Company message:
“Here’s what we need to do. Now, tell us how to do it.”
As part of the Industrial Equipment News 75th Anniversary celebration in 2008, we will occasionally interview key workers at companies that have been around as long as, or longer than, IEN to see from the employee perspective how strategies have changed over the years. At Parker Hannifin, as at most industrial companies, those changes have occurred especially lightning-fast over the last two decades.
With that in mind, IEN’s Mark Devlin spoke with Jon “JJ” Janssen, a Parker Hannifin employee who witnessed strategic change first-hand, starting more than 16 years ago in brass assembly and rising through the ranks to supervisor of the CNC department in the Richland, MI-based Pneumatic Division. Below are edited excerpts of that interview.
Special Thanks to Paula Nappo, FRL Business Unit Manager, Pneumatic Division.
Devlin: How’s the approach of mentoring changed throughout your time at Parker?
Janssen: Our division developed a CNC apprenticeship program, which is kind of unique. [It] involves thousands of hours of education, and I was able to accomplish that before I went into my supervisory role.
That’s one of the differences I’ve seen at Parker in the last several years. Previously, for example, a person in Die Cast might’ve been told, “Here’s the wand, you spray the die, and if you hit this mark or that mark, you’re spraying too heavy or too light,” and away you go. If we ran into problems, we would deal with them as we went along.
The apprenticeship program introduced a lot of training and education about why you’re performing a certain task. Part of the program is bouncing around to different shifts. I found this to be very beneficial. In general, we all worked the same way and all had the same goal of getting the product out in the most productive and efficient way. But those different flavors of different setups—and how [others] dealt with various situations—was very good for me.
In the past, you’d sign up for a supervisor position and, if things looked good, [you might be told] “Okay, here’s your department, here are your people, here are your keys, and go to work.”
Today, I accepted the supervisory position in February, but didn’t actually take over the department until July. In that time, I was able to work with the CNC department supervisor, the FRL department supervisor, the Valves supervisor. The new approach creates a good support structure. I was able to observe a lot—four or five months of observing before I actually assumed the supervisory position. That’s very beneficial, and will make me and others better supervisors in the long run.
Devlin: Has education or working up through the ranks been more valuable in your career at Parker?
Janssen: Parker has an excellent education reimbursement program. Basically, if you’re willing to take a class, and do well, they’ll pay for it and the books. That’s a strong incentive for the employee. I took several classes in speaking, English, and math. I continued to improve myself, and that’s worked out very well in terms of my career here at Parker.
But it’s been a combination. I didn’t have a degree coming in; I started at the lower levels and continue to work upward. I don’t know where I’ll end up. I’ll continue to look at opportunities and pursue the ones that seem interesting.
Devlin: That’s impressive. I would think that’s become rarer today.
Janssen: To a degree, that’s been true. I have a lot of ambition, as a lot of people at Parker do. Opportunities present themselves. A good example of that is the Employee Empowerment Summit that Parker held in February of [2007]. That involved about 200 employees from around the world. We were selected basically because we were doing our jobs well. To my knowledge, Parker had never done this before. It was a huge investment. I met people from Germany, England, France, Africa, and Mexico, for instance. We were all Parker.
Devlin: With 16 years in at Parker, you’ve seen a lot of changes in terms of technologies and equipment. Could you tell me a little bit about those changes?
Janssen: When I started working in Die Cast, I worked with what was, I think, a 1968 Lester, a 450-ton die cast machine. We had been running a lot of the older machines when I started. I remember in 1992 when Duane Collins* took over. He had worked [his way] up through the ranks. He didn’t work with us directly, but the message from the top down was clear: Parker wanted to be the No. 1 motion control company in the world; we were going to be aggressive, we were going to go after competition, we were going to ramp up acquisitions. One of the things that affected me right away was that the company invested several million dollars in facilities and new machinery. For example, we got more into CNC, updated a couple of the die cast machines, and started the zinc cell.
They had just gone down from 20,000-piece lot sizes to 5,000 pieces. Today, I can’t think of anything where we run more than 1,000 or so pieces, and that’s not in the CNC department. There, we run maybe in the hundreds—days worth of inventory. Sixteen years ago, you just couldn’t do that. Now, we’re actually able to do it, while our customer service levels have also increased. Not only has CNC control increased but, also, much more machinery is PLC controlled, such as the die cast equipment.
Devlin: What’s more important? Accuracy, tolerances, or repeatability?
Janssen: Can I pick two?
Devlin: Sure.
Janssen: Accuracy and repeatability. You want to be right the first time, and you want to be able to do it over and over again.
Devlin: What best helps you achieve the accuracy and repeatability that you demand?
Janssen: Communication—at all levels. Finding out what the issue is with the customer, and determining what we can do to fix it. It’s about finding out exactly what the problem is before we can fix it.
Devlin: Parker’s always been about high-quality, reliable products. That reputation is very strong and industry-accepted. How do you improve upon a product that’s already recognized as precise and reliable?
Janssen: We know we’ve done well, but we continue to make it even better. The people making it make it better. We’re trying to improve our productivity and efficiencies now so that we can, for example, reduce costs...
Devlin: ...tied into quality improvement programs?
Janssen: Yes. If you go back to the old days, when we ran the 10,000-piece lot sizes, a quality issue could have affected a lot of parts. Now, with Lean, just-in-time, 1-piece flow, and smaller lot sizes, we’re able to contain issues quicker, fix them—and the customer is much less affected, if at all. It’s been getting a little easier since we’ve been through Kaizen, and we’re starting with TPM [Total Productive Maintenance] on the machinery, and trying to break down the barriers between management and hourly employees. I’m hoping that I’m a good force in that. Managers need to be approachable. I want anyone on the floor to be able to tell me what the issue is, good or bad. We’ve done better with that in recent years. The apprenticeship program comes into play here, too.
Devlin: As a shop manager, you have to be concerned with the equipment you’re using, the software running the equipment, the people you’re working with, how people are communicating—you’re dealing with a lot of different elements that go into both the manufacturing and quality of the product. How do you balance those different things?
Janssen: I think it all boils down to communication. One of the things I do every night as a supervisor is walk the floor, and everyone expects that of me. That’s where I may find issues about something that may not seem like a big deal, but I’ll present it at our daily Ops meeting and see if it could be a problem. We also have weekly meetings, educational sessions, and the Kanban board which helps level load. We try to figure out the ideal run sequence for the machine so that, no matter what orders come in, we can level-load production.
QAS [Quality At Source; see Page 8 of PDF document at this link] sheets, which we’ve been using for 10 or so years now, help indicate if we have a problem. Our QC Department will also let us know if there’s an issue, and we have many corrective actions ready to go—and will design a new one if not.
By bouncing issues, thoughts, and ideas around, we can come up with a plan to decide if something’s an issue that needs to be addressed and, if so, decide how to address it. That said, it’s not about being a watchdog. It’s about talking to people and finding out what’s working and not working. It’s about being involved, and not just looking at a computer screen to see what the numbers look like.
Devlin: Are you competing more against your own numbers or other companies?
Janssen: Wow. The questions get tougher now, huh? It’s a combination of both. We had an exceptional year last year, with on-time delivery, for example. We’ve got the customer service, and we’re on-time. We’ve done this. We’ve proven this. Now we’re shifting to make us more competitive, mainly in productivity and efficiency—and we’re getting that message out to the floor. So, it becomes a question of “What have you done for me lately?” We know we’re in a tough battle in terms of our competition.
Devlin: How, if at all, are you competing with offshore manufacturing?
Janssen: That’s where education comes in—educating people both locally and globally. It’s not just the shop down the street, or the guy in the other state—it’s competition throughout the world and, globally, within Parker. It’s not us vs. them within Parker; we’re all in this together. At the Global Empowerment Summit, someone commented, “I wish more Americans would get out of America.” That is, educate ourselves globally, and understand what our competition really is. That’s key. We have to better understand what our competition is and who our competition is before we go after them.
Devlin: How important is it for you and your shop that you’re part of a company with such a rich history?
Janssen: Personally, it’s very important. I’ve only been here 16 years. Parker’s grown immensely, probably fivefold since I’ve been here, and I think I’ve grown immensely, considering job experience. I’m doing well financially, and things continue getting better. At the Empowerment Summit, Don Washkewicz* told all of us that Parker has money in the bank, this is where I want us to go. He said, “I want us to be the No. 1 motion control company in the world, “and spun it back on us with, “And I want you to tell us how to get there.” The 200 of us in the room took it and ran with it. We brought that back to our divisions and I truly believe that with, for example, lean manufacturing and his leadership, we’ll be able to go far. Today’s Parker has more commitment than I’ve ever seen.
You don’t get a sense of how big Parker is when you’re working here. I don’t think a lot of people on the shop floor realize the magnitude of what Parker really is and the history behind us, but that’s also to Parker’s credit. They’re not a toot-your-own-horn kind of company.
Devlin: The Global Empowerment Summit could give employees a much better idea of just how large the company is.
Janssen: Yes. They did a very good job of educating us regarding where we’ve been, what we’ve done, and where we want to go. That was an incredible experience, and I still feel energized. Parker believes in their people, and they always have. Parker hasn’t just recently discovered the empowered employee, but they’re just starting to realize the power of that. We’re still trying to figure out more ways to empower people. With so many years of old-school manufacturing, we’ve shifted from this is what you need to do, here’s how to do it, and this is how long it should take, to “This is what we need to do, and we want you to tell us how to do it.” Even operators at the cell level on the floor are saying, “If we move this here and we move this there and we shrink it down a little bit, it’ll make it easier to do this, and I can produce more.” We’re all coming up with such ideas because the company listens and responds. It’s an exciting trend.
Devlin: How would you advise a person, early in their career, if they asked you, “Is it better to work for a small company, or a large corporation like Parker?”
Janssen: I’d have to ask that person what they’re looking for. I think the opportunities are boundless at Parker. Even if you want to speak another language or travel, for example, you can go anywhere and do anything within Parker. They’re not handing things out; they’re offering choices. They’ll communicate “This is what needs to be done,” and people can get in line to do it.
Even as a massive global company, working here still sometimes feels like working at a small company. Everyone knows everyone else. You still have that small-company feeling. We’re not a 3,000-people-under-one-roof sort of operation. Our division, for example, has 300 people. So, I would say, go to Parker. You’ll get the best of both worlds.
*Duane E. Collins, Parker Hannifin Corp. board member since 1992, chairman since 1999, retired in 2004; succeeded by CEO Donald E. Washkewicz as chairman of the board and CEO.
