MRO Today - Core Materials Corp.: In the beginning . . .

In the beginning ...
Ever wish you could shape history, instead of being shackled by it? Tom Lensie did. That's why he took a job at a brand new plant and laid the roots for its maintenance and engineering department.

by Paul V. Arnold

Ever wonder what life was like in the beginning?

"Let there be light"? The big bang? Amoebas? Not that far back. Instead, let's examine the creation of a production support department.

Somewhere in the beginning -- 20, 30, 50 or more years ago -- the structure of your company's maintenance or engineering department rose from the primordial ooze. From those humble beginnings came the blood and barriers that would define your organization, its members, its reputation and its function.

"The beginning" cues the formation of rules, traditions, behaviors and standard operating procedures. It can either be an evolutionary springboard, or the muck that hinders growth and change.

Ever wish you were there, at the beginning?

Before you answer, recount how many times you're heard, or said, "We've always done it this way. I didn't make the rules. The guy before me didn't make the rules. It's always been this way."

You say, "But I can change this department whenever I want." Sure, it can be done, but it's difficult, especially in stagnant departments unfamiliar with progressive thinking, flexibility and communication.

Just ask Tom Lensie. On two occasions, he tried to help the maintenance and engineering department of an established, financially sound corporation out of the dark ages. The experiences took a heavy toll. Stress led to three emergency room visits.

But Lensie was lucky. He received an opportunity few get. In December 1997, he got the chance to shape history, instead of leading a department shackled by it.

Starting from scratch
"When I first got here, this office building wasn't here. Out where the plant is, there was just a shell," says Lensie, the head of maintenance and engineering at Core Materials Corporation in Gaffney, S.C., a manufacturer of fiberglass-reinforced plastic components.

"There were no lights or power. There were no doors. The wind whipped through here. But we had six presses sitting out on the floor, and the goal was to start production Jan. 5, 1998."

Lensie was handed a blank slate.

"Is this something I wanted?" he asks. "I took a pay cut to come here. That says it all. I don't take pay cuts."

There was no big bang, flashing lights or hoopla ushering in the creation of a maintenance and engineering department at Core Materials Corporation, also known as CMC.

In the beginning, Lensie scurried to interview job candidates while
attending to his main concern: having the presses ready for opening day.

"I had less than a month, so getting the equipment up and running was the first and foremost goal," he says.

Lensie spent his days on the floor, setting up, testing and adjusting each of the six 1,200- to 1,500-ton presses.

Little did he know those actions were laying the groundwork for his department.

When Jan. 5 came, the machines were ready and Lensie had his first three crew members on board.

No barricades
If you're a maintenance manager, how much contact do you have with your employees? Similarly, how much time do you spend among the men, women and machines on the floor?

"I've been at companies where the supervisor barricades himself in his office," says Lensie.

He's also seen places where you'd have a better chance getting an audience with the pope than meeting with the supervisor. This creates an environment of division.

Lensie says supervisors need to ask themselves if they spend their days walking on carpet or concrete?

"My carpet's beyond repair from the bootprints and oil brought in here," says Lensie.

It was tracked in by Lensie and his men.

"My first two commandments are interchangeable - talk with people and listen to people," he says. "You must consistently have open, two-way communication."

So, his office door is always open. Employees can stop by and present ideas, problems and solutions. They can ask for help or ask to help. Most of the time, though, those conversations do not occur in Lensie's office.

"How often do you find me in here?" he asks his right-hand man, maintenance supervisor Vince Flores.

"I never do," says Flores.

Lensie is most at home when he's on the plant floor.

"I'm a hands-on guy, always have been," he says. "Some people might say I spend too much time on the floor. And I know I need to spend more time in here (the office). But I like it better on the floor. I like being with the equipment and the mechanics. I want to emphasize that we're in this together, that we succeed as a team and not as individual players."

Team building is a buzzword at most plants, but how many department managers actually practice what they preach? Lensie and Flores say department managers must examine if they are an active member of the team.

"Anywhere that I've been a mechanic, you've had your 'chains,'"says Flores, talking about areas deemed off-limits to non-supervisors. "You're told, 'You don't need to go to the carpet. You have no one up there to talk to.' Here, there is direct, one-on-one contact with Tom and I. You can talk with us as you can anybody else."

Add talented team players
Lensie's team-building concept came through strongly in the interviewing and hiring process. Like a football or baseball coach who assembles the pieces of a championship team, he searched for people with a strong technical background AND the ability to contribute and function in a team environment.

The end result? Of the 10 hires, including Flores, none of them came from a molding and extrusion plant background.

"I used to be in the food industry," says Flores. "We have guys who came straight from the military, people who worked at cotton mills and knitting plants, and people who worked at a hydraulic hose plant. It's a variety of people and backgrounds. You take your basic knowledge and adapt it."

Lensie worked at a steel mill and a company that makes architectural products and window furnishings.

"Everybody learns from everyone else," says Lensie. "Most of the rules -- the way we do things around here -- came out of experiences I had and the employees had at previous employers. They saw what worked and what didn't. We put that all together and developed our rules as we went along."

Cross-training is an example of an employee idea adopted by the department. It gives employees the opportunity to work on a wide variety of tasks instead of becoming specialists on a particular machine, process or task.

"We do have some specialists, guys more experienced at a particular task than other people, but they aren't the only ones called on to do that job," says Lensie.

Instead, an experienced person is used as an information resource or called on to train others.

A learning environment
One of Lensie's long-term goals is to have one of the best-trained, most knowledgeable production support crews around.

Knowledge triggers a cyclical process that benefits all.

Knowledge brings efficiency, efficiency brings reliability, and reliability brings satisfaction to the departments that rely on the crew's knowledge.

To that end, Lensie finds ways to provide formal and informal training. One week, it's a roundtable discussion. The next, a vendor providing application and safety tips on a new product. The next, a maintenance pro from a CMC plant or neighboring plant shedding light on their best practices.

At all times, employees are encouraged to enroll for a weekend seminar or take a course at an area college or technical school.

Employees aren't the only ones expanding their minds.

Lensie and Flores have a saying: "If I ask you, 'Why are you doing it that way?' I'm not criticizing you."

Says Flores: "I just want to know, because their plan or reason may be better than mine, and I want to learn."

Adds Lensie: "Nothing here is set in stone. If there is a better way, we're open-minded enough to realize it's better and we're flexible enough to be able to adopt it as standard practice."

Rocks and rockets
With active leadership, talented people, open communication and constant learning, CMC's maintenance and engineering department is heading in the right direction. To reach full maturity, however, Lensie knows his young group must make the transition from firefighting unit to reliability center.

"The business that's been brought into this plant has been incredible. We started out and had all these dreams, we pursued them, and perhaps too many of them came to fruition," he says. "It's been a challenge for everyone here to keep up. With that in mind, there's no time to be shutting down machines. And when we can shut them down, there is also a manpower issue. We have eight presses (there'll be 11 later this year); we run them 24 hours a day, seven days a week; and we have a (maintenance and engineering) staff of 10. We have our folks pretty busy."

Lensie must prioritize, and until things settle down at the plant or his staffing level increases, he's forced to focus on "rockets" (reactive maintenance) instead of "rocks" (PM and PdM work).

"Ever play the video game 'Asteroids'?" he says. "We're right there in the middle and all these rocks are coming at us. But there are also rockets headed our way. You should blast the rocks, but you've got to blast the rockets. We miss some rocket ships every once in a while, and it hurts us."

Rocks can be pretty painful, too.

Lensie envisions a progression toward predictive and preventive maintenance this year and in 2001. To make that work, the department will incorporate a planning and scheduling system. And, it will eventually utilize predictive technologies such as infrared thermography and oil analysis.

"We're not where we need to be, but we will get there," he says. "If we don't, it's nobody's fault but our own because we had a blank slate and built it ourselves."

This article appeared in the February/March 2000 issue of MRO Today magazine. Copyright, 2000.

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