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Chris Hawkins
Plant Manager - South Bend
Jeff Zelley
Plant Manager - Tomah
Organization Development
By the end of 2011, GSMW was growing rapidly. In order to stabilize operations company leadership recognized the need to professionalize its management team and evolve its organizational structure to provide the knowledge, support and control needed to continue that growth. Based on a more in-depth understanding of the company’s business model, the organization was completely redesigned based on a team matrix concept, minimizing pitfalls of the traditional steep hierarchy favored by most manufacturing concerns. The executive team was reconstructed and augmented to provide a new level of strategic expertise, bring clarity to the company’s mission, and realign the organization and its processes to drive knowledge and information throughout the company and provide strategic consistency.
As part of their own development, executives engaged in extensive development of their department managers, added to and refined core capabilities to decrease dependence on outside contractors for essential functions.
Learning as a Way of Life
After years of commiserating with other manufacturers about the “skills gap” and the shortage of educated, motivated production employees, GSM’s leadership made the decision to build the company’s engineering and production teams by providing formal educational and training support to existing employees interested in growing their careers in manufacturing. An internship program was initiated for college students interested in manufacturing technology and engineering.
Today, in addition to its strong administrative core, GSM’s innovative organizational structure includes a professional engineering team, a dedicated technology performance team, expert continuous improvement leadership, a credentialed quality assurance team, outstanding professional safety leadership, and a dedicated cultural development team focused on the recruitment and individual development of truly outstanding team members. Enhanced training and education programs for machine operators, technicians, management and supervisory employees is the cornerstone of our success, ensuring our customers get everything they need from us to protect their brands.