This blog series intends to shatter some "manufacturing myths". Sometimes there is a perception of manufacturing being dirty, dead-end, unskilled, monotonous and boring.The reality is, it's bright, clean, fulfilling, hi-tech, versatile and rewarding!
I had the privilege of interviewing some Zentech employees - a way of humanizing the manufacturing industry to demonstrate why you may want to consider a manufacturing career.
Darryl, Production Manager, Zentech Baltimore
Stephanie: How long have you been with Zentech?
Darryl: I’ve been with Zentech for 13 years.
Stephanie: How did you find us?
Darryl: I was referred here by someone at my old job where I had been for 5 years, which was also an contract manufacturer.
Stephanie: So did you have specific schooling before coming?
Darryl: No I didn’t, though I had been doing wire harnesses and box builds, I had never worked in SMT. When I came on board here, I started off as an SMT Operator.
Stephanie: Then where did you move after that?
Darryl: After that, I moved to conformal coating. With time, I started becoming a stand out operator; everyone was doing 20-25 boards a day, I was doing about 30-35. I had a lot of ideas about how we could increase our output. So I went from an operator to a supervisor. One of the things that I’m most proud of is increasing productivity. We were obligated to produce 560 boards a month for this particular customer, and we revamped our process. Within 3 months we were able to get to 800, then in 2 months 1000, then the next month 1200. We were able to double our output by simply implementing continuous improvement.
Stephanie: What made you want to work in manufacturing?
Darryl: I was always interested, especially because we do a lot of aerospace work, and the things we do to help our warfighters.
