Topic(s)
- People-centric leadership
Overview
This presentation describes how Merritt Aluminum Products Company (MAPCO) began to regain its culture while trying to move to the next level on its 10-year vision. The initial part is about re-engaging the workforce, equipping and empowering them to make their jobs easier and learning to improve systems to allow the entire team (including Leadership) to accomplish more by working smarter and not harder. The beginning starts with focusing on what we want/need to do, becoming visual, learning what it takes to go slow in order to go faster, etc.
In 2020, MAPCO won the 2019 Colorado Manufacturing Award for Industrial & Equipment Manufacturer and was named the Best Mid-sized Company to Work for in Colorado by Coloradobiz. Leadership had just completed its plan to triple growth in the next five to ten years. Leadership had the culture they had strived for and knew many of their systems and ways of doing business would need to change as they moved into new markets and started to grow. The family-owned business had thrived due to the hard work and dedication of its engaged team. However, Leadership knew MAPCO was going to have to learn to work smarter and not harder to achieve the plan.
The vision was in place, the team was on-board and then...COVID hit, and “survival” became the goal and focus for the next two-plus years. When 2022 arrived, Leadership decided it was time to start again and consciously begin rebuilding their culture and moving forward on the 10-year plan. This is where our presentation starts.
Key learning objectives
1. Hope! A company can start again and successfully rebuild to become even better than it was before the pandemic.
2. People! People! People! This is where any effort has to start and grow from.
3. It takes a family/community to succeed.
4. You have to have a strategy, communicate it and be disciplined enough to follow it. This is NOT easy to do!
Company
Merritt Aluminum Products Company is North America’s leading manufacturer of aluminum accessories serving the heavy duty and light truck transportation industry.
As a family-owned company with over 70 years of manufacturing experience, Merritt takes pride in producing and distributing highly desired and premium products that keep its drivers moving.
The company develops strong partnerships with its North American distribution partners through its excellent services, best-in-class lead times, in-house sales and customer service team, on-site engineering, and its own warehouse distribution channel.
Built into each Merritt product is legendary toughness. Merritt products are designed with durability for your working truck, yet premium enough for your show truck!
Merritt Aluminum Products Company strives to be the easiest manufacturing company in the industry for you to work with, highly focused on continuous improvement and customer service. Its core purpose is to build a great company, with great people, and great results while helping those it serves succeed through high-quality, high-performance products and services.
Its people and values make the difference through INTEGRITY, TRUST, EXCELLENCE, RESPECT and TEAMWORK. https://merrittproducts.com/
Presenter
David Behling currently leads the improvement journey at Merritt Aluminum Products in the greater Denver, CO area. His passion is helping individuals and teams enjoy their work and home lives more by simplifying processes. He has more than 25 years of experience working in the manufacturing, metal processing, non-profit and government industries. He has successfully guided transformations through teaching and coaching servant leadership, daily problem-solving and identifying waste to provide better customer (internal and external) value by building sustainable systems.
Behling is a member of the AME Champions Club. He served on the ASQ (American Society for Quality) Lean Enterprise Division leadership team for its first 10 years while chairing the Lean programming for the annual Lean & Six Sigma Conference and serving as the ASQ representative when the current AME/Shingo Institute/SME Lean Certification system was created. He is a Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt, holds a Lean Bronze Certification from AME/Shingo Institute/SME and is an ASQ Certified Manager of Quality/Organizational Excellence. 
