Brett Ferguson is a business development manager at Vision Plastics and has been with the company for five and a half years, joining during the pandemic. He said that when he started, his role was broad and " a catch-all role," but over a couple of years, the company did serious work on " getting the right people into the right seats, including managers," which created the strong, solid company they have today.
Ferguson’ s background was interesting because he had experience in Japanese language and math instruction. At one point, he also interned at Boeing in the quality department, bringing those skills into the education realm to help teachers understand how Boeing manages quality assurance. Later, he switched from teaching to working at an injection molding company owned by a Japanese family. He said his Japanese language skills helped him in that job, and the Japanese way of doing things has influenced his work today. He said the Japanese have solid manufacturing frameworks that he picked up during his tenure with that company and were reinforced on his biannual trips to Japan.
At Vision Plastics, Ferguson said they created the Make It Better( MIB) program for all 130 employees. He called it the Vision Plastics 1.0 program at the start: " Vision 1.0 was to do what you are told, Vision 2.0 was to make it better." Over time, the program became a lynchpin of their culture. They adopted an open-door policy with the CEO and fostered company growth through regular monthly lunch meetings. Employees are encouraged to bring 10 suggestions a month, from simple ideas to earth-shattering changes. Ferguson said they listen, discuss, and implement changes to make the company better for everyone.
THEY LISTEN, DISCUSS, & IMPLEMENT CHANGES TO MAKE THE COMPANY BETTER FOR EVERYONE.
From a sales standpoint, both Ferguson and Traverso said these changes have created a solid team they can count on as they grow the business. Traverso added that they’ ve developed a great ecosystem with the staff.“ I don’ t dread going to work every day. The people make it fun. There aren’ t many egos in the company. It’ s a team environment.” He said they have good customers and personal relationships with them.
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