Challenges
With approximately 100 maintenance technicians needed in a nearly 2 million square-foot facility, a leading Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) manufacturer was challenged with finding technical talent and was facing a shortage that needed to be addressed in two ways: 1) Fill the open positions quickly to meet pressing production demands, and 2) Replace highly specific skill sets that align with the company’s unique operational needs. It was a daunting task that corporate leadership realized they needed help with.
Solution
Exploratory discussions started between the manufacturer’s Senior Manager of Maintenance and Reliability and ATS regarding their Repairable Parts Management and Technical Workforce Solution.
This manufacturer needed their new technicians to be highly proficient in electromechanical skills to troubleshoot automation issues and repair existing machinery. After signing a three-year agreement, ATS leveraged its vast pool of resources and geographical bandwidth and recruited and onboarded 10 technicians to fill all open positions within three months.
“What sparked my interest with ATS was their ability to reach beyond our geographic area as we faced a real challenge with recruiting efforts. We were up against a pretty tight timeline of finding significant amounts of talent. With ATS having a background in reliability and technical workforces, the confidence that I was able to develop after talking to their team was high. They showed me that they had the ability to recruit specific skill sets and highly technical talent.”– Senior Manager, Maintenance and reliability
As a tight-knit family company, the tenured technicians at this CPG manufacturing plant were initially hesitant to bring in an external maintenance source. However, these concerns quickly subsided as the ATS technicians seamlessly transitioned and embraced the company’s high standards and culture. Their Senior Manager of Maintenance and Reliability echoes that statement by saying, “I will tell you that the only difference between an ATS employee and our employees is often just the company tag on their shirt.”
Results
By providing the essential skilled talent in rapid time, ATS assisted this high demand manufacturer in meeting production goals and maintaining its competitive advantage. ATS was able to successfully save the manufacturer time, money and stress in the recruitment process. Acting as far more than just a labor-based maintenance solution, the ATS team plays a valuable role in ensuring equipment effectiveness, as explained by their Senior Manager, “With this solution, ATS deployed one of their reliability engineers who has delivered a couple of significant line improvements in collaboration with my team. We’ll identify certain needs for reliability increases and he’ll execute and work with the team to get the job done.”
Regarding the Repairable Parts Management program, ATS also collected and analyzed the data to provide a $377K cost savings over 18 months and sustainability projections that have provided great success and ROI.
“ATS has delivered beyond expectations. Our partnership with them has certainly helped facilitate our success this year.”– Senior Manager, Maintenance and Reliability
