Tuesday, October 15, 2024
MARINETTE – The Samuel Pressure Vessel Group (SPVG) in Marinette started a program that awards employees for their ideas, but now, 22 years later, the program has grown into a global initiative.
Creator of the program and Quality Assurance (QA) Manager Dawn Topper said, “QPSI (Quality Productivity Safety Incentive) is a suggestion program that awards employees for ideas to improve quality, productivity or safety at Samuel Pressure Vessel Group sites of Marinette and Tomahawk and Lebanon, Va. It has been running since 2002 in Marinette, where the program was initially created.”
Since then, Topper has continued to facilitate the program for 22 years. “At the Marinette site, we have awarded over $57,000 to employees so far. Ideas are submitted to the QPSI committee, which selects the top three winners each quarter, and all who win or enter receive incentive points to be used for gift cards or shopping on Amazon,” said Topper. There are often three suggestion winners with varying prizes, and some employees will get participation awards at the end of each quarter.
The QPSI program later caught the eye of SPVG owners Samuel and Sons and their corporate leaders in Toronto, Canada. Topper explained that the program at the corporate level is called Samuel Solutions, modeled after the QPSI program started in Marinette. Winners of the QPSI program can enter to compete against the other Samuel companies throughout Canada, the United States and Mexico, with a total of over 90 companies. The Samuel Solutions prizes range from $1,000-$15,000.
“Both programs are vital components to the continuous improvement effort and, in many cases, save the organization time, employee safety and added expense,” stated Topper.
Operations Manager and Site Leader Mark Callow explained more about the program, “we take the qualified ideas from the Marinette facility, and then we roll them up to the Samuel Solutions committee, and then on an annualized basis, our employees can be selected for their cost savings that can have an impact generated across multiple facilities, all the Samuel facilities.” Since the creation of the Samuel Solutions program four years ago, the Marinette location has had multiple winners that have placed second, third and fourth to win cash prizes.
“As a whole, Samuel has about 6,000 employees across Canada, the United States and Mexico. So, we’re a pretty good sized organization with a lot of, you know, boots on the ground that can definitely have an impact when we talk about idea generation,” Callow said.
About SPVG Marinette products
With a variety of markets served, the Marinette location of SPVG specializes in technical and engineered-to-order carbon steel and stainless steel pressure vessels. “We’re a heavy carbon-based manufacturing plant. We’re more technically based, so we have a lot of engineering resources and a lot more nondestructive examination that goes into our pressure vessels,” explained Callow. The nondestructive examination Callow referred to includes the use of specialized X-ray machines, magnetic particle inspection, ultrasonic testing and more.
Learn more about Samuel Pressure Vessel Group, Marinette, on their website at www.samuel.com
