CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION The concepts for this manufacturing plant

							                             CHAPTER 1

                          INTRODUCTION

      The concepts for this manufacturing plant organization plan

presented in this book started to evolve from my employment by Esso

Standard Oil of Louisiana, on graduating from Notre Dame with a

Chemical Engineering degree in 1955, at its world’s largest

Refinery/Chemical complex in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Over the next

eleven years, the company moved me through nine different

assignments starting as a technical service engineer on a refinery unit,

followed by refinery economics engineer, technical service group

head, ethanol plant supervisor, assistant technical service department

head, engineering department head, refinery blending and shipping

department head, assistant head of the mechanical division, head of

the chemical plant operating division responsible for the operation of

the chemical plant complex, consisting of about fifteen separate

production units. These multiple assignments obviously were

designed to prepare me ultimately for a Plant Manager job.

      At that time the Refinery/Chemical plant complex had about

five thousand employees and was organized functionally with each

function responsible for a segment of the plant’s operation, or
management craft lines, many of which I experienced first hand. The

wage earners were also organized along craft lines with probably

about fifteen mechanical crafts and several operator levels as well as

many other non-management positions. The plant dated back to the

early century and had an independent union representing the non-

management employees. Over the years plant labor practices,

resulting from many contract negotiations, had been established and

vigorously defended. In fact, in my last assignment, for about a year,

I was a member of the negotiating team trying to hammer out a new

contract to replace the contract that had expired. My multiple

assignments and union negotiations exposed the many barriers to

organizational efficiency and employee morale and motivation.

      In 1966 I was made the Project and Plant Manager for a new

high pressure polyethylene plant, Enjay Chemical’s (the US

subsidiary of Exxon Chemical, Exxon’s worldwide chemical

company), entry into the polyethylene business. This plant operated

at pressures up to 50,000 psi, produced molten polymer at 600 degrees

temperature, followed by pelletizing in extruders with whirling knife

blades operating at high speeds. In other words a technically complex

plant with many potential safety risks. Prior to that time all of


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Exxon’s worldwide investments in chemicals had been sited in

Refinery/ Chemical plant complexes, using existing plant practices

and union contracts. With this initial entry into a totally new segment

of the chemical industry, Enjay’s plastics management argued that the

requirements of this new business mandated that the plant be made a

stand alone plant, free to adopt different practices from those in place

at existing complexes. After some debate, the new stand alone grass

roots plant was approved, and an idle parcel of a company owned tank

farm selected as the site.

      In constructing this plan, we not only relied on the barriers to

effectiveness exposed during my years of training, but my assistant,

Jake Swanson, now deceased, and I visited many new plants in the

Gulf Coast area who provided considerable input on their

organizations and practices they found important in achieving plant

effectiveness. The organization plan presented herein is the result

with updated ideas that I believe improve an already world

competitive plan.

      The plant over the years has been one of Exxon’s most

outstanding. A measure of its performance excellence has been

safety. Every manufacturing manager knows a plant with an


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outstanding safety record is most likely to be outstanding in all other

areas of performance. The plant operated from startup for many years

without a lost time injury and consistently has been a leader in safety

among Exxon’s plants, which are also a leader in the industry. In

fact, Exxon recently issued a news release announcing that the plant

had been recognized by the NPRA (National Petroleum Refiner’s

Association) with an award of its Safety Excellence Award for the

third year in a row. Only two other plants in the history of the award

had been so recognized.

      This plan was so successful that, at least while I was employed,

all of Exxon Chemical’s major new investments were built on grass

roots sites using this organization plan as a model. A polyethylene

plant in Belgium, a Saudia Arabian polyethylene plant, a major

ethylene plant in Baytown and a polyethylene plant in Mount Belvieu,

Texas, in the shadow of the large Baytown Refinery/Chemical

complex, representing over a billion dollars of investment, all were

grass roots and modeled after this organization plan. As a disclaimer,

I do not know if, after I retired, Exxon has continued to use this plan

in their new major investments, since I have not been privy to their

investment plans.


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      I remained at the Baton Rouge plant only three years, but over

the years had responsibility for the plant and the other major

polyethylene investments as Vice President of the US plastics

business, and later as Worldwide Plastics Vice President until I retired

in 1986.

      I began to write this book after I retired because I believe that

the principles, human relations practices, plant organization structures

and management systems that make up this organization plan are

essential in establishing a world competitive workforce and should be

shared with all existing and future plant managers an essential

component in restoring America’s manufacturing competitiveness.

      However, due to my wife’s Parkinson’s Disease, which

demanded my full attention in retirement, I was unable to complete it.

When she passed away recently, I was able to put the finishing

touches on it, including additions I believe improve the original plan.

      My original plan was to seek a publisher, as I am fully

convinced of the value of the book’s contents in establishing a world

competitive workforce. However on reflection, I had concern about

my ability to convince both a publisher and my target market of the

value and timelessness of a 40 year old organization plan, even though


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I remained convinced that the plan elements remain timeless, that only

the tools for their execution have changed. For example, in

developing documentation for the original plan we had to rely on

typewriters and white out. Today’s capabilities of information

technology, computer controls, enhanced electronic instruments and

sensors, automation, etc. present light year improvements in the tools

in use for the plan execution.

      My doubts about proving the timeless validity of the plan were

put to rest this past summer, 2008, when I received a phone call from

one of the original employees of the plant. He said that a number of

the original employees of the plant, all of course recently retired, met

for breakfast regularly and, recognizing that 2008 represented the 40th

anniversary of the plant’s startup, on their own with no company

input, decided to try to contact all of the original plant employees and

hold a celebration of the anniversary. Apparently the company had

already held a celebration for current employees. He invited me to

come, which I of course accepted, since it would be an opportunity to

reunite with the plant’s charter members, many of whom I hadn’t seen

since I left the plant 39 years ago.




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      What makes this occasion more important to me was the

attendance at the event. Of the plant’s original 173 employees, 36

were known deceased; the organizers were unable to locate 42; and of

the 96 contacted, 81 attended; and with spouses, total attendance was

140. The fact that over 85% of those contacted attended after all these

years, convinces me of the timelessness of the principles, structures,

human relations practices, and management systems that comprise the

plan and its value for consideration as America tackles reconfiguring

its existing manufacturing plants and undertakes new plants associated

with the renewable energy program being undertaken by the country.

In fact, I’m convinced that unless American manufacturing embraces

most of this plan, it will not restore its former manufacturing world

supremacy.

      Energized by this outpouring of tribute by plant employees,

who spent most of the forty years being celebrated on this occasion,

working under this organization plan and achieving truly world

competitive performance, becoming an Ultimate Force, I decided that

my belief that this plan is timeless has been confirmed. It is being

published online for ease of broad access.

      The format for the book consists of the following:


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      Chapter 2 – Organizational Principles – lists guiding

organizational principles that underpin development of the plant’s

structures, human relations practices, and management systems.

Justification for each of the principles is provided.

      Chapter 3 – Organizational Structures – Provides

organization structures that support all of the organizational principles

along with benefits of the proposed structures.

      Chapters 4 thru 11 – Organizational Principles – Provides a

chapter for each of the organizational principles. Human relations

practices and management systems that mainly support the principle

are described.




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