Welcome to our March webinar and workshop. I'm Bradley Williams, Chair of the Architectural Precast Concrete Committee. On behalf of the Architectural Precast Concrete Committee, I welcome you to our workshop series. This is workshop number 3, how does your culture influence quality, a quality controlled manager's perspective with Dave Owens and Mike Wolfe. We appreciate them being with us. I highlight an advantage of membership in PCI as a focus, emphasis on quality as shown through our organizations twice a year, unannounced audits, and the now architectural producer certifications, recent movement and changes. Architectural producers are going from 2-5 different certifications. These changes and dialing in the certifications levels is an industry-leading value approach to the future. Standardizing levels of certification levels ensures a consistent quality of precast concrete throughout the industry and throughout the country. This push for consistent quality was the theme of our workshops this first quarter of the year. Follow-up workshops, highline, other essential plant items are scheduled throughout the year, and we'll invite you to join them in the following months. Special thanks not only to our presenters, but also to Steve, Randy, and Nicole who put all this together. With that, Randy. Well, thank you, Brad. And I want to thank everybody for joining us today. These production management workshops seem to be adding some value to our producers. So hopefully today will be a continuation of that. So before we get started, first thing that of order of business is to review the PCI Antitrust Policy and Code of Conduct Policy. The PCI Antitrust Compliance Guidelines is that PCI performs a valuable, legitimate function encouraging the development of technology and markets for its members and products. However, because PCI brings competitors together and facilitates dialogue among them, its activities carry inherent antitrust risks. The following guidelines are intended to help participants in PCI activities avoid these risks. They are general in nature, and following them does not guarantee compliance with the law and deviating from them does not mean that the law was necessarily violated. So today we are not going to be discussing any type of current or future pricing, any type of increase or decrease in pricing, standardizing or stabilizing prices, or any type of competitive advantages or disadvantages. So that is our Code of Conduct. And if I move down to our, I mean, our antitrust, move down to our Code of Conduct. PCI's Code of Conduct can be summarized pretty easily to say that participants shall communicate professionally and constructively, whether in person or virtually, in a manner that treats all persons with dignity, respect, and fairness. If anybody feels that any of the presenters today or speakers today infringe on any of either one of those policies, please leave the meeting because we are in a webinar situation and let PCI staff, specifically PCI President Bob Brister, know that we may have breached those policies. So a little quick agenda for those that are new to the program. We've got a little opening remarks, introductions, the PCI Antitrust Policy, Code of Conduct. The process for these meetings, we have about 30 plus minutes for the speakers total. And we have two excellent speakers today. If you do have a question, please send the question in your chat box. I'll be monitoring the chat box along with Nicole at PCI staff so that we'll make sure that you get your questions answered in the hour. Any questions that we don't get to within the hour, we'll be happy to email you directly with a response. So we want to make sure everybody's questions are addressed. So that's it. So the goal here is for these meetings, the goal is to build camaraderie among plant managers. For those that have been around for several years, we used to have a production management workshop live where production managers from around the country could get together and share war stories and have a cocktail and maybe play some cornhole and just kind of get to know each other so you'd have that resource. So with COVID and the virtual learning that we do and the virtual world we live in, this is a great alternative to being face to face. So if you do have any questions about anything that you're working on, you can send them to me at rwilson at pci.org and I'll help you get together with other plant people around the country. So with that, we'll get started and I'm going to turn the presentation over to Steve Schweitzer of Gate Precast, who'll be our interviewer today. Thank you, Randy. Good to know I've got my cocktail here. Just hope everyone else does because I think that's what you mentioned, that we're sharing cocktails today as we're meeting and greeting each other. Our first guest is David Owen. 25 years ago, David started in the QC department at Gate Precast in Oxford, North Carolina. He then became the QC manager, then the Holocore production manager, and now his current position is plant manager. David likes the different challenges that come up each day, along with being involved in projects from day one. Gate Precast in Oxford, North Carolina produces architectural precast products used on the facades of high profile buildings like Domino Sugar in Brooklyn, New York, and Moss Johns Residence Hall in Farmville, Virginia. Both are 2021 PCI Design Award winners. Congratulations, David. When David is not busy running a precast plant, he is taking care of his 100-acre cattle farm along with his wife and daughter. They've got 30 head of cattle. Welcome, David. To start off with, give us a quick rundown of how your plant's organization is set up to ensure a culture of quality. Thanks, Steve. Thanks, everyone, for inviting me to speak. Our QC department is set up of QC manager, QC foreman, and inspectors. And our inspectors report to the QC foreman, and the foreman reports to the QC manager, and the QC manager reports to the plant manager. And the reason why that is is with me being QC manager and now plant manager, I'm very familiar with quality control and the aspects of it. Our QC manager was our lead batch plant operator. So everybody just slid right into those positions, and it's worked out well for us. The relationship between me and the QC manager is very good. We've worked together for 20 years, and we just coincide very well. Okay. As far as the employees at your plant, how did they learn the importance of quality? Well, we are quality-driven and just as much as production-driven. You know, fortunately, our employees, we have a lot of long-term employees here, as every supervisor at this plant was promoted from the department they're in. So pretty much all of us have come along together, and they know with me being QC manager and now plant manager, everybody knows the expectations of one another. And we just preach quality every day. We meet every day, sometimes virtual, sometimes, you know, with the way things are now with COVID. It's socially distanced in small groups, and we just preach quality and safety first every day along with quality. Okay. Can you speak? I know you've got some program there even involving some of the office people like the EITs and drafts people, how they kind of get involved with quality as well. Speak to that a little bit of that program at Oxford. That's great. When we hire a new hire, for instance, a new carpenter, a new EIT, a new draftsman, they work with our QC department two to three weeks. Most of the time they spend about a week in the production building with the pre-poor inspector, and then they move to outside with our post-poor inspector, and then they finalize everything with the QC manager. And that usually takes about, you know, somewhere between two to three weeks. And it gives them a better perspective of what we look for, what we do, what we expect, and just around about how we do things here. So that really goes for everybody, not just office personnel, but when you hire someone in the plant location, they also kind of train under QC. That's our carpenters mostly, you know, now rebar people, people in shipping, not so much, but all of our pre-fab people, carpenters, EIT, draftsmen, yes, they come through our QC department for two to three weeks before they are inserted into the department they were hired in. Okay. Now, I know you, being from the QC manager, you went to the PCI QC schools, and why do you think that's important for plant managers to go to those schools as well? You know, it, Steve, it just, you know, plant managers role in my eyes, you know, you are, I mean, you are boots on the ground. Any problems come up, concrete-wise, mix design-wise, post-tension, pre-stressing, all of that stuff, I mean, you cannot, you cannot leave all that up to your QC manager, which is typically, in a lot of places, the person or the people that are PCI level one and two and three certified, it has just helped me tremendously in my current position to know things like that because you just don't want to rely on one person, you want to help people. And you collectively, if you have a problem with me coming up through QC and now plant manager and with our QC manager here, we collectively look at issues and daily problems, and it just, it makes it a lot easier if, when and which we have a problem to figure things out a lot faster. Because we're both on the same page, we're both singing from the same sheet of music for lack of better terms. Yeah, I was just, that was coming to my mind, that if your plant manager has also gone through the PCI QC schools, the language is the same that you're communicating in, you know. That's right, and it is, it is, a lot of times it's been a lifesaver because, you know, when your QC manager has been level one, two, or three certified, comes up to somebody talking about stuff that's never been through school, a lot of times they are scratching their head, wondering what you're talking about, it's just, it is just a tremendous education to have being in a plant manager position, in my opinion. Yeah, sure, yep. Okay, kind of switching gears here a little bit, I know you guys have a high quality culture there at Oxford. What kind of incentives do you have in place to kind of keep that maintained and promote it? You know, daily, you know, production is looked at in the yard by QC, our lead guys in setup and pouring, and, you know, panels come out looking good, I mean, it's a pat on the back and great job, and at the end of a job, take the residence hall job, that was a very intense job, very intricate and schedule driven, and the guys really worked hard, and when that job was done, I mean, we had a steak dinner, I mean, we rolled out the red carpet, and, you know, some door prizes, and, you know, we just do a little, sometimes, you know, pre-COVID, we would, you know, pick a certain location, one of the guys' houses, and we'd throw something on the grill and just unwind, you know, just to spend a little time together where it's not so much pressure on you, the day-to-day pressure from work and problems, and, you know, we're just men as a family, and it really pays dividends here. Is that residence hall, the picture on the left on the screen right now? Yes. Yeah, yeah, it looks like quite a complicated job. Yeah, nice, nice job. That was one of those award winners. Okay, and then do you, normally, when you do reward, have incentives, is it plant-wide, or is it just for certain crews, or does it go back and forth, or how do you determine who gets rewarded for the quality on the job? Well, we do it plant-wide because everybody here has a hand in making that project successful, from mold shop, to production, to casting, to finishing, to rebar, to shipping. I mean, everybody has a hand in it, so we reward the plant. Okay, good. Okay, kind of to wrap up with you here, I apologize for the train whistle on my back here, but to maintain that level of quality at Oxford, what do you think are the keys to maintaining that quality culture? Kind of wrap it up here for us. Relationships between management and employees, and the little rewards that we do, and the meetings that we have, and a job well done on a paddle back goes a long way, and people like that, and they just, they just look forward to making a quality product, because that's what we have instilled here over the last 25 years. I noticed that, I think you guys do a lot of cross-training. Is that cross-training between departments, so they can understand the full process of the quality? Yes, it is. We cross-train carpenters to build cages, carpenters. We may have a couple of carpenters go out and watch them sandblast a patch, and you know, it's just, we try not to put on a carpenter helmet or a finishing helmet. We try to put on a gate helmet here. Great. Okay. Well, thank you, David. Appreciate those comments. I appreciate it. Our second speaker today is Mike Wolf. After a 14-year career in quality management roles in the automotive industry, Mike made the jump to precast and joined MidStates in 2006. Starting as the quality manager, he then became the Safety Quality Director, then VP of Safety and Operations. He currently is the Vice President of Safety and Quality for MidStates Concrete in South Beloit, Illinois. Mike enjoys the close camaraderie with other precasters by sharing ideas and working together to move our industry forward, like he's doing today. MidStates Concrete Industries has a long history dating back to 1946. They produced both architectural and structural precast, along with having their own installation crews. With the plant just south of the Wisconsin border, it's not surprising that Mike follows the Badgers, Packers, and Brewers. He also enjoys some downtime sitting in a deer stand with his sons or daughter. Welcome, Mike. Glad to have you here today. Thank you, Steve. First slide shows a shot of the main West High School. What unique quality challenges did you face on this project? Well, we definitely did have some unique quality challenges with this project. It was one of our first graphic paper retarder projects we've ever produced. And anytime you introduce a new procedure, new method of producing concrete, there is definitely going to be a learning curve and lots of new challenges. But we faced those challenges as a group together. It wasn't just the quality department or production. Sales was very involved in this. And it truly is a good example of Mid-States teamwork. There was an extreme attention to detail on this project. We had to figure out how to use this retarder paper and change kind of a mindset. We had to have a lot of attention to detail. This paper couldn't get wet. No one could walk on the paper while it was on the bed. Couldn't get damaged in any way. So it took everybody out on that production floor being very careful, preventing any wrinkles, any trapped air, that type of stuff. So when we would pour these panels, we had representatives from our sales, from quality, from production, all up on that bed involved in the pouring process. And even the final inspection process, everyone was involved. So it's just a good example of how producing a quality product and that attention and detail isn't just the quality manager's job. It takes everybody up on that bed to be successful. With the attention given to the retarder paper and just the intricacies of that, did you notice that follow through to future jobs as far as a higher level of perception of what's needed coming off of that job? I think it did have an impact. Of course, every day we preach, as our previous speaker said, David, we preach quality daily. So yes, that was a stepping stone for us to drive further attention and detail on all of our architectural panels. Absolutely. Sometimes you get something that forces you to raise your game and then your game gets risen and that's where it stays. So that's great. Yeah. We heard David talk about how the QC department is organized in Oxford. You have a little different approach at Midstates. How does it work at your plant? Absolutely. So at Midstates, quality virtually reports for the president. So the way the structure is developed, we have QC inspectors that report to QC foreman. They in turn report to a lead quality foreman or QC manager. And he reports to myself, VP of quality and safety. And I report to ownership to our president. That lane is a little bit different than what you saw at the gate plant there. We did try a structure in the past where, if you noticed before, I was in charge of production at one point a few years ago. And honestly, there were a lot of internal struggles for myself doing that, balancing both the load of trying to produce the poor and hit those schedules along with produce a good quality product. I am definitely not saying that that's not possible. And it takes a special individual to do that. I think David is one of those individuals for sure. My myself, I had difficulties with that. I found it a lot easier to focus just on the quality aspect of things on that plant floor and therefore production. But that at no point does that mean that production does not care about quality. We're two separate departments with two different goals working together to hit that schedule with a good quality product, but both respect each other and understand the importance of that quality product on time for customer satisfaction also. Yeah. And can you talk a couple of points on maybe how that is maintained, the quality culture at MidStates? So I would say the pinnacle of our quality culture lies with communication. And Dave touched on this also, but every day we have meetings out on the shop floor and in our main production halls discussing internal defects and external defects from the previous day. So supervisors from every department along with foreman are present to report out. These meetings drive root cause and corrective actions for those quality issues. And then it drives further teams out on the floor to react to those quality issues. Production and quality have to show that they're united on that floor for sure, working in unison. We definitely will disagree. And I know my production manager is on this webinar right now and he knows we disagree, but- Most likely he's muted, right? So he can't say whatever you want, Mike. Yup, there we go. Here's my chance. But a lot of those disagreements, they can get heated at times and they're going to happen behind closed doors. Out on that shop floor, we have to be united and show that we're all pushing in the same direction to improve quality. So I think that is how we maintain that quality culture out there. Yeah, on a side note there, what would you see as the biggest conflict? And I hate to put you on the spot here, but between the production side and the quality side, what drives the conflict or what do you see as a recurring conflict? And maybe how have you solved it or how have you gotten around it? That's a good one. Well, let me, I'll answer it first with my own internal conflict when I was in charge of production. Sure. Trying to hit schedules sometimes can be a challenge across the precast industry. I sit in committees and I hear the same things from many, many producers, schedule, schedule, and we have to produce a good quality product and hit that schedule. Sometimes that pressure of trying to produce, hit that schedule and being up against a timeline can lead to possible shortcuts, any type of shortcut. Isn't that good enough? It is within close enough to tolerance, but quality has to go through those lines with tolerance. So I think a lot of those conflicts don't exist at mid States any longer. We've come a long ways, but it still happens straight up. And I know it happens in other plants too. And I guess that's where the plant manager has got to understand the level of quality expected and the QC manager has also got to understand the schedule and not to ask for more quality than what's actually been sold. Absolutely. It is truly a balancing act. David talked a little bit about how they reward some of their employees for keeping quality going. What kind of activities or incentives are set up to ensure quality culture at the mid States? Well, first of all, I think I'm going to head to David's plant and enjoy a steak dinner when they produce a good product. We don't, haven't done that one. We have had cookouts and celebrated quality that way, but mainly it's burgers, brats, or something like that. You're Midwest, so that goes well. There we go. We do have a monthly quality meetings where made up of members from every department. And we do review a lot of our internal external wins on the quality side there. But on a plant floor, we also have something called a first run and scrap mini game that actually engages everyone on that plant floor. And it does work. So the mini game is in each of our main production halls and we track the number of internal pieces written up for a defect daily. And we charted on this board out on the production floor. The goal is to have a 98% first run capability. And what that means is you can only have two pieces written up out of every hundred pieces produced, which is a pretty good goal. And it will reduce the cost of poor quality and scrap. So depending on the number of days with all defects, a department can win gift cards, they can win a catered meal. They can even get a chance to win two big screen TVs. So that is incentivized, not only quality, but production and the entire team out on the floor to try to reduce those internal defects and hit their goals on the floor. Yeah, when you mentioned this before earlier, when you and I were talking, I like the fact that this is set up not pitting crews against each other, where I've heard of kind of competitions that way, but it's more just the internal crew by crew where if your crew is doing a great job, then they get some reward where it's not pitting people against each other. It's more just rewarding the ones that are stepping up. Exactly, exactly. No, the reward system does work and it does move the needle for quality for sure. Now, does QC run that game? Are they the ones keeping track of the errors or whatever charted? Yes, yes, our internal defects are tracked by our quality manager and we share that in our quality meetings also and have various different KPIs set up that do feed those charts out on the floor, so. Yeah, I see on the PowerPoint here, the review of quality concerns and defects from the day before. Is that done with the supervisors or is that done almost plant-wide? It is actually made up of representatives from every department out there and it's made up of those representatives are both the production, supervised quality, all supervisors, but also foremen from those areas that are boots on the ground every day out there. So holding them on that plan floor can engage others in those meetings too. Okay, so that is actually held on the plant floor, not up in an office somewhere. No, got to do it on the plant floor where the magic happens for sure. Gotcha, and I guess those supervisors take it directly to their crews to let them know what was found the day before. Yes, and we review it and many times, representatives from each of those crews will attend those meetings too and we'll try to determine the root cause, what actually causes Steve to- Okay, it's more than just a meeting to acknowledge what's happened, it's actually somewhere to get to the root cause and get it fixed. Yeah, exactly. Perfect, well, thank you, Mike. I appreciate your time today. I'm going to go ahead and turn it back over to Randy and check in to see what questions we may have gotten from our audience. Excellent, thanks, Steve. Thanks to David and thanks to Mike. It was, I think this is our best one ever. So if you were the speaker from the last two times, there you go, the bar has been raised. I do have a couple of questions that have come in and this is, if anybody has any questions whatsoever, just send them in, I'll read them off and we'll do our best to answer them. First question is, and I'm kind of scrolling and reading together, so I'm probably going to sound like my third grader reading this. QC generally answers to the engineering department to maintain separation from plant personnel. Why, my scroller is not working here. Why do you have them answering to the plant manager? Also, do you have a QC foreman for each bed or group of beds? This was brought up when David was talking, so I'll read it again, David. QC is generally answers to the engineering department to maintain separation from plant personnel. Why do you have them answering to the plant manager? Also, do you have a QC foreman for each bed or group of beds? Well, the reason why that we have them reporting to me here is with me being QC manager for eight years, I pretty much have the QC in mind more so or equally to production. So, you know, the guys on the floor, the same guys on the floor now are the ones that were here when I was QC manager. So they pretty much know the expectation of what we expect here. So it just works here like that because I will always lean to the side of quality control over production. And as far as the beds, the way we're set up is we have two sides in our plant. We have one QC inspector, pre-pull inspector on one side and one on the other side, and they have 10 beds a piece. And when I say beds, they are tables 16 by 50. You know, it's not long lines. It's not the structural type that you would think. And then we have a post-pull inspector that will get it works outside. Gotcha, thanks. That's a good answer. Yeah, I was gonna say, Randy, just let me jump in here because this was a question that came up even when we were putting this together and listening to, it seems like three types of either the QC reports to a production manager, which is actually common in a lot of places, or they report to either an operations manager or general manager or something like that, or they do report to engineering. I've heard all three, and I'm sure each one has its own benefits. And a lot of it, like David says, depends on what the personnel in those positions are. So yeah, all three easily are done, multiple plants. Yeah, and I never worked in production. I always came from the sales side, so I can safely say that all problems start in sales. Right, guys? There you go. Just sell a good job. Just sell a good job. That's right, just sell an easy job. So I got a question for Mike. I know you have past experience with the automotive industry. How is working in a precast plant the same as working in a different industry with your experience, especially when it pertains to balancing quality and production, your throughput versus your defects? And then how is it the same, and how is it the difference between the two, precast versus automotive? That's a good question. That seems like a long time ago. I think it was years ago. So yeah, there are definitely similarities and differences between both. In regards to quality, number one, in automotive, coming from automotive to quality, it was a bit of a culture shock. Just simply looking at the tolerances, I was used to dealing with five mils or 10 mils, so the metric system, and then jump into a precast plant where we're dealing with quarter inch, half inch. That was a big change for me. But when you're talking quality systems and looking at quality, both automotive and precast have internal external defects. They both have standards to follow and have to produce a good quality product to keep that customer coming back. That's everyone's goal. So in automotive, there's a lot of emphasis on root cause analysis. There's different governing agencies, such as IES, QS9000, TS6949, all these fancy governing agencies that audit the quality out there. And I know I've seen a shift through my years with PCI. Now that PCI is IES, there is momentum to get some of those certifications. So, yeah, the moral of the story is you can use similar statistical root cause analysis tools in both automotive and quality. The same type of tools, such as Red X, Six Sigma, Lean and Continuous Improvement, those are the same. The difference, and this might sound a little corny, but it's actually the people and the way we are with competitors in precast. I've worked on various different PCI committees and networked with, you know, a lot of different peers and even competitors, and it's been an unbelievable experience. You know, precasters stick together. Yeah, and in automotive, you just don't find that. It's dog-eat-dog a little bit out there. So, yeah, I made the right move definitely years ago coming to precast. Yeah, it seems, it seems to me like, again, over the years since 1987, my first precast job is that producers are like us against the world. When we're, when we're at the committee meetings, we're writing manuals, we're doing research and development, we're brothers and sisters in arms. But, boy, you see an EIFS job go up or a cast in place, but we're, we're all on, all on board, hand in hand, arm in arm. Another question that came in, this is going to be for both speakers, so we'll start with you, David. How important are the PCI schools? I know you mentioned that, David, level one and level two. Certification for the QC inspectors in your plants. Do you feel your QC culture, quality culture is affected by the inspector training? How does that enhance your overall quality? And, and how, how many people are, how do you determine when somebody's, you need to send somebody to QC school? Good question. And to answer that question, yes, I think it is very, very, um, what's the word I'm looking for here? I think it helps a lot for them to be level one and two certified, because in that department, it helps them understand what we're looking for, what we're doing, why we're doing it, and the importance of what we're doing. Because, I mean, you got to look at it, we've got a whole lot of people's lives at risk on what we do, hanging precast on wall, on buildings, and bridges, and, you know, you have to understand the importance of it, and the PCI level one and two and three school really drive home that importance. And, you know, it's, it's an incentive for them, because it just, it adds to their resume, and it has worked well for us. We try to keep, right now I've got three people in our QC department that's level one and two, QC manager level three, and myself, I'm level one and two. And, um, it's just, I think it, it, it makes a clear understanding of what we're doing, and why we do what we do. Excellent. How about you, Mike? How would you answer that question? Yeah, so I would definitely agree with David. The value of PCI schools is huge in a precast plant. It's the one training that specifically trains your team out there, the quality team, and what they need to know, what they're doing. When you have specific training, and not general training, it's invaluable. It's incredible. So, at MidStates, we have, our goal is to have every QC inspector, every one of them, at least up to level two, and all four men to be level three, along with the QC manager. And the schools can be challenging, absolutely, for people, but we send them back. It's just a great, great opportunity and tool to drive, drive that quality knowledge out there. And I think David mentioned that even production employees go through the quality schools, which I think that is an excellent idea. The knowledge you get from these schools really opens your eyes to that you are not the only precaster in the nation. And it gives you opportunities also to network. And a lot of these classes, even virtually, you can meet different people, different precasters, and other QC inspectors that do the same exact thing that you do, but, you know, a lot of miles away. So, there's lots of opportunities, and it's just, it's great. And we love buying it here at MidStates. Yeah, I was going to ask if either one of you have like a batch plant operator that attended one of these schools, or somebody else in a master bowl builder, or is that something you may be looking at in the future? We do not. Right now, it's primarily our QC, our QC inspectors at MidStates, although one of our production supervisors is level three and used to be quality manager here too. So, that does help. But yeah, that's an excellent idea to have the batch plant operator go through it, and some of your production leads go through it, for sure. You got another question for Dave. I know one of your slides, it said you promote within. How does, you know, seeing that you promote within, how does that help promote, you know, quality consciousness with your other employees? How does that succession plan work? Do you find that you build loyalty that way, because employees can see a career path? How does that, how do you be seeing that really influence your quality growth? Well, just to give you a quick rundown, in our QC department, we have two pre-pour inspectors and a post-pour inspector. One of our pre-pour inspectors used to be on the casting crew, pouring concrete. The other QC pre-pour inspector used to work in production and set up hanging PSA inserts, hardware, helping with reinforcement and erection methods. My post-pour inspector used to be my lead patcher in the finishing area. So, we promoted those guys that did a great job in the QC, and, you know, to be honest, QC is a pretty important role in a pre-cast plant. Every supervisor I have here has been promoted within the department they've worked in, and all the QC inspectors and all my management here has got 17 plus years experience in this plant and this plant alone. So, these guys see that, well, they're not going to go out and hire a foreman. They're not going to go out and hire a manager. They're going to do it within, and if I do a good job, I get to move up, and that in turns better benefits, better pay, you know, and it's just everybody's after the man in front of their job, and it just, it's just unbelievable how it works, how focused people are on doing a great job. Excellent. Excellent. Yeah, Mike, did you want to add to that? Yes, I agree 100 percent. Also, MedStates also promotes from within, and they are the experts out on the floor, and that absolutely drives that quality culture and attention to detail. That experience and finding that experience is right in your plant, and it promotes a good quality product. So, I agree 100 percent. Let me ask you something real quick on promoting from within, because I have seen this in the precast industry. We have a great worker who does a great job with, you know, assembling stuff and or building forms, and, you know, after a while they've shown that they know what they're doing. They get promoted into a management spot, but they may not have the managing skills or the leadership skills. They've got the craftsman skills. What do you all do to ensure that they have that manager side to be able to manage the people that they're now supervising? I can go. So, we do performance reviews on all of our foremen and evaluate their strengths and weaknesses and that leadership ability. We actually have a program here, a leadership class, that all of many of our foremen go through that promote those leadership skills. Promote those leadership qualities that we want in our supervisors, in our managers, and foremen. So, if they're successful at that class and learn those traits to become a good leader, good manager, then they will definitely move up. All of our production supervisors, quality management, all work their way up through the company. Okay, very good. Another question that came in for you, Mike, was you were talking about, and Dave, you can answer this too when Mike's done, you're talking about when you guys get together to look at, I can't remember the term, you know, past effects. When looking for root causes, who leads that discussion or that search? Is that the QC manager? Is it a production manager? Is it a production team member? Is it a foreman? Who leads that discussion when you are looking at the daily defects? Excellent question, and it's an important question. I am definitely not going to be the expert, or even the quality manager sometimes is not going to be the expert out there on the floor. It is absolutely the guys who are doing the work and many of our production supervisors, and they are going to know the product. If it's an extrusion machine that's creating strand slip or a defect, you know, you're going to engage maintenance at that time and say, what do you think? Can you help me root cause this? The experts are out on the floor. They are not going to reside in quality, and those root causes, those corrective actions, almost always come from the production floor, come from production team members out there, maintenance team members, guard team members, and not the quality department. How about you, Dave? Did you want to add anything to that? Yes, and I agree with Michael that when we're doing that, most of the time, it's either the QC manager doing the talking or myself, and most of the time, we ask the questions, what do you guys think about here? What happened here? 99.9% of the time, the lead guy or the production supervisor, I know what happened here. This is what happened, and then we come up with a plan to eliminate that problem. You know, everybody's going to have problems. Everybody has problems, but the goal is to not have the same problem twice, so that's why we get everybody involved, just like Mike, and like I said, most of the time, when we see it, the person that was involved in that just steps forward and, hey, this is what happened, and this is why I did it like this, and we collectively come up with a plan to correct that problem from happening again. Excellent, excellent. Well, I got 99 problems, but this production workshop ain't one, so does Steve, do you have any additional questions? I was going to ask one. When you got new production employees, you know, just hired in, I know, David, so you said you sent a lot of those through the QC department, but are there specific steps that you are taking to kind of teach them the level of quality that is expected at your plant? I mean, we kind of teach them how to bend a rebar, we may teach them how to tie up something, we may teach them how to acid wash, but is there something specific as far as teaching them the quality that's expected, or is that just kind of done by watching the other people? Well, it works both ways, Steve. It's done some by watching the other people, but the whole time they're with the QC inspectors here, you know, they explain to them, okay, this is why we're doing this, this is why we need this two inches away from this, this is, you know, and then they go outside and say, look, this is why we're going to do this, and then they even look at renderings renderings of jobs and past jobs, how they look, and, you know, it just, yeah, a lot of it is, it's just, within that QC department, they kind of teach them the level of quality, even though they may be going into carpentry or something like that, that initial time with the QC kind of sets their expectations. That is correct, because, you know, you take a carpenter, for example, if he's working with the QC inspector, and the QC inspector is making another carpenter that's already here working, move something that's a quarter inch off, or he's making him come back to move something that's an eighth of an inch off, he's sitting there saying to himself, well, I'm not going to be doing a whole lot of backtracking, so I'm going to measure twice and nail once, you know. Yep. Mike, how do you handle that in your training or onboarding process at MidStates? Yeah, so all new hires at MidStates go through a four-day orientation before they ever hit the floor. Now, the majority of that is safety, but there is a chunk of that that is quality and showing them our building, showing them the requirements of quality. Now, of course, it doesn't go into the detail that PCI level one, two, and three do, but it gives them an introduction and also kind of a heads up as to what the requirements are out on that production floor and what is expected of them. But then, you know, you can only learn so much in the classroom. The real learning happens out on that floor. All of our QC inspectors do have to go through an internal QC school eventually, and they learn about those tolerances, and they're paired up with a mentor. And yeah, so that's virtually our process here. Okay. Excellent. Well, we're about out of time here, and I wanted to just wrap up by saying, again, thanks for the speakers. Extremely, all the experience that both of you gentlemen have had specific in the precast world, and I will just kind of brag on both of you. I look at David as somebody who started in precast and 25 years later has worked his way up to a very responsible position. You should be extremely proud of your career. I'm sure a lot of producers that are on the call would also applaud what you've accomplished in your career. So your knowledge was very well spoken. We very much appreciate you sharing a little bit with us today. And the same with Mike. Mike took a little bit different path in his career. He started in automotive and then moved over to precast. But you can tell by his answers, the experience that he has, it comes from focusing on improving his skill set and applying that skill set into the precast world. So as a precast industry, brothers and sisters in arms, we thank both of you gentlemen for not a done career, but a half a career of helping build our industry. So we thank both of you gentlemen. Our next workshop is April 15th, which is the third Thursday. And you don't have your taxes done by then, I heard today. So that's a good day now. But I do want to put a word out there about the architectural precast concrete committee. That's who sponsors this. These topics were created through a blind survey from the producers that were at our precast concrete committee meeting about a year and a half ago. And the next two sessions, April and May, are going to be focused on safety. So the next event will be more of a high-level look with Brian and Steve from Optimum Safety Management. They'll be here to talk more about how to build, I forgot to change the slide, I apologize, but how to build a safety-focused culture. And then the following session will be more plant-specific, which would be in May. And then we will stop these over the summer and we'll pick them back up again in the fall. But I do reach out to everybody on this call. If you are producing architectural precast and you want to get more involved in PCI, the best place to do that is through the architectural precast concrete committee. You can contact me, Randy Wilson, rwilson at pci.org, and I'll be happy to get you involved in our committee work. So with that, again, thank the speakers, thank Steve for a great job, and also Brad Williams and Nicole with PCI staff. So have a great day, everybody.

workshop

culture

quality control

PCI membership

consistent quality

plant managers

employee training

communication

teamwork