Shifting into Overdrive
Honda Precision Parts of Georgia revs up with Quick Start
“Contamination is the enemy,” says Jennifer Kemp, human relations administrator at Honda Precision Parts of Georgia (HPPG), as she exits an air shower — a booth of air jets that blow any loose debris from the hair, clothes and skin of entrants to the company’s assembly line, which is a clean-room environment. “A little speck could contaminate the transmission and prevent proper operation and shifting.”
The automotive environment is a fast-paced one. Hours after assembly, Kemp says, the transmissions being made in Tallapoosa, Ga., will be sitting inside Honda Odyssey minivans and Pilot SUVs in Lincoln, Ala., 60 miles away.
“Honda chose Tallapoosa for this facility only partly because of its proximity to the assembly plant,” Kemp adds. “Another reason is the really capable workforce here that was created by the textile industry.”
The company opened the Tallapoosa facility, Honda’s 13th in the United States, in 2005, and chose Quick Start as a partner for building and training its team.
Since then, Quick Start has trained HPPG associates in core skills like safety and blueprint reading, job-specific skills like the assembly process and operational procedures, and advanced manufacturing techniques like PLCs and robotics. But employees have also practiced collaboration skills and received quality, productivity and leadership training running the gamut from diversity in the workplace to lean manufacturing.
Even the people-oriented, soft-skills training has paid off, according to John Spoltman, HPPG vice president. “Thanks to the support we’ve gotten from Quick Start, we feel very confident in our associates’ capabilities,” he says. “Their knowledge of transmissions and the function of the mission in some cases is better than the associates at our parent facility in Ohio — just because we go through the extra steps of the soft-side training.”
From the beginning
Quick Start’s involvement with the HPPG team began even before the first associates were hired.
“I never anticipated what a benefit the pre-hire training was for the job candidates,” says Kemp. “When I first heard about it, I could only think of the benefits to the company from spending more time with the candidate; but after I saw it, I realized that it gave the candidates the ability to better choose their next employer.”
Before being selected for employment at Honda, candidates not only got a classroom introduction to Honda and its mission and philosophy, they also participated in a hands-on transmission assembly exercise and team-building exercises.
“We try to make very clear up front what each associate can expect when they come to work for Honda,” says Spoltman. “Quick Start really supported that and made their programs specific to our operations, which helped immensely.”
Into the future
Meanwhile, in a classroom away from the assembly line, other HPPG associates are manipulating animated robots on a computer screen. But they’re not playing video games. They’re taking part in a Quick Start Robot Operator Training class, learning to take a part-moving robot through its paces in the classroom before moving on to the real thing on the plant floor.
These associates will work in a new area about to go online at the facility. An aluminum processing department is being created so the company can manufacture four of the more than 400 parts in its transmissions.
“We bought our robot, and Quick Start developed training based on that specific robot,” says Spoltman. “That’s the kind of thing that’s stood out for me the most throughout this partnership — how Quick Start has been able to tailor classes to meet our specific needs. Quick Start’s support has really helped us build a team of knowledgeable, capable associates.”
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