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Home > BizTimes Daily > Archives > November 15, 2007
WMEP hires Hispanic consultant to help Milwaukee manufacturers
Published November 15, 2007 - BizTimes Daily
The Wisconsin Manufacturing Extension Partnership (WMEP) today announced it is expanding the services to help Milwaukee-area manufacturers bridge language and cultural gaps with Hispanic-speaking workers.
"World class manufacturing strategies require the full participation of employees, from the production floor to the executive suite," said Mike Klonsinski, WMEP's executive director. "Given the demographics of today's workers, especially in Southeast Wisconsin, we know there are significant language and culture challenges facing manufacturers."
WMEP has hired Luis E. Lopez, a seasoned bilingual English-Spanish manufacturing leader who has managed plants as large as 1,400 employees. Lopez, who has held positions as general manager, vice president of operations and industrial director, brings more than 20 years of experience in leading lean culture transformations in culturally diverse manufacturing environments.
"The lean environment is all about employee participation, so the need for communication is critical," said Lopez, who likened the large number of Hispanic workers to a vast untapped reservoir of ideas for improvement. "Any corporation willing to tap into this will benefit tremendously."
Lopez said his experience running a plant in Monterrey, Mexico proved to him the exponential value of engaging employees in improvement-focused strategies. The company, which had 40 improvement teams working at the same time, was able to reduce its cost of production by 7 percent.
"The results from listening and engaging our employees were way beyond our expectations," he said. "Another tremendous benefit was the pride of ownership we were able to cultivate, which leads to happier employees and higher productivity."
Lopez hopes to replicate those successes with Milwaukee-area firms. In southeastern Wisconsin, Hispanic workers represent 7.3 percent of the labor force, according to a Department of Workforce Development analysis of 2006 American Community Survey data.
For more information, visit www.wmep.org.
