Episode Details

Connect with Kevin: kevin.johnson@bhamfast.com 

Show Transcript:

Lisa Ryan: Hey, it's Lisa Ryan of the Manufacturers Network podcast. I'm excited to introduce you to Kevin Johnson. Kevin is V.P. of manufacturing at Birmingham Fastener. He has 25 years of experience in steel and steel products. He has worked for Nucor, Fontana Grupo in increasing responsibilities. And his current role is responsible for sales, manufacturing, engineering, maintenance, shipping, and quality. He studied metallurgical engineering at Purdue University and is the chairman of the Industrial Fastener Institute chairman and is also on the A.G. Gaston Boys and Girls Club board. 

Kevin enjoys spending time with his wife Cindy and their two children, Amani and Jada. Kevin, welcome to the show. It's good to have you here. 

Kevin Johnson: Thanks, Lisa. Glad to be here. 

Lisa Ryan: Well, you and I had the opportunity to meet at the Industrial Fasters Institute, and now you are in charge of that. So not only dealing with manufacturing at your plant but also I'm sure that you hear many things from your members. So when it comes to your background, please share with us a little bit about what brought you to manufacturing and how you got where you're at. 

Kevin Johnson: OK, well, you know, I come from a manufacturing family. I'm the third generation. My grandfather was in aluminum. My dad was in steel, and I ended up in steel as well. That kindled my interest in metallurgical engineering. So I received a scholarship for that. I attended Purdue. It was in-state. And from that, I went to my first job, which is an Otakupu, and started in their lab. They moved me up to the lab supervisor, then over quality control. I went over to Nucor, hired in as a metallurgist, and again had a similar thing. I went over quality and then went over all manufacturing and had a wonderful career with those guys. 

I went to Fontana Gruppo, where I was director of operations and plant manager and had a great relationship with the team here at Birmingham fastener, so I took a vice president of manufacturing job with them. And it's been great. Getting to see all of the sides of it helped me project through various roles of increased responsibility. 

Lisa Ryan: What are some of the things that you're doing right now at Birmingham fastener that are working well for you? What are the retention efforts you're doing? What's going well? 

Kevin Johnson:  Well, I'll tell you, we've focused on incentivizing people to try to keep some more walking the talk. I mean, at the end of the day, we want to give people the best job experience we can. We also know what goes in your pocket has a little bit to do with your happiness. In one particular area where we do our performing, we instituted a pay for performance plan. And this plan has just been great. 

Production is up about 30 percent. And for the people that are into numbers, to be candid, the payroll has roughly stayed the same, even though those guys are making more money themselves. And you say, well, how can you do that? Well, overtime has just totally disappeared in the area and the productivity there. So we look at what's the speed of a machine and what's the best output that it can get. Can somebody do that through the day now? 

So we take an arbitrary number of, say, 80 percent of that goal, and that 80 percent will pay you X amount they hit. That amount will virtually double what you're currently making. So, of course, we drop their base rate when we interviewed them in this program. But it does probably pay them twenty-five percent more than what they made in prior years. And they're working fewer hours. So you have to find that win-win. 

That's what we looked at. We've also looked at attendance, and we say, hey if you're going to hav