With over 22 years of experience in the chemicals and polymer industry and a black belt in Six Sigma, Site Director Stephen French is well-suited to serve as "mayor" of Ascend Performance Materials' Decatur, Alabama, facility. It is a role he enjoys for a company and a site about which he is passionate.
"Our plant is small enough -- about 375 employees -- that I can get to know each team member," he said. "This is a great plant and workforce to be engaged with."
French relies on his years of experience to lead the team. After earning a Bachelor of Science in chemical engineering from the University of Tennessee, he was hired into DuPont's Field Engineering program, which provided rotational assignments with roles in project execution, maintenance and operations leadership. In 2004, he moved to Koch Industries with the acquisition of INVISTA from DuPont and soon moved up to plant manager of the Chattanooga, Tennessee, site. He joined Ascend in 2013 at the Decatur facility and has been site director since 2015.
"As site director, I have total responsibility for all operations and supply chain, including receipts and conversion of all raw materials and deliveries for all products that leave the site," explained French. "Decatur is unique in that we both supply material to our downstream plants in Greenwood, South Carolina, and Pensacola, Florida, and export products directly to customers."
The site is guided by lean manufacturing and Six Sigma principles.
"We start with walking the plant each morning in preparation for what we call our tiered accountability process," said French. "We have meetings during our shift turnover, then with our shift leaders and supervisors, and then with our site leadership team every day. We follow a tiered accountability board by which we review the last 24 hours of site operations.
"This process is a very good way to kick off the day. The rest of the day is spent making sure we're on track to meet our strategic goals, plus coaching and mentoring our leaders and team members. Each week, I do 'gemba,' which is the Japanese term for 'go and see,' with everyone who reports to me. I also conduct a gemba with some of my dotted-line team reports about every other week."
French also has responsibilities at the corporate level. "I sit on our CEO Phil McDivitt's extended leadership team," he said. "My primary role is to be a conduit to take the business vision and strategy he has established, bring it to the site and help my team interpret it to understand what our site must achieve down to the individual level. This ensures everyone feels like they are a key part of the bigger whole.
"We have laid out a vision to be the leader in the nylon 6,6 industry, and we have a lot major initiatives we are undertaking to ensure we get there."
Achieving the vision
The Decatur site is growing and has increased its output significantly in the past three years. The site makes two products: adiponitrile and hexamethylenediamine.
"The first is being converted into the latter," said French. "We're growing in these areas, and we've also entered the specialty chemicals market.
"Ascend manufactures a number of co-products that we modify and improve upon to make unique end-use applications. Some of our amines specialty products are finding a place in the oil and gas industry."
The site recently completed several significant infrastructure upgrades, including converting boilers to natural gas to provide reliable utilities. The team also increased capacity through unit debottlenecking.
"Our growth has really come from two primary areas," explained French. "Approximately half of it has come from the use of Six Sigma -- identifying areas for improvement, what we call 'unlocking the hidden plant.' The other half has come from smaller savings realized from debottlenecking projects. When we add them up, they become significant.
"Now, we are undertaking the design phase of a larger infrastructure project to improve our facility."
Culture and community
The Decatur team is navigating these growth and improvement initiatives while keeping safety as the top priority.
"Safety is very personal to me," said French. "Some people say we want people to go home the way they came in, but I like to think people go home better than they came in. I like to think we helped better their lives by doing a good job and by discussing safety as our priority. They can take that awareness home to help keep their families safe.
"That is our culture: this premise that no one should ever get hurt here or at home."
Through their efforts, the team was at 900 safe days at press time -- over 2. 4 million work hours without a recordable injury, for which it was recognized by Manufacture Alabama. The team also received a governor's letter for no lostwork injuries for 2016. The Decatur site is an OSHA VPP Star site and also has its ISO 14001 certification.
"All of our safety programs are based on engagement at the work-floor level and are driven by understanding our risks before we undertake the activity," explained French.
That same commitment carries over into the community.
"We take very seriously the concepts of good stewardship as community contributors from a philanthropic and industry standpoint," French said.
Ascend's Decatur site gives back to its community through the company's Ascend Cares Foundation, with focus areas including early education, childhood hunger and law enforcement's youth outreach. The team is especially proud of its recent work with Habitat for Humanity, where it had a unique opportunity to lead a home-build project.
"We laid out steel and actually built the home on a platform right in front of our plant," explained French. "Ascend sponsored it 100 percent and made time available for employees to work in small groups.
"As people drove into our site each day, they could see the house going from a piece of steel, to a work floor, to the walls, to the roof. It was a great opportunity for our people to get engaged and connected even more deeply to our community."
Through Ascend Cares, Ascend's employees participate in numerous volunteer efforts. The foundation is employee- funded with matching contributions by the company.
"All the money we raise through the foundation goes back into our community," said French. "There are also funds available to assist employees with unplanned hardship events like illnesses, deaths and other things that might create financial distress. This is a way for employees to help one another."
An exciting time
French is excited to lead the Decatur site into what promises to be a bright future.
"I see us executing our capital plans to continue to grow," he said. "Nylon 6,6 is our only business, and it has a place in hundreds of unique applications because it has properties many other plastics do not. It's an exciting time to be at Ascend."
