While I am unable to speak for the entire company, there are a few major problems with the particular plant in which I worked:
1. Generally, this plant felt like a free-for-all, but not in a good way. Anyone who was willing to make decisions would make them, and in most cases, these were not people who were qualified or responsible to make such decisions. This made for a chaotic environment. When the decisions did not work out well (90% of the time) people would hide behind the fact that they were "doing a favor" by making the decision, and that it wasn't their responsibility. This could have been stopped with better management.
2. Equipment was always broken and first-pass quality was consistently poor. At least 4 days out of the week, one or more pieces of equipment would break down. This is not an exaggeration. This was incredibly frustrating because anything that was planned to be made could not be made, resulting in constant changes of the production schedule. Because of this, running out of raw material was practically a daily occurrence. When we finally did make something, there was a good chance that it would fail the initial quality test, so it would have to be remade anyway, causing us to use double the amount of raw materials we had planned for, and bump something else off the current production schedule. Then, we would commence with the finger pointing as to why we were out of certain materials and why we couldn't make what we were supposed to, and thus why everything was on back-order.
3. This plant does not have enough staff in the office or on the floor. Even if the plant was in good condition, equipment was working, and we pretty much ran orders according to the schedule, it would still be difficult to operate with the skeleton crew we had. The reality (broken equipment, terrible quality, poorly-made decisions) is even worse. The constant maintenance that is required, the constant schedule changing, the constant expediting of raw materials, requires at least double the staff that this plant currently has.
4. Perhaps the most important point: Almost no one is happy to work here. When I left, many people commented to me that I was "lucky" or even that I "was paroled". I know for a fact that several people are looking for other jobs. In an environment where the plant needs as much help as it can get, it only makes it worse that the majority of people are not dedicated to their jobs because they are already interviewing elsewhere. The people who stay at Sika are there because they have no choice--either they are sponsored by Sika to stay in the US, or they are close to retirement and decide to just stick it out, or they simply can't find another job. I don't think anyone is actually happy.
