Continuous Improvement Together: This is Luke's Story
Meet Luke Foley, an Operations Manager at Cincinnati Incorporated. Learn more about Luke and his career journey at Cincinnati Incorporated.
How long have you been with CI?
I’ve worked here for eight years.
Talk about your career path with Cincinnati.
So I first started here as a production engineer focusing on lean and continuous improvement things. And then I moved up into the management role.
Talk about your first job, what did that look like?
My first role I basically focused on Kaizen and 5S and improvements on the shop floor. So I spent a lot of time doing that, holding events with the operators, trying to make their job easier for them.
Talk about the teamwork and collaboration with all the different people you worked with.
I worked with a lot of different people in that role, and that’s one of the reasons why I really like to work at CI. We all work together very well and it feels like I’m working with my family when I come to work. That previous role I spent a lot of time working with manufacturing, engineering, the operators, the assemblers, the mechanics, the electricians, all on how to make their job better so that we could make it easier for them and for them to feel better when they go home at night.
What are some examples of the problems you’ve solved that you’re proud of?
One of the biggest issues that we faced in one of the areas was actually up here [in the shop] was every day that their parts carts were always coming up missing. So it wasn’t anything that anyone was trying to do wrong. It’s just simple fact that somebody would borrow their carts and they wouldn’t get returned at the end of the night.
So what we did is we got with the operators that used the carts and we let them pick out their favorite color. It just so happens to be that they liked blue. So we painted all their toolboxes, their parts, carts, all their bins a blue color. That way we knew that whenever we saw that cart sitting somewhere, it belonged up here.
What did you see happening? Simple solution, right?
That every cart stayed where it belonged. Yes. Very simple solution.
Talk about what you’re doing today.
I’m currently the operations manager for the plant. So I oversee all of our raw material making its way up through the plant, through fabrication, machining, up to final assembly. And I also have final assembly as well.
You have an enormous amount of responsibility and people you’re interacting with. Talk about some of the challenges you have and how you overcome those?
There’s a lot of issues that we face every day in terms of supply chain, whether it be internal or external machinery and equipment. So I worked really close with the maintenance department, making sure that our machines are being maintained properly so that we don’t have any downtime on those assets.
So that has been one of the biggest issues previously that we’re working hard to solve today. So we implemented a preventative maintenance program on all of our machines, and we’re really starting to track OEE on those machines so we can keep those machines up and running to supply SR parts.
So there’s a lot of pressure to get machines our the door and on quality ad making sure everything’s done right, and it’s a work in progress. Talk about that role and what you have done there.
Yeah, we’ve instituted a lot of in process checks and all of our subassemblies and our parts through machining. We want to make sure that there’s not a single part that moves on to its next operation or to the customer, whether it be internal or external, that did not pass a quality inspection.
So everything gets inspected. It’s all inspected before it moves on to the next operation. We also implemented a final machine inspection. Each machine goes through a rigorous quality control inspection before it leaves the plant.
I know we have this “American Owned, American Built” decal that goes on every machine, when does that go on? And is there any reaction from people when they’re putting on that decal?
So that decal is put on almost very last, as we are shining the machine right before it gets prepped for shipment. And yes, our operators take a lot of pride in installing that decal.
What keeps you driven and engaged here at Cincinnati?
There’s a lot of reasons why I’m proud to work at Cincinnati, but one of them is the feeling of family.
Every day when I come to work, I feel like I’m working with my family. The company really institutes a culture of family and communication and collaboration. And I feel that when we worked as a team together, that we really have the best chance of satisfying our customers.
Talking about the family … What do the activities such as the picnics and Veterans’ Day celebrations that CI does mean to you?
I enjoy anytime that we’re all together, whether that be working on the shop floor together or these extracurricular activities. And I think most of the folks on the shop floor feel that as well.
What do you want your customers to see and know about Cincinnati?
I want our customers to know that each one of these machines has been touched by us and someone from my department. Each machine is basically handbuilt by us here at Cincinnati and we take a lot of pride in that.
If someone where to ask you “Why should I buy from Cincinnati?”, what would your response be?
I could sum that up in one simple word – just legendary. Our machines are legendary.
