In the realm of manufacturing excellence, the consistent delivery of high-quality products stands as a paramount objective. Understanding the immense value associated with this pursuit, organizations are increasingly relying on the expertise of a dedicated Quality Director. This pivotal position entails the strategic oversight and execution of quality programs, fostering a culture of manufacturing excellence.
What led you to Mazzella Companies?
Prior to being the Director of Quality at Mazzella Companies two and a half years ago, Sean was working in continuous improvement for a high-end kitchen appliance company. With his engineering, continuous improvement, and quality background, Sean felt that he would be a good fit when he saw a job posting for Director of Quality at Mazzella Companies.
What inspired you to begin working with the Quality team?
Sean says that he has always looked at quality as very process dependent, “I enjoy visualizing processes, taking it step by step and making sense of it in my head. It’s ensuring you have good inputs and controlling the process to get the desired output. As a more logically minded person, I see the value in looking at processes and thinking about how to make them better.”
How has your position changed over time?
Sean said that when he initially started at Mazzella Companies, it was during the COVID-19 pandemic. Being in a new organization and industry during a pandemic meant a lot of learning who everyone was and taking time to watch, learn, and understand what Mazzella Companies did before suggesting alternatives.
“Once we all got more comfortable and I understood the current state of what we were doing I shifted into evaluating our quality management system. Now that we have a good grasp on the system here in Cleveland, we’re continuing to build it up and scale it to other locations so we can continue to standardize our processes.”
What do you believe is the role of the Quality Director?
Sean shared that a major part of being Quality Director is aligning with the company’s goal of One Mazzella, bringing consistency and scalability to all parts of Mazzella Companies. “From a quality perspective, that means having a standardized quality management system so that no matter where you are, quality processes are being performed the same way.”
Sean shared that a major part of being a Quality Director is aligning with the company’s goals of having every one of Mazzella Companies’ locations become ISO (International Organization for Standardization) compliant, if not ISO certified, to really support the internal customers.
“Some of our sites are already ISO-9001 certified, but to become ISO compliant, we need to continue to develop our Quality Management System (QMS) so it’s easy for our internal customers and makes their job easier. We have to make sure we not only have the right processes in place but that they’re also a value-add.”
What is a project you’re working on that excites you?
On enhancing Mazzella Companies’ existing QMS, Sean says that it’s been exciting to take on new companies who already have a good QMS in place. “We recently acquired an ISO certified company this past December and they already had a really good QMS in place, so it’s become a project of taking the best of both systems and combining them to even further improve processes.”
What is the biggest challenge facing the QSTR department today?
Sean shared that with so many locations, all having different versions of a QMS, his biggest challenge right now is understanding where everyone is at and supporting them in their QMS journey. “It’s going to require some additional boots on the ground who when they wake up in the morning they’re thinking about quality, safety, transportation, and reliability.”
How do you stay on top of laws and regulations that apply to your industry?
Sean shared that with so many different standards that govern the industry, they’re glad they can rely on a software service called Techstreet, which notifies him when there are updates to those standards. In addition to software solutions, Sean said, “I also know I can rely on Mazzella Companies’ Marketing department. The content they put out on their Lifting and Rigging YouTube channel and in their Learning Center is always on top of standard revisions.”
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What professional podcasts or books can you recommend that have helped you on your career path?
Sean shared that there are a lot of lean manufacturing books that he likes to read, and that he really enjoys lot of the Toyota Kata literature, The Work of Management Book, and the great resources on the Lean Enterprise Institute’s website.
What advice would you give someone looking to join the QSTR team?
With a lot of opportunities available to collaborate on projects with Mazzella Companies’ business units, Sean said it’s important that someone joining the team is eager to coordinate, organize, and have a passion for process improvement. He also said, “You’ll really need to love problem solving because no one is calling you to tell you something is great – it’s always a problem. So, you have to enjoy it. Have a curious mind asking, ‘why do we do it this way?’ because a different way may get better results.”
Pulling the String Together
At the end of the day, Sean really enjoys working with teams that are hungry to improve their processes. “I don’t want to be trying to push something on a team because it’s like pushing a string – it’s hard to do. But if people are pulling that string, saying ‘we have this problem with this process, we need help fixing it’, getting a group together, mapping out what our current state is and what we want our future state to be in. Working as a team to implement that future state and seeing the improvement because of it, knowing people are less frustrated, their jobs are easier – that’s a win.”
