Although Monty Heins has only been Dow Houston Operations’ site manager for about a year now, his more than 29-year career with Dow has equipped and positioned him to oversee a multimillion-dollar site reinvestment into the Deer Park site. He is also working at an organizational level to position the Houston plants among Dow’s top tier sites. With Heins serving at the helm of Dow Houston Operations, the site’s future is destined for continued success.
“The company has made a $280 million site reinvestment commitment to ensure long-term safe and reliable supply of monomers to our internal and external customers,” stated Heins, a South Carolina native. “This gives us a great deal of confidence our site is meeting the needs of our business and reinforces that Dow is a critical enabler for our downstream customers. We’re using this capital to strategically replace and upgrade equipment in our plants to ensure continued safety and reliability while improving with the latest materials and technology.”
This reinvestment is part of Dow Houston Operations’ continuous improvement efforts, which incorporate all aspects of the site’s priorities — safety, reliability, productivity, customer focus and quality.
An aggressive approach to safety
Safety has also been at the forefront of everything the Dow Houston Operations’ employees and leaders do. From 2009 to 2014, the site reduced its Injury and Illness OSHA rate from 0.82 to 0.12 injuries per 200,000 man-hours, which bested Dow’s 2014 goal of 0.15. Seeing year-over-year improvement is not the only safety accomplishment the plant has achieved. It has also achieved a greater than 1.5 years process incident-free performance, which is a record for the site and the Performance Monomers business.
Eliminating process safety incidents (PSIs) is also a vital component of the site’s safety plan. According to Heins, preventing PSIs is critical because they have the most potential to impact its employees, the environment and potentially the neighboring communities.
“We primarily work on preventing PSIs through continuous improvements in our technology, reliability, process control, procedures and other management systems — with a strong focus on spill reduction,” said Heins. “Based on our own internal reporting of spills and leaks, we achieved another 20-percent reduction in chemical leaks compared to 2013 and 75 percent reduction since 2009.”
Dow Houston Operations does not succeed in safety by happenstance, though. Through several key safety programs, cultural improvement projects and high safety expectations, the site reinforces its “Drive to Zero” safety campaign. It makes safety the No. 1 priority.
“We put the right leaders in our organizations who foster the behaviors that will advance the continuous improvement culture we want to cultivate,” explained Heins, who began his Dow career as a production engineer for the Dow Plaquemine site located south of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. “As a site, we focus on the bottom of the pyramid — small deviations before they become big ones — through near-miss programs like ‘Safety Matters,’ ‘Leakbusters’ and our ‘2015 Safe Summer’ competition. We also make safety personal and drive engagement across the organization through our PACE1 principles and HeRO (Highly Effective Reliable Organization) behaviors, where we emphasize proactive behaviors, escalation and creating a culture where it is easy to ask questions and bring up issues.”
Because it makes safety personal, everyone at Dow Houston Operations takes ownership over their own behaviors and ensures their colleagues return home safely. Heins noted the company is rolling out a very aspirational set of corporate goals to achieve by 2025, which is founded on continued safety performance and improvements to overall sustainability. There is also a new campaign that focuses on preventing the most serious injuries called “Save a Life Program.” According to Heins, the heart of the program is to ensure everyone recognizes, investigates and prioritizes events that could potentially impact a life even if there are no injuries involved.
“Safety performance continues to be our top priority and a foundation for us going forward,” said Heins.
A robust community outreach philosophy
Safety is not the only priority for Dow Houston Operations. A commitment to the community is key to the site’s continued prosperity, and Heins takes this commitment personally.
“First and foremost, I am accountable to the communities in which we operate to ensure this site is a safe and environmentally responsible industrial neighbor and partner,” asserted Heins. “My duties revolve around ensuring the consistently safe, reliable and productive operation of Dow’s manufacturing complexes at our Deer Park, La Porte and Bayport, Texas, sites.”
The sites also maintain a robust community outreach philosophy with programs that range from annual charitable giving initiatives that benefit local nonprofits to employee volunteer participations in numerous and diverse organizations.
“As a global company with local roots, Dow’s mission has always been to be a good neighbor and trusted partner by creating positive relationships and leaving a lasting positive impact on every community where it has operations,” explained Heins, who himself is an active member of the East Harris County Manufacturers Association, the Association of Chemical Industry of Texas and the Deer Park Community Advisory Council. “We care about the success of our communities, our schools, the future workforce, environmental quality and the overall health of the local economy.”
One way Dow is getting involved with the community is by promoting STEM. Heins noted the company is focusing on providing and also supporting STEM in schools. Locally, Dow Houston Operations has implemented several STEM initiatives and an apprenticeship program with community colleges to help fulfill future hiring needs.
“We are working to promote a strong pipeline of operational, maintenance and technical employees to replace our current workforce as those experienced people retire,” said Heins, who received his bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from Clemson University. “We are addressing this at the junior high, high school and college level to encourage interest in careers at Dow and to provide a much-needed service to the community.”
Looking ahead
Dow isn’t only looking toward the future by prepping the next generation of STEM employees. It also aims to continue to strengthen its partnership with the communities in which it operates, as well as work toward being a best-in-class site on environmental, health and safety practices, reliability and productivity.
“We are on our next-generation continuous improvement journey,” said Heins. “We want to look back five years from now to see the same or better order of magnitude of improvement that we’ve seen over the last five years.
“The chemical industry’s future is further developing as a key enabler for the health and well-being of society and the environment. It provides the products that allow sustainability for a growing population on this planet. And with the development of North American shale gas production, the likes of which we haven’t seen in probably over a quarter of a century, we are experiencing a chemical manufacturing renaissance in the U.S. that is fueling economic growth regionally and nationally.”
Embracing Texas history
As a self-proclaimed history buff, it’s a happy coincidence Heins is the site manager of a Deer Park facility located on the “birthplace of Texas.” In April 1836, Sam Houston and his small band of men defeated the powerful Mexican army under the leadership of Gen. Santa Anna on the San Jacinto Battlefield. Following the battle, Sam Houston took the Mexican general to a nearby cabin to draft the initial treaty papers, which secured Texas’ independence from Mexico. Dow’s Deer Park facility is located where that cabin once was, and the company keeps a historical marker on the property to indicate the exact location of the famous erstwhile cabin.
“Dow is also a proud sponsor of the San Jacinto Museum of History and its ‘Battle of San Jacinto’ re-enactment,” said Heins. “Working ‘in the shadow’ of the monument is something of which we are very proud. We support the museum in its efforts to keep our incredible Texas history alive and to help show the world how important that conflict was to shaping and strengthening the entire nation.”
1 Make it Personal, Ask open-ended questions, Create an environment where people are free to ask questions, Escalate issues.
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Dow Chemical Co.
1900 Tidal Road
P.O. Box 1000
Deer Park, Texas 77536
(281) 966-2000
www.dow.com
Size: 800 acres
Employees: 800 employees and 1,200 contractors
Products: acrylates, methacrylates (performance monomers), Primene®, hydroxy and proprietary monomers, Styrofoam insulation, ISONATE™ isocyanate, PAPI™, isocyanate, emulsion polymers, coatings