the company and what he has learned along the way. In this episode of The Industrial Movement, you will hear a brief history of the company, what Packaging Specialties does, and the biggest challenge their industry is facing today. Tony also gives some advice to manufacturing leaders, tells us about the resources that have helped him, and discusses some of the most influential people in his life. Next, Tony describes the biggest lesson he learned and what he took away from it before giving us some insight into the methods Packaging Specialties uses to maintain efficiency and productivity. Finally, Tony looks into his crystal ball and tells us where he sees US manufacturing in 10 years. To hear all this, and more, tune in now!
EPISODE 27
[INTRODUCTION]
[00:00:02] MH: You're listening to The Industrial Movement, where we discuss the people, the processes, and the equipment that drives American manufacturing. If this is your first time listening, then thanks for coming. The Industrial Movement podcast is produced every week for your enjoyment, and the show notes can be found at our website at www.theindustrialmovement.com.
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Now, let's get on to the show.
[INTERVIEW]
[00:00:40] MH: Hi, folks. Welcome back to The Industrial Movement. I'm your show host Morty Hodge. With me as always, my trusty sidekick, Greg Smith.
[00:00:47] GS: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the show.
[00:00:49] MH: Today, we have Tony Gilleland. Did I say that right, Tony?
[00:00:53] TG: You did, absolutely.
[00:00:55] MH: He’s plant manager from Packaging Specialties in Gainesville, Georgia. I'll let Tony tell you a little bit about what Packaging Specialties does, and of course, his story. Tony, welcome to The Industrial Movement.
[00:01:06] TG: Thanks. Thanks for having me. And first and foremost, thank you both for having me on the show. I appreciate it. This is new to me, but I'll be glad to get through this by all means and share my story. The other part, I wanted to say was congratulations on the Best Workplace in America. That's quite an accomplishment right there. Having Ted Nugent send you a video and also Shooter McGavin, I mean, those are great videos. I also got to see the video of your folks given one word for representing the company, which is really good. It's all about the people. People are proud of what they do, and we'll get into a little bit about that with Packaging Specialties as well. So, thank you guys for having me.
[00:01:45] MH: Thanks, Tony. So, Tony, tell us a little bit about what Packaging Specialties does, and if you have a little bit of history with the company, we’d like to hear that too.
[00:01:53] TG: Sure. So, sometimes jokingly, but seriously say that Packaging Specialties is a worldwide, wide web flexographic printer. So, what that means if you break it down worldwide, we have customers that are outside, of course the United States. Wide web, meaning we're running a wider web polyethylene, polyolefins, things like that, plastic basically. Flexographic printer means that we use a flexo plate. We apply it with ink that's on analogs to a plate to the substrate, which is that plastic. So, give you a little bit of examples, I'm not sure if I should name drop or not, but anybody who uses tissues, you could see those tissues that you buy in bulk packs from Sam’s or Costcos, the plastic that you tear off of those 12 boxes, or six boxes, we print those.
So, we print those for Kimberly Clark, P&G, Puffs and Kleenex, things like that. We also do stuff for the water industry. If you're like the hot days, like today, in Georgia, when you need a 24-pack of bottled water, the overwrap, we would do that overwrap that you tear off to get into those bottles. So, narrow web would be more on those models. The label that wraps around that model would be more of a narrow web printer, where the wide web printer which would be the big bundling packages. We also do tray pack, which would be your chickens, your produce toss and anything like that, that would be a chicken in a tray with the overwrap that you or your wife or spouse or whomever tears that thing off, throws it away, cooks that chicken and then we're putting another wrapper on the press to print for the consumer as well.
Some of the frozen stuff we do would be like the frozen chicken. When you buy that pack and you tear that piece off that has the zipper in there, so you can reuse that bag, we print those bags. We basically get it in and roll form, unwind that roll, print it, wind it back up, bag and tag it, ship it to the customer. It sounds easy, but it's really a little more complex than that. But that's just a small example of some of the products that we do. We also have a machine division that forms the bags and applies that zipper. That's our pack-mech division. So yeah, that's a little bit of an overview as far as products.
The history on the company, Mr. Hayes Biggs who has passed away I believe it was 2003 when he passed, and he started our company somewhere in around ‘74 or ‘75. So, before I was even born, he had an idea for a printing company. Started out with a PVC film, which is basically your films that when you go to the produce area, your mushrooms, some meats would be in that film. He started it with a PVC company in Fayetteville, Arkansas, following Sam Walton as far as where the home offices for that, as far as the Tossin brand is in Arkansas as well. So, it seemed like a good area to set up camp to print for those guys.
That was around ‘74, ’75. In 1983, the company branched out to Georgia. We're just off of Murphy Boulevard. We've expanded as far as we can expand in that cul-de-sac of Murphy Boulevard in Georgia. I mean that was in ‘83 that we started and we're still going strong. And then in 2008, we started another company, we wanted to hit the west coast because we were looking for areas. California is pretty expensive. We were looking at Salt Lake City, and we found a beautiful place in Burley, Idaho. So, you can see the Rocky Mountains there. The city of Burley gave us some tax breaks and things like that. They just sweeten the deal so we couldn’t not build there. So, in 2008, we opened our Burley, Idaho plant. We have the home office in Fayetteville, Arkansas, our pack-mech machine division is in Fayetteville, Arkansas. We have a printing plant in Georgia, and then a printing plant in Burley, Idaho.
[00:05:27] MH: That's impressive. And what year was it you guys went to, you said Idaho, or?
[00:05:31] TG: Yes, Idaho. Burley, and it's South Idaho. I think it's two hours, two and a half hours from Salt Lake City, just due North. It's a beautiful drive.
[00:05:41] MH: Yeah. I know, that's a beautiful part of the country. I've been to Utah, and it's beautiful. What year was that? You guys put that plan out there?
[00:05:48] TG: 2008. Very cool. Very cool. So, when the market was coming down, we were expanding.
[00:05:54] MH: Outstanding. Tony, tell us a little bit about your story. You've been the plant manager there for 22 years. Is that right?
[00:06:00] TG: Well, actually, I've been with the company 22 years. Plant manager, I took over in 2016. So, we're on what, six years now, something like that. I think, took over plant manager, August of 2016.
[00:06:14] MH: So, tell us your progression with the company 22 years? I'd like to hear that story.
[00:06:18] TG: Sure. So, I started with the company in September of 1999. It's probably not the best story, but it's a true story. In September ‘99, I was actually rolling beer for Northeast Sales. I was working for Miller Beer, and a buddy of mine was working for Coca Cola and he was rolling Coke. We talked, he said, there was a printing company. He didn't know the name of it. They work three days a week, 12-hour shifts, and came and look for the place, applied. I was hired on as a press operator. So, I had no clue. I had never seen a printing press before my tour of Packaging Specialties.
The moment I was hired, I know this sounds cliché, but the moment I was hired on, I was intrigued. The flexographic printing is something different and unique every single day, there's a challenge. Growing up playing sports, competitive, but absolutely challenges in printing every single day in different challenges. So, I was intrigued from that moment. In short, I came home for the three days a week, kept trying to learn everything, and it seemed like the more that I learned the more days a week I work. As I come through the ranks of the press room, learn the plate room, tried to help in maintenance when I could try to learn the inks, the entire process, from start to finish, being 22 years old, coming through the ranks, it seemed like. Have you seen the movie Office Space where the guys trying to get fired? I wasn't trying to get fired, but I just kept getting promoted, and I think it was just from the great attitude and willingness to learn.
Whatever it may be, I've been blessed. I've got to learn all aspects of the business. I still don't know everything about it by any means. So, from ‘99 to probably 2003, I was a press operator from like 2003 to 2005. I learned the plate side, the ink side, the maintenance side. Actually, went to night shift to move up as a – we call it a lead man, a lead person now in 2022, but moved up to a lead man which is an assistant supervisor. We then change supervisor terms to team leader, so assistant team leader, if you will. Later the team leader that was on my shift, which I learned a great deal from. He wanted to step aside he was going through a divorce and I was actually able to inherit that team leader role. The day shift team leader role opened up and I left for day shift, and then that gets us to about 2007. We were looking to open the plant, we opened the plant in 2008. The guy who is our press room foreman moved to Burley, Idaho to become plant manager of that plant. And when he did, I was able to move into the production manager production foreman role. And basically, I had all four of our shifts from the production side.
My mentor, which we'll discuss later, I'm sure, my mentor actually told me I was like, “What am I in charge of? What am I over?” Being young, I didn't have a clue. He said, “Don't look at it as what you're over, look at it as who you support.” He said, “Currently you support the entire pressroom. So, everyone who runs your presses, the machines, helpers, things like that, that’s who you support.” He said, “Go support those guys, find out what they need, give them what they need, make sure they're taken care of. In return, the customers be taken care of, and things will be a lot easier, and then it'll start branching into other aspects of the plant.” I didn't know what he meant at the time. Looking back on it, it's one of those crossroads.
But what he actually meant was just that support those guys, you're not over anything you report to those guys. That's how you should look at it. So, I reported to those guys, when I saw some issues. There was a lot of the code arms pointing to this department, that department, things like that. So, start solving those issues, working with the other departments and taking a humble but competitive approach meaning don't go play the blame game. Everyone loses and that. If you go from approach say, “Hey, this guy is having this issue, or this lady's having this issue, what can I do to help?” So, it's basically putting yourself out there.
One time of that doesn't work, two times, three times. After a few weeks, you start getting a gathering, and things start getting done, people start doing things for you. Well, I can help out here, I can make this tweak, I can make this. So, within the 2008, ’09, and ‘10 years, I kind of took over as assistant plant manager with that approach with my mentor’s guidance, and then became a number two. And then it became where my plant manager at the time, basically, just took me under his wing and showed me everything he didn't get to learn, so to speak. I committed to him. I told him, I said, “Whatever you want to teach me, I'm a sponge, I'm yours.” There was an issue that happened in 2008, where I got humbled really quick, where my ego got in my way. I realized humble pie doesn't taste good but you can learn a lot of value from it. I took that value. I told my mentor said, “Whatever you want me to be, just mold me into it.” And he did. He's still tough on me to this day, even through yesterday, but I appreciate it, I really do, and that got me into assistant plant manager.
In 2016, we were looking for – we implemented lean manufacturing into it. We call it continuous improvement. We started our Lean journey in 2005. So, I apologize for hopping around on here. But David Hodges was the guy that introduced us to lean manufacturing in Georgia. We started implementing those practices, getting by and changing the culture. In 2016, the Georgia plant was thriving. The entire corporation was thriving and we have been for years. David Hodges was the plant manager at the time. He was moved up to a corporate role where all three plants reported to David. So, trying to implement those lean standards in all three plants, like he did in Georgia was the goal for David moving up from that, and rightfully so he was the guy for it.
So, when David moved up to the corporate level was the time that I was offered the plant manager role and took that role. That's what got us to 2016. 2016 was basically finishing out the year. I told David, I said, 2016, you were plant manager. I was your assistant, but we both worked hand in hand with each other to finish out September, October, November, December. I was like, “Well, I've got the wheel of the boat, let's just don't flip the boat over the rest of the year. So, no drastic changes from that.” And then 2017, we put together what I call our core team, or what we call our core team. Iadded a member to that team, and it's basically five folks that the entire plant, I, don’t want to say reports to, but they manage the entire plant. They support the rest of the plant and that started in 2017 and it's still working through 2022. And then the other plants are doing the same thing with core management, key departments, and things like that. So, that's a little bit about me and as far as the 22, almost 23-year journey, I know that's probably getting it into a nutshell.
[00:12:51] MH: Very good. Thank you for sharing. I like that.
[00:12:54] TG: Absolutely.
[00:12:54] GS: That's an awesome story. So, I think there's a lot of people out there that need to hear, like your journey and tied it into – well, let me just ask you a question. What's the biggest challenge your industry is facing today?
[00:13:06] TG: Okay, so our industry as far as printing, there's gravure, there's flexographic, there's digital printing, things like that. Digital printing, it's like, when you actually print something with a 3D printer, it's like you're taking a spool of plastic and creating something that doesn't exist. Digital printing, it eliminates a lot of things like the flexographic plates, the analog, stuff like that. So, it's a great idea, it's a great concept, the speeds just aren't there yet, as far as the digital printing. From what I've seen or from there, but those speeds will come with technology, and they are. So, I could see a digital flexo merging that hasn't happened before. I could see that probably coming in the future. I don't know if I'd call that an obstacle, but digital does compete with flexo. So, you're there, I could see those two merging.
But the biggest thing probably since the pandemic, challenging-wise, is personnel. Finding people. In 2019, before the world went mad, and we were probably running with 132 people under roof that would include all of the PSI staff, all of our in-house from our ink suppliers, plate suppliers, a few corporate folks in IT and stuff like that. I think it was around 132. We got down to 102 well over the last few months, maybe even 98. So, we did dip below the 100 mark, but we're running more linear footage. We're putting out more footage than that. So, we've put a few things in place to be able to survive that.
I just worry about stressing people out, overworking people, things like that. Having to pick up that extra shift isn't bad. But picking up that extra shift, those extra three shifts week after week after week, it wears on folks. That's one of my biggest worries. We've seen a few people trickling in over the last couple of months. But I just see and now hiring signs at every restaurant everywhere you go, it's kind of scary. But we've talked to folks across the country. One of our customers uses – we got 144-inch seatbelt that we actually wrap the pallet with, and it's a safety measure that I use, which is a great idea when we ordered those seatbelts. The guy called, he was like, I just want to make sure that I got this order, correct. He and I started speaking on staffing, and he was down the same percentage that we were down here in Georgia, and those guys are at Las Vegas. So, it sounds like it's across the country and most likely across the world. I'm just not sure where to find those people. But this podcast should be really good to inspire some folks.
[00:15:28] MH: Yeah, it's one of our focuses. We know that the top two issues everyone's dealing with is supply chain issues and people, and we really devote a lot of this time and my effort to try to help manufacturers develop new ways to recruit talent and hire that talent and also retain the talent they have. That's very important. Tony, transitioning to personal mastery, what advice would you give to other manufacturing leaders listening to the show?
[00:15:52] TG: Humble, definitely stay humble. As far as anyone in a leadership role, I try to follow these pages that do a lot of inspiration, inspiring you know, you try to look for inspiration everywhere, motivate folks, things like that. I feel like as a leader, your number one duty is to be a coach. A coach doesn't talk to every single player the same way, whether it be basketball, soccer, life coach, football, whatever it may be. To me, if you're a leader, whether you have a title or not, a leader is an earned privilege and it should be viewed that way. As soon as you let it go to your head, you're going to be humbled. But I would say be open-minded and use a coaching strategy.
[00:16:29] GS: That's a good one. Talk to us about any other books or resources that have helped you along your path.
[00:16:34] TG: Okay. I'm not much of a reader. It's not that I can't read or anything. But I like videos. So, videos, movies, I can really relate to and absorb those pretty much. I did read a book called Zapp: Power of Enlightenment, Z-A-P-P, and I could send you a few copies. I actually bought like 20-something copies to pass out because it's an easy read. It's a fun read. It's a fable tale. We were at a training at Ohio State with the TPM group LSNU, and one of the guys through that book out. So, my maintenance manager and I actually went to that trip and we bought the book, we read it. It really hit home with me. It describes how to talk to people, how you can either zap someone's energy, or you can set that energy. You can make someone become a ball of energy that grows into other people, or you can suck the energy right out of them.
So, a poor leader says, I could come in and start bashing people or criticizing or even micromanaging. Micromanaging is a huge zap or sap of energy. People don't want to work for a micromanager. Give me my space, let me do it. If I mess up, let me own it, learn from it and go from there. I don't need to hear about it. But like I said, Zapp is a fable that we picked up from there. It's about a guy who is at his workplace. But he can go into, I believe it's the 17th dimension, where he can look in and see his workers, he can see how his managers interact with people, and he can see when someone inspires someone, the bright light of that, and he could also see the gloom and doom. So, it's just a cool little – it has nothing to do with printing, it has everything to do with printing.
So, it's one of those deals where it's just very inspiring, if you let it be, and it's a good motivator from there. I would recommend that book. A few videos, I'm not sure if you guys are familiar with the 212 Degrees Motivation, but it basically says at 211 degrees, water is really hot. At 212 degrees, water creates steam, steam creates power, which in turn moves a local motion or locomotive, sorry. So, we use that to 212 strategy with some of our folks. There are some videos on YouTube, 212 service is a really good one. There's lots of nuggets in that 212-service video about, of course, the customer comes first. But it says, instead of putting your customer first put your people first, take care of them, because in return your customer will be taken care of. One of my favorite nuggets from that as the six words that every single person wants to hear is what can I do to help?
When you take that approach when your folks like, what can I do to help? You never look down on someone unless you're lifting them up, or picking them up, something like that. But it basically takes your customers and your relationship with your employees to a whole another level, and it takes a satisfied customer, this is another nugget from it. It takes a satisfied customer and it turns them into a raving fan. So, it's a pretty cool deal.
[00:19:23] GS: It's very exciting to hear that there's other leadership out there in manufacturing that thinks that way. It's where we all need to be.
[00:19:29] MH: That's awesome. All those books and the programs that you listed will be in the show notes and we'll put links in there for the folks that are listening. Tony, I can't wait to ask you this question. You've already alluded to it a few times, but who are some of the most influential people to you in your life?
[00:19:44] TG: Okay. So, some, meaning I can do more than two, right?
[00:19:48] MH: You can do as many as you want, Tony.
[00:19:50] TG: I don't know where to start. Like I said I look for motivation everywhere. As far as my kids motivate me. I have three daughters and they all play sports. But they motivate me. Our CEO asked time. He goes, “How's Tony doing? How is life?” And I said, “Life is good.” At the time, my daughters were 21, 16, and eight. So, he goes, “Well, that's a stretch.” I said, “Yes.” He goes, “I'm sorry.” I was like, “No, it's actually fun. Because the 21-year-old, I'm talking about saving accounts, 401(k).” You're not supposed to know what you want to do in school. She's a senior at North Georgia. So, you're not supposed to know what you're going to do now. Just find something, finish it, and then you can build on it later, but finish something in school.
I’ve been talking with my 16-year-old at the time, sports cars, and sports and cars, things like that. It's just, I can't wait to get out of school. The conversation is totally different than a senior in college, and then roll into the eight-year-old is like, “Hey, look at this picture I drew at school today. Can you tell me a bedtime story?” It's a huge range of life. So, my kids inspire me a great deal.
My wife has been there through everything. We were high school sweethearts, and we got married, she supported me in everything. It doesn't mean I haven't heard a lip about some things. Working that shift, leaving her at home with a few babies wasn’t a smart idea from home life. But it's three days a week, I need to do this to grow and it's paid off, and she knows that as well. She's practice administrator at urgent care, same kind of support for me, so we both kind of climbed the ranks and stuff like that. So, she gets it totally. She's been there, thick and thin, whatever you want to do. She's also given me good advice and I hate to say that I come and dump on her when I need to, but she absolutely takes that from there.
My mom, she passed away in December of 2020. But she was one that I could dump on without advice back, as far as just come be stressed out, and then she wouldn't give me advice. She would just say it's going to be okay, that kind of thing. I miss those conversations with her. But she was a huge, huge influence on my life, absolutely.
And then David Hodges is the mentor that I spoke of. He's been with Packaging Specialties since the early ‘80s. But I don't want to date him or anything, but he's a cool guy. He is really hard on me because I asked for it. He's easy on folks when they need to be that way. We always talked about, he and I were a good one-two punch because he's just that drill sergeant mentality, ask questions, ask questions, ask questions, ask questions, until someone gets it. I always told him he would walk to California to prove a point, and he still does walk to California to prove points. But I really appreciate him for sitting down with me the day in, the day out, to teach me. He's the guy that said, “I'm a sponge, mold me into what you want to be.” It doesn't mean it's been all holding hands jogging through sunflowers by any means. But those hard knocks, those ultimate deals where you don't understand at the time, that makes sense later, he's given me all that kind of advice.
That would be probably four that I could get into in the show. But my actual – the five core members. Their names are Diane, David Lee, Josh, Jody, and Chuck. Like I said, they support the entire plant. I get to meet with them officially on every Tuesday to get the pulse of what the plants do in and they give me that, but I also taught with them every day. They are five different approaches.
I have this joke where I say I leave breadcrumbs, it's like following breadcrumbs. Well, they finally got together and said, “You know what? Some of your bread crumbs aren't very big crumbs at all. So, I need you to be a little more clear with some of that.” I really appreciate them for doing that. It's like you said, to start this off, or just before it was, plant managers may not get all the credit for that and I don't want any credit. I want all the responsibility. That's why I'm in the role now. I'll take all the responsibility. Everywhere we failed, I'll take it on the chin. We'll go back, we'll look at the process, we'll see where we need to go. But those five, they get the credit, everyone else on the floor, they get the credit because they're the ones putting in the time.
I get to walk around, talk basketball with folks, and, “Hey, what happened here?” Every now and then get to make a plug about work. So, if I had a dream job, let's say, I'm walking it, by all means. I enjoy people and those five managers get to deal with those people every single day, and it's exciting, and it's very inspiring to me. That's a handful of people I look for inspiration everywhere.
[00:24:16] GS: You may have already touched on this before but what has been your biggest lesson learned and what did you take away from it?
[00:24:23] TG: Work, personally, which one? Probably work. Okay, so I said about the humbleness earlier. We do a thing that's called fingerprinting the press. So, it's basically any of your printing presses, it's just like a fingerprint of your hand. They're all different. Your machines are different as well. One's going to print different than the next, each deck will print differently, and things like that. So, we do this thing called a fingerprint. The guy who moved to Idaho to be the plant manager at the Idaho plant, he's not with us any longer, but when he was doing that role, he made it look so easy that my ego was like, you can do that job. You can do it really easy. Well, the job wasn’t easy. He had a lot of knowledge that he had with him that I didn't see all those hard knocks in the ‘80s and the ‘90s, that he went through. When I was in elementary school and high school, he was putting in hard knocks on the printing floor. He was learning things and grow and all that. I didn't see all that.
So, my little ego was like, you can do this job, you can do this, you can do that. So, in my head, I thought I could do it all. After he left, we were going to do a fingerprint. We were going to fingerprint two machines. I'm like, yeah, we'll do both of them the same day. We'll do all the materials we have, we'll just knock this thing out, no problem. So, we bring in plate suppliers, ink guys, ink experts. We're going to knock this thing out. 13 hours later, we still haven't gotten the first fingerprint done and I'm just exhausted. I’m mentally just – so we went through two different shifts and we still didn't get this thing finished.
The next day, David Hodges calls a meeting with basically all the leaders of our plant. He says, “Alright, let's talk about what happened.” This is all on me. I'm supposed to be the guy hitting it up. But all the support groups were there. What happened? We get down to it. Everyone says their things. I have no idea what anybody says because I'm still spent. That whole meeting when we left, everyone left, David held me behind. He said, “What the heck happened?” I was like, “I have no idea. This went wrong. This went wrong.” He goes, “When everything went to hell in a handbasket, what did you do?” I was like, “I don't know, I don't know what you mean.” He goes, “What did you do?” I said, “I don't know. Just tell me. I can't think right now.” He goes, “You pushed your guys the other way and started doing the job.” He goes, “That's not your job.” He goes, “Your job is to make sure everyone's educated, your job is to make sure everyone knows what they're doing, and they follow that.” He goes, “You don't physically do it anymore.” And I said, “You put me in this role, because I'm a hands-on kind of guy.” He goes, “No, I put you in this role to use your hands on to teach the other guys, and to get everyone where they need to be.”
I didn't understand what he meant at the time, of course. But later on, it really hit with me. It was like, “We got to get standards in place. We follow standard work now to a tee. We're not perfect, but it works.” We didn't have those standards in place in 2008 when I did that, but I ate some humble pie. The guy who I thought could do the job better, all I wanted was him to be there to help carry me through this. So, the next time I saw him, I sat in his office, about an hour and 45 minutes, apologizing to him. Everything that I didn't learn from him, everything that I shut out of the way because my ego got in the way, I let him hear it. He was very thankful for that.
So, to me, it was a huge growth on my part to being able to accept that I did not know everything. And as soon as I took that, it seemed like things just kept flooding in after that, taking the humble approach. I would say, that was my biggest opener at packaging specialist. After that, once I settled in, it was probably a week or so later, that's when I told David. I said, “I'm a sponge, mold me into whatever.” So, I was very teachable at that moment. I would say that's my biggest probably kick in the face and learn the biggest lesson from.
[00:28:00] MH: We talked a little bit about the day-to-day challenge that you face. So, I want to move into the processes to learn a little bit more about what makes Packaging Specialties tick, and maybe some things you can share with leaders listening that might be able to help them. What type of processes or things do you guys have in place that help you maintain efficiency and productivity?
[00:28:20] TG: Okay, good question. First, I'll throw out to say, and we love catchphrases. We track OEE, we use LSW, Leader Standard Work, all the acronyms you can think of, we got them. So, one of the things we picked up from Georgia Tech, we went to the lean boot camp at the Georgia Tech Technology Center was be hard on the process and easy on the people. We use that. Hard on the process, easy on the people. So, what we say with that is it doesn't mean easy on the people that you don't follow it. It's just saying, beat that process up, make sure it's a robust process that people will follow that works, and then teach people how to follow that process. Why do we follow that process? Why do we do this? Why do we do that?
So, that's one of our biggest things that we had to change from our mindset of this guy does it this way, I do it my way. This guy does it this way. If you two guys came to help us out, you would have your own way. The difference in where we were before and where we are now is there's one way, it's the Packaging Specialties way. When we bring someone in for new hire, we teach them that way when it's time to teach them and that's the only way they can do it. If there's improvements, yes, we're going to document those improvements. We'll set up a trial, we’ll run it, but we're still going to follow our process.
So, we have processes in place for literally everything that we do for the customer. If it's quality related, as far as keeping that machine uptime related, we have a process there. We have them in every single support departments. My favorite one that I like to talk mostly about is when we're running our machines, we get up to thousand feet per minute, 1,200 feet per minute on one of them. I think it goes to 1,500. We've gotten it up to 1,200. So, you're running pretty fast. Average speed was stopped, and everything's probably around the 500 or 600 mark, which is still pretty fast.
Day in, day out, we may run like a job at 800, and the next job at 900, 950, or something like that. What we found was when we go to splice the roll, meaning when one roll is about to finish, and another is about the start, we can have those rolls not mesh together, and then all your film or substrate comes out of the press, you then slowly stopped the press, you’re down for an hour and a half, re-webbing that material. So, we had this guy's way, this guy's way, this guy's way to build a splice or whatever. So, we went to one way to build a splice. We would roll off a few rounds. We use one piece of blue tape, and three of our green belts that we use and some glue.
That's been our way for the last several years, and not only did we put a process in place and have a standard that we can teach someone, not that they go to a different shift and do it a different way, it's like, here's our process, we could then show videos, we could add pictures, we could physically train someone on it. But having that standard, having that process in place meant we can improve on it. How can you improve on something if you don't have anything in place? Are you improving on my way? Are you proven on this guy's way? So, having that standard in place, we're improving on it. Josh and Chuck that I mentioned earlier, they're working on a Kaizen event. At the moment, we've had the three belts on the splice. So, from January to May 15, they know how many splices we've missed, because it's tracked in our program. And then May 16th, through the end of June, they're going to know how many we've missed using five belts.
So, we've added two more to it to see if it's better. When they get that data, they're going to compare it and say, “Alright, we know our standard is three, this test standard is five, which one's better? Should we go to seven? Should we drop it to four? Should we go back to three?” But they're going to base that off the data. So, that's one easy process that I can say it's easy to follow, it's easy to teach, the hardest part was getting the culture there to let go of their own way to follow the one way. That's one of the process that we do. But we try to have those lists use our increment, for example, we have a standard for the drawdowns, we don't want this guy to mix these colors a different way than the next guy is going to mix those colors. We want Purdue blue to be Purdue blue. You want Tossin orange to be Tossin orange, and things like that. So yeah, it's good stuff.
[00:32:17] GS: Okay, Tony, bust out your crystal ball, where do you see US manufacturing in the next 10 years?
[00:32:25] TG: Well, crystal ball is a good term to use for that because you can't be wrong at that point. I see a lot more technology, more automation. I know we've gotten into a lot more automation. One day I jokingly – we actually have airlifts that we use now from a company called Tawi. So, before we had chain hoist, and a strap that we would chain hoist up. If you've ever used a chain hoist, there's not two sides. It's just one continuous chain that you pull up or down. So, we would load the rolls that way. We found that vacuum lift that we can use. We've gone to the vacuum lift. The vacuum lift doesn't work on some of our bigger rolls when we get above 650, up to like 800 to 1,000 pounds. So, one of the things that we threw out was maybe the exoskeleton suit, and everybody kind of laughed.
But to me, that makes sense, what if you had a hybrid of someone in that suit? And I'm not talking GI Joe, I'm just talking of –
[00:33:26] GS: Just Iron Man.
[00:33:27] TG: Exactly. So, if we could only bench 315 pounds, I'm being kind here. If we could only bench 315 or 200 pounds or 150 pounds, but we could lift 1,000 pounds, and it'd be a counterweight or balance of some sort. To me, that's a good move, as long as all the safety features are there. So, I would like to see, I know, you said, “Where do I see?” I would like to see the combination of technology and people, but I got a feeling it's probably going to be technology and less people. I hope not. But I would love to see like that skeleton suit to be able to lift a lot more, where the guy is still doing it physically. I don't know how the brakes would work from that. You wear the suit on break? Or do you take it off? It's a cool visual in my head, at least.
[00:34:14] MH: Very good. Tony, I feel like we're speaking the same language. I love the concepts and the ideas you guys have. Very progressive and forward-thinking company. You're very fortunate to be there. But also, they're very fortunate to have you. I feel like you guys have created an amazing culture. I know we won the award, but I think you guys need to apply for it next year. So, just blown away. What a great interview. I feel like your brother from another mother.
[00:34:39] TG: Awesome. Thank you. I appreciate that.
[00:34:42] MH: Yeah, man. We really appreciate you joining us on the show today and thank you so much.
[00:34:46] TG: Thank you guys again and congratulations again on the award. Maybe we will challenge you next year. But second place to you guys may not be bad.
[00:34:53] GS: I would love it. It's awesome. Thank you so much.
[00:34:57] MH: Real quick. One of our goals is to create a community. If people wanted to reach out to you, some plant managers listening to this show, and if they were smart, they would to pick your brain. How would they do that? What's the best way?
[00:35:09] TG: I can give you my email address. We can do that. I'm not big on Facebook. I'm not on there at all. I like TikTok. I like watching funny videos and stuff, but I don't know. It just seems like everything got political on all the platforms and stuff. So just, got to take a break away from that sometimes. I would gladly give my cell phone to you guys to share, my email address anything from there, that'd be the easiest way to reach out. I have the LinkedIn, it's on there as well. But anybody can reach out about anything. I'd be glad to try to help in any way I could.
[00:35:41] MH: Yeah, you're definitely on LinkedIn, and then for those folks listening, if you're interested in connecting with Tony, shoot me an email, morty@theindustrialmovement.com, and I'll put you in touch with Tony. Tony. Thanks again. Have a great day.
[00:35:53] TG: Thank you guys, you too.
[OUTRO]
[00:35:55] MH: Well, folks, that's it for this week's episode. Be sure to visit our website www.theindustrialmovement.com to view today's show notes and get more golden nuggets of value that we have collected from manufacturing industrial professionals in our archived episodes.
On our website, you can also sign up for our newsletter and find links to join The Industrial Movement community on Facebook. The Industrial Movement podcast is where we discuss the people, the process, and the equipment that drives American manufacturing. I'm your host Morty Hodge, wishing you great success.
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