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Purdue MEP Turns Successful Employees into Future Leaders for B&B Molders
With the help of: Purdue Manufacturing Extension Partnership
About
B&B Molders, LLC, is a custom plastic injection molder in Mishawaka, Indiana, that manufactures custom plastic components for many industries such as medical, electrical, aerospace/defense, consumer goods, office furniture, and others. Their state-of-the-art material handling system and year-round climate-controlled manufacturing environment ensure resin and molding conditions are optimized for consistent results. From product design and tool build, to manufacturing and assembly, they produce innovative products that meet the demanding requirements of a wide range of industries for their clients.
The Challenge
It was a pleasure to work with the MEP team. They worked very hard to ensure the course content was exactly what we were looking to provide. They presented a dual-focused curriculum on lean practices and married that with leadership training. The instructors were able to engage the groups in meaningful conversations centered around real-life situations and examples from our workplace. This made application for our teams so much easier and faster in many situations. We appreciate the customized approach and the nearly one-on-one support the instructors provided our teams. We will recommend and continue to utilize MEP moving forward.
MEP's Role
Purdue MEP met with B&B Molders leadership team to develop a strategy for the delivery of several modules of training to ensure the schedule and course topics fit both the company’s needs and the objectives they wished to accomplish. The first series focused on lean manufacturing with 10 days of training for production floor associates to develop their skills and implementation of lean practices. The next series of classes, set for a group of 24 supervisors and team leads, included a customized version of Leadership Skills for Success series courses to focus on coaching for superior performance.
Despite an unexpected interruption due to COVID, the MEP instructors were incredibly effective in meeting the objectives B&B Molders had established for the training. The series of classes stretched over a longer period ensured teams could implement short-term changes right away to see the impact which gave them encouragement to focus on longer-term improvements. Recognizing the success and impact of the first two series of courses, B&B Molders elected to continue additional trainings into 2022 with Purdue MEP covering topics such as coaching, mentoring, and the development of supervisors.