by Clinton Foote, Class of December 2016
Last semester (Fall 2015) I had the opportunity to take the new, integrated Supply Chain Management Core here at Brigham Young University (BYU). Though rigorous, the Supply Chain Core provided some of the best learning opportunities that I’ve had during my BYU experience. I benefited greatly from the many hands-on learning opportunities, like plant tours and company visits.
Two of the core classes, Quality Management and Operations Management, required that we tour a production facility during the semester. For this project, we were to look for ways that we could improve company’s production processes. This activity fit right into the Supply Chain Management (SCM) program, because SCM is all about taking a process and making it faster, more productive, and more profitable. We chose to tour a company in Lehi Utah, called MityLite. MityLite manufactures collapsible tables and chairs. Their products are commonly found in Latter-day Saint (LDS) church buildings, where they are used for events and meetings.
As weird as it sounds, I was ecstatic to find out how these tables and chairs, that I had been setting up and taking down since I was eight years old, were actually made.
My four group members and I got together, and went to the MityLite production facility for a tour. As we went through the facility, I remember thinking to myself, “I had no idea that making tables was so complex.” There were large industrial machines for almost every part of the process, and dozens of personnel working at each station to keep the line moving. As we walked through the facility with the plant manager, we asked questions, took pictures, and took notes about the various processes. It was a fascinating experience. This plant tour gave us plenty of material to write a thorough report for our final presentation.
Another company that we visited was U.S. Synthetic (USS). This tour was one of the highlights of my semester. My Quality Management professor, Professor Gardner, arranged for the entire class to take a of tour U.S. Synthetic’s production facilities. For me, this was a once in a lifetime opportunity, because a typical tour of USS would cost over $200/person. USS waived the fee for us because we were visiting purely for academic purposes.
Our class showed up at USS at 8:00AM for plant tour; ready to go, 100% there, and mostly awake. I didn’t know anything about USS, so I was expecting to tour a plant where they make plastic tubs or something. But what I discovered, far exceeded my expectations. USS is one of the largest manufacturers of synthetic diamonds, in the world. Inside the facility they have several massive pressing machines. Each one pressurizes materials at upwards of one million pounds per square inch. This is how they create the diamonds. As we walked through the facility we saw things like process improvement charts, Kanban Systems, and other things that we were learning about in our Quality Management class. One of the coolest parts of this tour was realizing that the things we were learning about in the class, actually do exist! Not only that, but these methods are widely employed to improve the processes of companies around the world. As we examined the facility, I kept thinking to myself, “Wow, this is a real thing.”
Another thing that I found fascinating about USS, was their company culture. The culture was built around improving processes. They encouraged their employees to come up with better ways to do things. Many of their process improvements started from employees themselves. Their whole philosophy seemed to be built around this idea that those who were closest to the problems, were best fit to develop solutions to the problems. That concept really resonated with me, and inspired me to be the type of manager that would build a culture around improving processes and becoming better.
Continuous improvement is what drives the Supply Chain Management program here at BYU. And it’s just going to become better and better, because that’s what Supply Chain Management is all about; improving processes, and becoming better.