Next-Generation Manufacturing Leaders 2020

This year has been a strange one, to say the least, but the limitations created by the pandemic have brought up important considerations for businesses and individuals.

For instance, how do you maintain a spirit of community at a time when meeting in person isn’t always possible? How do you preserve and further develop relationships with customers?

This year’s Next-Generation Manufacturing Leaders were chosen based on a number of considerations, but something that seems to be a trend among them is finding new ways to reach out to colleagues and customers. By finding new communications channels, they’ve been able to promote themselves, their companies, and the trades in general. In the process, they’ve started conversations among colleagues across Canada and even farther afield.

Most importantly, though, all demonstrate that Canada has a bright manufacturing future if we can continue to encourage investment in talented individuals such as these.

Kevin Roy

Journeyman Welder

Social media can be a very negative space, but if it’s used for the right purpose, it can inspire and help others. Kevin Roy is an example of the positives that can come through the use of the technology. He started using Instagram to ask other people questions he had about welding processes. Over time he has attracted more than 10,000 followers to his page and now offers advice and serves as an example to other welders.

Roy didn’t realize his passion for welding right away.

“I wanted to be an auto mechanic when I was a kid,” he said. “But once I started working in it, I realized I didn’t have the passion for it I thought I would. I always had a natural talent for welding throughout high school, so when auto mechanics didn’t work out, I signed up for a welding course. I was very fortunate to have a great instructor who saw the drive in me to learn and he instilled in me a pride in the work, and the push to always do better. That enthusiasm has stuck with me throughout my career.”

Roy was hired straight out of school by a company that he has now been with for 14 years.

“The great thing about my workplace is that every day is different,” he said. “Being in Regina, the company has specialized in grain elevator repair and construction, but there’s no job too big or too small that it doesn’t tackle, so I’ve had a chance to develop a lot of different welding skills over the years.”

Roy was drawn to watching other welders on Instagram when he came to a point in his development where he was looking for guidance on welding stainless steel and aluminum.

“I got to a point in my development that there wasn’t anyone above me in our company who could teach me the tricks and tips of doing certain types of welding,” he said. “I started asking questions of other welders who I saw sharing videos online and was able to get their real-world perspective of techniques that I was trying or was interested in.”

Gradually Roy started sharing his own videos and got a great response from other welders.

“It’s great when you post something and people message you asking how you did it,” he said. “I’ve been welding for 14 years and have done all kinds of welding. I do my best with what’s in front of me. I’m in a position where I can weld pipe, I can weld structural steel, I can build handrails. If I can take that knowledge and help someone with a sticky job they are working on, that feels good. It helps their shop, and it helps keep them employed. Ultimately, that’s what community is for. Welding isn’t a competition; we all have a job to do.”

Not all of Roy’s posts are of perfect welds, though. In one, he shows how he had to redo a large weld after a long Monday.

“I’m always learning,” he said. “Sometimes pride gets in the way, but you have to push past that. For instance, there’s a video of a 100-year-old light fixture that I was working on. I threw everything at that thing, and in the end I just had to solder it. It’s all about working the process and never giving up. Always try new things. If you’re not learning something new every day, you’re probably doing something wrong.”

Roy thinks that his success at work and online comes from this willingness to learn.

“Anytime I’m asked to do something new, I jump all over it and say yes, whether it’s getting different tickets or going on-site,” he said. “You have to have that drive and that willingness to learn.”

Roy’s inventiveness is one of the draws for his online audience as well.

“I’m always surprised by what gets liked on my page,” he said. “I recently posted a video where the tolerance on the part wouldn’t work with the tooling that I have, so I showed how I bent the piece from the back first to create a W shape and then pressed out the centre from the front to create the channel. What I was showing was that if you don’t have the fancy tooling, you can still get the job done with a little creativity. That was viewed 180,000 times. As I said, it isn’t a competition, and doing each job is about bettering yourself.”

Roy encourages anyone starting out in the trade to stay humble – “keep your eyes and ears open and your mouth shut.

“I’ve been in the position of working with new people and it’s the people who ask questions and stay humble that really succeed,” he said. “If I show someone how to do something and they just ignore me, that’s not good. I think that if you’re humble and you’re willing to learn, you could have zero skill to begin with and you’ll go somewhere faster than someone who doesn’t listen.”

You can find Roy on Instagram @kevinr306.

Kate Parr

Industrial Mechanic Millwright Apprentice

Diverse Mechanical Solutions

In high school, Kate Parr experienced the same pressure that most young people feel about getting a university education.

“Both of my parents and most of my family are university graduates, so naturally they pushed me in that direction,” she said. “Similarly, high school guidance counsellors discouraged following the trades, saying that I’d be wasting my potential. I did fine academically but I really wasn’t attached to a particular subject I could major in, so I started looking at other opportunities. I didn’t want to incur student debt without having a plan for what would come next.”

In Grade 9, Parr took an integrated tech course that combined automotive with metalworking and woodworking.

“I had enjoyed that but didn’t really think it was an option for me,” she said. “I just didn’t think women could get into the trades.” But in grades 11 and 12, Parr did take more tech classes for personal interest, and she learned how to machine parts (including using a CNC machine) and weld.

“My academic classes weren’t making me happy, but I found a lot of satisfaction in a shop setting, so I started researching opportunities and how I could manage that financially. I soon saw that I could get an education without incurring debt by taking the apprenticeship path.”

Parr really did her research, finding mentors like Jamie McMillan to help her discover what is possible for a woman in the trades. McMillan is an ironworker/boilermaker and one of the founders of KickAss Careers, an organization that does community outreach to raise awareness and promote careers in skilled trades.

Parr ended up doing four more manufacturing course in high school, a welding program outside of school, and an automotive co-op in her final year of school.

“The co-op was great because it helped me realize that I wasn’t interested in working in one shop all the time,” Parr said. “I decided to become a millwright because I wanted a path with a lot of variety, where I could try my hand at machining, welding, electrical, plumbing, and mechanics all in the one job.”

After completing a millwright pre-apprenticeship program at Conestoga College, she started working for Diverse Mechanical Solutions, an industrial contracting company that serves clients across Ontario.

Parr is passionate about the skilled trades and enjoys advocating the apprenticeship pathway to youth. She does this through volunteer work now as a KickAss Careers ambassador. As an ambassador she does outreach in schools and serves as a keynote at events for youth. She has been invited to take part in podcasts and takes over the KickAss Careers social media stream every week for Millwright Mondays.

“Even before becoming an ambassador for KickAss Careers, I had already reached out to other organizations like Skills Ontario to see how I could spread the word about encouraging students to consider the trades,” said Parr. “I attended a lot of Skills Ontario events and served as a keynote for an event about women in the trades.”

Networking has been very important for Parr.

“I also reached out to another woman millwright from my hometown in Guelph, Ont., who was a real pioneer for women in the industry,” she said. “She and Jamie gave me the confidence and support to build my career. If I can now pay that forward to other people starting their journey in the trades, help them out in any way, that makes me really happy.”

Parr encourages students to try their hand at as many trades as possible in high school so that they understand early what might be of interest to them.

“I definitely think that my exposure to such a variety of options early on made a difference to me,” she said. “The knowledge I gained also meant that I could respond to interviewers’ technical questions more readily.”

When asked what industry can do to encourage more involvement in the trades, Parr said that the worth of apprenticeships has to be understood across an organization.

“Having an apprentice requires time and resources to make it worthwhile,” she said. “Before I started at the company I’m with now, I was brought in as an apprentice elsewhere but they didn’t want me to touch anything. Their idea of an apprentice was someone who just watches what someone else is doing and writes it all down. That is both demoralizing and ineffective. The purpose of an apprenticeship is to learn hands-on.”

Parr is enthusiastic about continuing to learn more through her current job.

“The day you stop learning is the day you retire,” she said. “I look forward to gaining more knowledge and responsibility, and perhaps eventually pursuing other tickets. Right now I’m just glad to be exposed to so many different types of work environments.”

Jeff Carlin

Director of Business Development

Chrima Metal Fabrication

Had you asked Jeff Carlin where he saw himself after leaving university, working in the family business likely wouldn’t have been the answer. But his grounding in business management techniques has proven to be a real asset since he joined Chrima Metal Fabrication, Stratford, Ont., a little more than three years ago.

From the beginning of his tenure at the company, Carlin has been designing systems, conducting research, and building processes to help drive the company’s growth.

“For example, we explored quick-response manufacturing (QRM) techniques early in my time at the company,” said Carlin.

Carlin likens the theory of QRM to the way software is now released; rather than taking a long time to release a full-fledged product, every product is broken into discrete packages that can be released and refined gradually over time. It is about setting goals, values, and vision and working toward them without defining the process to achieve them.

“We set up our shop floor for easier movement of parts from our fibre lasers to our brakes and created a scrum board for short team meetings,” said Carlin. “But in my opinion, the best thing that came out of our experiment with QRM was realizing that there were gaps in our data collection capabilities. Having our equipment grouped in such a way that our part flow was more efficient and part idle time was reduced was great, but we were missing a manufacturing execution system (MES) that would allow us to check in and out of jobs and better track the actual time a job is in production.”

Carlin tracked where the gaps were in the company’s data collection methods. This helped the Chrima team in their implementation of a new MES that could speak directly to the company’s ERP system.

“In essence, we’re now getting live data off the shop floor,” he said. “In the process we’ve reduced paperwork such as travellers out on the shop floor. The data we’re collecting is helping us refine our estimating processes. But I think that’s just the beginning of what we can achieve through mining the data we now have in our hands.”

Jeff’s brother Brad, strategic development analyst at Chrima, said that it’s Jeff’s soft skills that make him able to create change at the company.

“He takes the initiative to launch projects and is really good at guiding people through these projects by explaining their value to the team,” he said.

Brad believes that one of the most important things Jeff has achieved in 2020 was adapting customer interactions during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“One of the important parts of introducing new customers to our business is giving them a shop floor tour so that they understand how we treat their products,” said Brad. “Jeff plays an important role in onboarding customers – making sure to understand their parts and the requirements they have for those parts. He was quick to say, ‘We need to be able to do this virtually.’ He single-handedly figured out how we were going to conduct virtual shop floor tours, and that has helped us bring new clients in at a challenging time. I think that’s a testament to his personal drive and his willingness to take on a leadership role.”

Jeff considers the introduction of a customer relationship management system his greatest achievement, though.

“Getting that up and running helped us re-evaluate some of our existing systems and see how critical the collection, cleaning, and analysis of data are to our future,” he said.

But critically, Jeff isn’t shy about lending a hand anywhere he can on any given day. Whether it be assisting with business strategy or helping his team input orders, he’s there to lend his support. Seeing the company and the market from many different perspectives, he is positive about where Chrima is headed.

“The pandemic gave us a chance to consider what’s most important for the company and what our strategy should be,” he said. “It has helped us unify our vision. In terms of my role, I hope to continue to move the company toward mass data collection and analytics and execute on our vision: Challenge the expected, dream the unexpected.”

Melissa Phelan

CWB Certified Welding and Fabrication Technician / Robotics Technician and Programmer

For a while Melissa Phelan didn’t have a life plan. The Kingston, Ont., native, who goes by Missy, dropped out of high school, was kicked out of her mother’s house at 16, and really didn’t have much direction or motivation.

Things changed when she bought a little welding machine and taught herself how to weld. She gained confidence. She started envisioning a life that had a purpose. She found the motivation to go back to finish high school, graduate, and then enroll in college.

Welding, in her words, helped her realize that she needed to do something with her life.

Today Phelan has a ton of welding experience under her belt; she’s a Canadian Welding Bureau-certified welding and fabrication technician and robotics technician and programmer; and she’s a brand ambassador for Everlast, a manufacturer of welding and cutting power sources and generators.

“I started welding around 12 years ago now,” said Phelan. “I bought my first car and it turned out it needed a lot of work. I bought a Lincoln MIG welding machine and taught myself how to weld. I enjoyed it so much that it inspired me to go back to school and learn everything about it that I could.

“So, at age 25 I went back to school and I got qualified by the CWB as a fabrication welding technician. So now I know more about welding from the academic side of things and I continue to learn more and more every day.”

Phelan was drawn to welding by the forgiving nature of the art. “If you screw up, you can just cut off the weld and start again. You can't do that with other things, like woodworking. It was addictive because it's so customizable that you can make it the best as you can. I fell in love with it right away.”

She thought that welding would be a hobby, but it quickly became an addiction once she learned how good she was working with her hands.

“I don't think I could ever have a desk job again.”

Phelan has worked for a company that makes forklift attachments and as an auto body repair technician. She has welded stainless steel piping at a dairy production plant and aluminum boats for the Coast Guard.

“That was tough work,” she said. “I had to work in really small, confining spaces, which was kind of horrible.”

Phelan’s also a robotic programmer and robotic technician.

“I worked with ABB Robotics and Fronius to collaborate weld cells for a certain type of autogenous welding that an automotive company wanted us to do for them,” she explained. “I found robotic programming to be really interesting. I’ve bounced around quite a bit and I’ve found that all of these different experiences have revealed my weaknesses and strengths.”

Most recently Phelan has been back in her hometown of Kingston working for a company called SnapCab, which makes elevator interior panelling and movable workspaces.

“It's a job that is completely different from anything else I’ve ever done,” she said. “I was the only welder, and I worked with a bunch of carpenters. There wasn’t a whole lot of welding that needed to be done, so I also did maintenance, worked on any shop improvements that needed to be done, and I helped with production. I was basically the go-to girl at work if anything needed fixing.”

Phelan became a brand ambassador for Everlast earlier this year.

“I purchased one of their welding machines and I absolutely fell in love with it. I thought the performance was on the same level as some more well-known brands available. I just wanted to support them any way that I could because they are a growing company with good-quality products.”

When asked what the best advice she ever received was, Phelan said, “Just stay humble and never stop learning. And as a woman, you have to know your shit. You do have to educate yourself. If I don't know something, I'll research it and I'll figure it out. I’ve learned it’s OK to ask questions. One of the worst things you can do is to go into a job and act like you know everything or be unteachable. I think you become hard to work with if you go into a situation with a know-it-all attitude.”

To young welders she advised, “Never give up, stay humble, and always keep learning. If you do those three things, then you're just going to have fun with whatever you’re doing.

“There were times when I wanted to give up and I wanted to call it quits when the work was hot, tough, and hard. But as I got better at welding, I gained a ton of confidence, which just gave me more motivation to keep going. I think that's a lot of what it is, just that hump of getting over the start of it all and realizing what it's actually about.”

Editor Robert Colman can be reached at rcolman@canadianfabweld.com.