February 2022 Volume 4

OPERATIONS & MANAGEMENT

My Forging Industry Journey By Anna Dryden

Gender and the workplace can be a contentious and tricky subject to cover for a wide audience. Situations and perspectives are as different as fingerprints. I’ve decided instead to cover my own career and lessons as a female manager in a primarily male industry. Spending my entire career in manufacturing, and my entire life as a female, I don’t have another perspective to see these facts from, though I try not to let it define me. My career goal was relatively simple; be the one people come to with questions, the one to solve problems and find a better way to work. Whether that meant learning as much as I can about our ERP system or the shop flow and process, being female never played an active part in my choices or my path. There were a few times I encountered a died-in-the-wool chauvinist who’d call me princess and promptly ignore me, but luckily those people were never my bosses. I never felt hindered. Honestly, being female may have helped. That grumpy machinist with 30 years experience at gear cutting wasn’t quite so grumpy with me. I started out as a planner for a company that made heavy lift machinery for the lumber industry. I’d have conversations with shop employees and gain information I could take back to my desk and make a more realistic plan. Developing relationships and trust with key people throughout the company, especially the shop floor, turned a seemingly simple job into a multi-dimensional engine in which I played an important part. Male mentors played a fundamental role in the passion I developed for manufacturing. 20 years ago, most of my co-workers had been with the company their entire careers. The workforce was aging and there was a wealth of information to gain just by asking. ERP systems were newer, not trusted, and mainly just used as shells. The mentors I value now are the ones who would kick me out to the shop when I’d ask a question, send me searching for the answer. My most distasteful boss at the time would force me to run production meetings filled with owners and managers far more qualified and experienced than I was. I see now that he was providing me the tools to sustain in this industry. Mentors came from all areas. The assembly lead who showed me the importance of planning and timing for a 30-foot-tall, 80-ton log stacker with a 3,000-line bill of material, then let me drive it around the parking lot during testing. The energetic machinist lead who showed me that enthusiasm is contagious and leading with a positive attitude can drastically increase production. The product manager who, when he decided he was getting close to retirement, taught me more about winches and machining than I ever could absorb.

Wagner Planning, Assembly and Electrical Team, Allied Systems Company with L4160 Log Stacker, approx. 2006 My transition to the forging industry happened at the right time. That aging workforce at my previous company had mostly retired, and the fervor and pride in manufacturing had diluted. Forging holds a frenetic energy and is filled with lifetime employees. Fewer people do more, and the importance of my part in the process was immediately clear.The general manager held very high expectations, learning about the product wasn’t just a bonus of the position, but a requirement to successfully plan in a forging environment. I have been constantly learning since I started at Ulven Forging Inc. nearly 7 years ago with the help of male mentors and allies. My general manager taught me about scheduling flexibility, triage in times of crisis, how to manage problems with grace and diplomacy, and why too much work is a good problem. My production manager taught me product flow, the importance of meticulous accuracy, how to lead by example, and the urgency of anything and everything crossing my desk. I can’t begin to cover the amount I’ve learned and continue to learn about forging and metals manufacturing from these mentors. Becoming a manager has made me look at how I’ve been managed in the past and what sort of manager I want to be, not to mention learning some hard truths about myself. I’ve spent my entire career identifying as a human in manufacturing, not a woman in manufacturing. Then I became responsible for other women. I had to review these personal assertions for the good of my team, and there are differences. I’ve managed 6 women in this role over the last 4 years, and I apologize if some of these observations fall under stereotypes, but they are things I’ve learned and, going back, noticed about myself.

FIA MAGAZINE | FEBRUARY 2022 42