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By
Shawn Patterson, LFM ‘94
Director of Operations Strategy, DTE Energy
I
always thought that in my career as an engineer I would
be working in the design world. After getting my BS, I chose
a job with GM to work as a vehicle engineer and I was eager
to start designing the next great product. I never made
it to that job, and have yet to spend one day as a design
engineer. I found something even more cool—a career
in manufacturing.
I
never got to the design engineer job because one month before
I was to start, my boss-to-be called me to tell me that
I should start in the assembly plant to understand how the
product was made. Since the logic was sound, I reluctantly
headed to the Detroit-Hamtramk assembly plant as a manufacturing
engineer to see how cars were made. I never worked for that
boss, but he changed my life.
That
experience helped define one of the aspects that’s
cool, for me, about manufacturing – opportunities to
teach, coach, and help people (including myself) see and
do new things not conceived of previously.
For
example, during week one, an exhaust welder problem was
causing major production and quality problems. Everyone
was frustrated, from people on the factory floor to supervisors
and plant manager. My task was to gather several of us to
work on solutions.
I
pulled together a team of operators, maintenance personnel,
engineers, and suppliers to tackle the problem. I had the
chance to teach the group basic statistical problem solving
tools and together we worked to understand the root cause
of the problems.
We
solved the problem, which was certainly very gratifying.
More importantly, I was hooked. I enjoyed the immediate
feedback on results that a plant provided. I was juiced
by the numerous challenges and the urgency to address those
problems on the shop floor. I loved leading teams and working
though complex problems. It was gratifying to teach line
workers and maintenance employees new skills and see the
successes they had when they applied those skills.
I
probably should have seen it coming. All my life I tended
to migrate to teaching and coaching opportunities. I’d
coached young kids in baseball when I was in high school
and had done tutoring in math and science while I was in
college. But this was the first time I’d seen a career
in manufacturing as way to do something that I truly enjoy,
being a teacher.
As
my career in manufacturing progressed, I learned more and
more about what’s cool in manufacturing. Manufacturing
is the intersection point for any organization. It’s
where marketing, design, product engineering, finance, and
operations all come together. It is the integration of people,
process, and technology (being an engineer I couldn’t
entirely drop my affinity for technology) It’s the
front line where the organization thrives or fails. It’s
a fun and exciting place to be.
I
came to LFM because it offered a unique look at manufacturing.
Grounded in the Big M framework, I learned the disciplines
that make for successful manufacturing organizations. The
program challenged many of my preconceptions and mental
models and got me to see manufacturing in an even larger
context.
Of
course, I still had the chance to do some teaching even
at MIT. In Don Clausing’s QFD class, our assignment
was to work with a 5th grade class in the Boston area to
design a new playground. We taught the kids about project
design, how to determine and incorporate customer needs
into the specs, and how do a House of Quality. They, in
turn, taught us about how much the customer already knows,
even if they are "just" kids.
I
quickly had a chance to start applying what I’d learned
in LFM once I’d returned to GM. In one of my first
formal leadership roles at GM, I worked as a stamping plant
superintendent. I oversaw about 300 production and maintenance
personnel. Managing this workforce was challenging enough,
but frequent quality spills shutting down assembly plants
made the task that much greater. It took every tool and
method that I’d learned to solve this one. From engineering
analysis, to systems diagrams, to change management, a group
of my employees worked to build and implement a new quality
system. What was created was quickly adopted as a GM best
practice for stamping plants. Working as a team utilizing
many different disciplines and achieving those types of
results is definitely cool.
I’ve
always enjoyed working with the union. In fact my experiences
with the union have helped me realize another thing that’s
cool about manufacturing—the opportunity to build partnerships.
The stereotype is that unions create a combative environment,
but I found that unions are comprised of people who are
just waiting to be creatively engaged in the business. There
is an innate sense of humanness in situations like this
because everyone wants to feel that what they do matters.
Once that creativity is unleashed and channeled for the
good of the enterprise, a powerful coalition can be built
where everyone’s interests are served.
In
my final assignment at GM, I worked on next generation design
of stamping plants. It was a fascinating experience that
gave me opportunities to travel to GM and Toyota plants
internationally, study best-in-class operations, and teach
people how to use these new ideas. We designed a stamping
plant that became an example of best practices at GM and
is being replicated at 3 new GM plants.
I
now work as director of operations strategy at DTE Energy,
an integrated provider of energy and energy solutions located
in Detroit. I’m fortunate because I can combine teaching,
coaching, and Big M manufacturing.
I was brought into DTE to introduce and implement lean manufacturing
– a new concept for this organization. My LFM training
in mental models helped me see that while I was the lean
"expert", I needed to be open to what the existing
employees knew about what was and wasn’t working at
DTE.
This
type of partnership is very cool and has taken us collectively
to a different place than any of us conceived of initially.
For example, DTE was looking at outsourcing one of its shops
that restores transformers because it was losing so much
money. My team and the leaders at the transformer shop took
a deep dive, end-to-end look at the processes and developed
a list of improvement items. In 6 months, we reduced restoration
time from 30 days to 2. Moreover, the shop went from losing
money to becoming a profit center that now restores transformers
for other utility companies.
My
Big M career has also given me opportunities to extend my
education beyond traditional company boundaries. DTE is
now sponsoring me in the Leadership Detroit Program. Spearheaded
by Detroit’s Chamber of Commerce, the year-long program
exposes 50 executives to regional issues via speakers from
and contact with the public school system, city council,
police department, etc. Each of us picks one area in which
to apply our knowledge and help our companies contribute
to the community. DTE has a substantial commitment to the
community and over the years has sponsored several executives
in the Leadership Detroit Program. It’s taking Big
M to an even larger system.
I’m
very lucky that the boss I never had thought I should start
out in manufacturing. Since then, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed
the people with I’ve engaged and those that have influenced
me. I’ve been thoroughly challenged by the many process
and technology improvement opportunities. I’ve learned
so much about an enterprise as an interdependent system.
That phone call steered into a career that’s very,
very cool.
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