From Columb Barracks to becoming 'The Serial Factory Fixer'

A former soldier who climbed to the top of the corporate ladder after he left the army, says that the training he received in Columb Barracks provided him with the skills to succeed in the world of business.

Donegal native Liam Cassidy left school at a young age to join the army. He ended up being stationed in Mullingar and it was his army training and experience in Westmeath, he says, that was to become the foundation stone for his later career.

That later career took him into the manufacturing sector in England, and he took up a senior management position with General Motors before moving to the Gillette Corporation in 1991. The former head of Oral-B Newbridge and Braun Carlow, Liam is known as ‘The Serial Factory Fixer’ and is the man multinationals have on speed dial to fix a broken factory.

In his new book Make Your Factory Great & Keep It That Way, Liam shares the secrets to his success and some very interesting insights into the world of manufacturing.

Liam, who now lives in Celbridge, has fond memories of his time in Columb Barracks and is a regular visitor to Westmeath where he still meets with his old army friends and colleagues. The values instilled in him while in the army gave him the tools to succeed in the corporate world, he believes.

“My army training in Westmeath shaped me and made me a more organised person. I learnt very good habits, I learnt how to be responsible, how to be on time and realised that for every action there is a consequence. I was in the Columb Barracks, home of the 4th Artillery Regiment where everything was done right. Everything had a place and there was a place for everything. I learnt how to be organised, how to maintain order and to be accountable. Accountability is vital, everyone has a role to play in the army and indeed in any successful and efficient organisation. It was that training that served me well in later years in my new career.”

'The Serial Factory Fixer'

Liam joined the Oral-B plant in Newbridge in the early nineties and became the Managing Director in 1998. In 2000 Liam was dispatched by the parent company to the Oral-B plant in Iowa City and instructed to prepare it for a closure announcement within 2 years.

However, Liam said that he would only accept the Iowa assignment if he could first attempt to salvage the factory. His boss agreed but said that he would also have to convince the wider organisation, and that would be difficult.

The 311,000 sq ft Oral-B toothbrush plant in Iowa made close to 1 million toothbrushes a day. However, by the year 2000 the plant was on a precarious path. Product development had been integrated with the parent company, Braun, part of The Gillette Company. That meant the plant’s workforce now competed for new products against facilities in China and Mexico with much lower cost structures. Iowa City’s high service levels relied on high inventory levels, adding to its cost disadvantage. Its traditional MRP-driven push production system caused over production creating even more inventory, which led to costly stocks of obsolete products. Add in a traditional culture with multiple job classifications the prospects for making toothbrushes in Iowa City were looking ever more unlikely.

Charged with what seemed to be an impossible task, Liam set to work, determined to save the Iowa factory. He knew that the competitive power of rapidly and diligently applying lean principles, with the participation of local management and employees, could save almost any factory, including the Iowa plant. He set about a rapid introduction of a lean turnaround which ultimately saved the factory. Firstly, he met with union officials to explain what he wanted to do. “We told them the plant could compete, but we had to change and change fast,” Cassidy said. We didn’t sugar coat the competitive threat facing the plant’s roughly 750 production and staff employees. “From day-one, I was saying the ideal number of people in the factory would be 450 to 500 and that’s how it turned out. Shedding people is never pretty. We were very, very honest and just said we need to do painful things but they are necessary to save the plant.”

Based on visits to the shop floor, Liam estimated that at any time at least 30% of the equipment was down awaiting raw materials, maintenance, spare parts or work orders. The supply chain from suppliers through the factory was unstable. There was no regular training for employees, except when new equipment arrived. There was some automation in the molding department, but the level of manual processes was high, higher than at factories in Asia and Mexico, where labour costs were much cheaper.

Liam trained teams of employees, managers, and staff in lean principles, separating those who could not or would not change, and in two years the plant was not just turned around from the brink of closure but ended up being the best performing factory within the Gillette Group. In two years, Liam’s lean transformation had reduced the direct headcount by 38% and improved schedule adherence from 92% to +99%. $16.1 million was saved in reduced costs and productivity increased by 34%.

The Iowa turnaround was a complete surprise to management who were delighted and asked Liam to return to Ireland in 2004 and to take over the complete Ireland Campus which had evolved into Oral-B Newbridge, Braun Carlow and the Oral-B plant in India. He was specifically charged with turning the Carlow Braun plant around or preparing it for closure. After two years, and under Liam’s stewardship the Carlow plant was in terrific shape but meanwhile Gillette, the parent company had been acquired by Procter & Gamble. Sadly a few years later the Carlow, Braun plant closed due to rationalisation.

Although Liam writes about his method for successfully initiating and sustaining change, this isn’t a technical book. However, there are plenty of insights for dealing with myriad other business challenges, such as improving toxic work cultures, managing change, surviving mergers, rousing dispirited workforces, and dealing with today’s downpour of data.

A natural storyteller, Liam weaves in humorous or poignant anecdotes about some of the personalities and places he encountered in Europe, Asia, and the USA. Although all the factories faced unique threats, there were common qualities too. “Workforces have the same needs all over the world, regardless of where they reside, they want to be respected, and to be acknowledged by having a voice that is listened and responded to. They want opportunity for education and development, and to be fairly remunerated so that they can provide security for their families and get great job satisfaction. The wonder is why so many organisations struggle to see that.”

Make Your Factory Great & Keep It That Way is published by Bonner Publishing and Ingram Sparke and is available online in both print and e-versions at all major platforms including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Waterstones, Bookmark, Goodreads and more. The forward is written by Chet Marchwinski, the former Communications Director of the Lean Enterprise Institute. Print price €24.99 and Kindle €8.99.

Liam is currently a partner in Lean Management at Altix Consulting, a global business consulting.