When Janny was younger, she thought maybe she’d like to go into the family business one day. And who wouldn’t? The family business was textile manufacturing, and it was a firm spanning five major international cities. And it served brands including Louis Vuitton and Victoria’s Secret, to companies like Chanel. The prospects were exciting, but they would have to wait.
If she was going to enter the business, it would be on her terms. She wanted to understand it both from a sales side, and from an operations side. So she took on the challenge of a double major at Concordia University in Marketing and Supply Chain Operations Management. And she earned some experience before returning to Papillon Ribbon & Bow.
What really interested her in textile manufacturing was manufacturing. She found that topic, as a general concept, to be much more exciting. But then she had an opportunity to join one of the world’s largest and well-known manufacturing brands, General Electric. Specifically, she joined GE Renewable Energy.
This is where she was introduced to the importance of good data warehousing as well as good physical warehousing. She further learned the value of digital data warehousing, having flexible data management systems that allow for the oldest and latest manufacturing data to always be available. While there, she earned G.E.’s prestigious Bronze Inclusivity Award for helping to get the facility E.H.S. certified and in continuous compliance.
At Delon Laboratories, she joined as their continuous improvement manager. She was a change agent, working to identify bottlenecks in production or packaging by fully documenting the end-to-end workflow, and working with teams to improve total throughput and productivity.
And then Janny left manufacturing for a time. She co-founded Fitset, which was an app that connected people to boutique fitness classes. And later joined a startup in Silicon Valley, Giveffect, doing end-to-end non-profit workflow software. This helped these organizations streamline operations like Donor Management, Fundraising Management, and Website Development and Hosting, to name just a few of the basic operation obstacles these organizations face.
And then she returned to manufacturing! Rejoining the family business, she set about the task of establishing a new manufacturing operation in Myanmar. She led the technical planning and transfer from a base of operations in China, to what would be their newest facility. But to establish this operation, she would have to become her own general contractor.
Developing a manufacturing facility in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, is not like establishing operations in the U.S. We don’t ask basic questions like, “Can I deliver enough electricity to the site? How do I hire 200 people? Can we do the basic construction?” In creating these new manufacturing operations, Janet had to learn a level of detail most other project and program managers don’t even consider. And though she didn’t know what she was getting into, she knew she’d forged the right relationships that she would need to be successful.
That would have been enough for most. Just making the building capable of executing the manufacturing process in these circumstances would have been enough of a challenge, if that were the only challenge. But now, Janet needed to replicate the manufacturing processes in this new facility, using the guidelines established by the Chinese manufacturer.
Janet was impressed by how the manufacturer was able to leverage the power of Excel and automation through macros. They even built their own digital warehouse system on top of their warehouse management system. But they didn’t know, or weren’t able to track, where they were losing efficiency over time. And that would be her first inkling into the importance of having a comprehensive digitization strategy. She might not have called it that at the time, but she knew something was missing.
The workflow in the textile industry is as complex as it looks. Starting from sourcing the raw materials, Janet mapped the entire process from beginning to end, so she could establish the new operations required in the new location. There’s a primary looming step, converting threads into a basic ribbon. This ribbon is converted by weaving or dyeing, and made into accessories like bows or spooled to be made into other finished products by customers,
She was aware of 3D printing. One primary method of textile production in high volume is hot stamping. She investigated, albeit briefly, whether 3D printing would be a good solution for custom stamping dies. At the time, she determined the quality specs of 3D printing weren’t up to the current standard for quality and cost.
Fast forward to 2017, and Janet joins Link3D. Though how they came together and recognized that they were aligned to the same vision in digital manufacturing is lost to history, Janet recognized she had the opportunity to join a small team where she saw the value in what they were doing. You might say it was fate.
What Janet reflects on most, though, is none of this. She thinks about Covid, the pandemic, and wanting to keep relationships alive and active. She spearheaded Link3D’s first online gathering, the Digital Additive Manufacturing Conference. It hosted over 1200 delegates, with content coming from over 40 companies. This was followed by the Digital Additive Manufacturing Marathon, which hosted over 3400 delegates from over 85 countries in a 26.2 hour continuous event.
She also started working with America Makes and Women in 3D Printing, and helping them transition to an online symposium world. She taught them new platforms, and she helped them cross over to this new reality. She’s been recognized for this work by being named an America Makes Ambassador, and a Women in 3D Printing Next Gen Leader.
She most recently helped prepare Link3D for acquisition from the world leader in additive software solutions - Materialise. Maybe not in the traditional ways of writing code and algorithms, but by understanding markets, situations, people, and networks. She will tell you she was part of a team that made it all possible, but Janet was fundamental.
Copyright © 2021 Beyond Industry 4.0 - All Rights Reserved.
Powered by GoDaddy Website Builder