Thumb Plastics Going Pro 2022

Thumb Plastics needed GD&T, PLC, Minitab and Management Skills for their new supervisors.  Training was needed to ensure that employees were confident and efficient in their jobs, quality products could continue to be manufactured, and new supervisors know how to communicate with their staff. 

GST Michigan Works! met with Human Resources at the Gemini Group to discuss what program funding they may be able to use to fill these needs.  Thumb Plastics applied for and was awarded a 2022 Going Pro Funding Grant.  They utilized this grant to provide GD&T, PLC, Process Improvement, and Supervisor training to their current employees.      

Thumb Plastics was granted $10,340.00 to assist in sending 10 employees to New Supervisor, GD&T, PLC and Improving Products and Processes training. The new supervisors were able to learn planning, monitoring, organizing and communication skills and techniques to help them better manage, understand, and communicate the needs of the employees they are supervising.  Having better trained supervisors will lead to reduced turnover.  GD&T is essential to controlling variances in the manufacturing process, so it continues to be very important to remain competitive and produce quality products.

It is challenging to hire new employees so having properly trained employees and promoting from within improves employee retention and gives employees the skills they need to be confident in their performance and build quality parts consistently.