It was only a small piece of plastic that brushed Jacob Klepper’s work boot, but he knew it was a big deal.

Jacob has been building and packing engine cooling modules at DENSO Manufacturing Michigan for over a year now, so he recognized the piece could have been broken off of a finished part headed for a customer. He immediately stopped the line and called his Team Leader, Stan Thuazathang.

Stan arranged for Jacob to conduct a sort of finished parts in the warehouse, determined to find the source of the broken unit. An hour and a half later, Jacob discovered the broken radiator and removed it to be repaired.

“I knew the prong was a customer use point, so we could have received a quality defect claim,” Jacob said. “That would have cost DENSO a lot of time and money if it had gotten to the customer’s assembly line, so I’m glad I was able to find it.”

Stan said this is not the first defect that Jacob has found, and appreciates his hard work and dedication to protecting DENSO’s customers.

“Jacob is a really great worker,” Stain said. “His attention to detail is excellent, and I know we can count on him to speak up when he sees something wrong. That’s really important for all of our associates, so Jacob is setting a great example.”

DENSO in Battle Creek is lucky to have 10 college interns working throughout the facility this summer. One of them is Hannah Pearl, a University of Michigan (U of M) student. She is spending the summer in the Total Industrial Engineering (TIE) department, focusing on implementing autonomous mobile robots into the radiator and ECM final assembly areas.

Hannah has several years of DENSO experience. Last summer, she interned with Production Control TIE and helped launch a yard management system. Before college, Hannah was involved with DENSO through a high school internship program in heater core and evaporator engineering while she attended the Battle Creek Math & Science Center.

“The people at DENSO are my favorite part,” Hannah said. “It’s awesome when you walk down the hall and everyone is friendly and will talk to you.”

At school Hannah is a campus tour leader and volunteers her time with Young Life, a youth group for middle schoolers. She enjoys traveling, and has a goal to be out of the country at least once a year. So far, a service trip to Mexico has been her favorite because she loved bringing hope into people’s lives.

This fall, Hannah will begin her junior year at U of M, continuing her studies in Industrial and Operations Engineering.

Thanks for being a part of the DENSO team, Hannah!

Basketball and quality targets may seem like an unlikely combination, but the DENSO Production Control (PC) team in Battle Creek combined the two into a competitive March Madness Critical Lockout Challenge with championship results.

PC teams were divided into ECM and HVAC plant brackets and advanced based on the smallest number of critical lockouts. Lockouts can occur when parts in the warehouse are scanned to the wrong order, or if parts are not scanned into inventory.

“Lockouts are the tip of an iceberg, so if we manage them properly we’ll see improvements throughout the whole process that better protect our customers,” said Derrick Boyd, PC Section Leader. “Every day, at least 40 people are scanning parts for more than a dozen customers going on about 120 trucks, so we need ways to help everyone stay focused on what they’re doing.”

The challenge was fun for associates, and also helped DMMI achieve their lowest month of critical lockouts for the year. The top two teams ended the competition strong, having zero lockouts during the entire 4 week challenge! HVAC Plant finalists were team “Uncle Charlie” including Richard Martin, Jaymes Marriott, and Audra Blowers. The ECM Plant winner was “Team Adam” including Damion Adams, Timothy Barnes, and James Ayer.

“Lockouts put our customer at risk,” said Damion Adams, Advanced Associate. “This challenge got competitive because everyone was striving to do their personal best, so it helps us better focus on our job and do our part to keep customers happy.”

Team Adam was ultimately declared the champion because they had more opportunities for lockouts to occur. Each team member was awarded a Lockout Champion T-shirt and a $50 gift card. Runners-up were also awarded gift cards.

“The goal is to keep lowering our EPM (Errors per Million) by continuing to motivate our associates through challenges like this, bringing their attention to what causes lockouts, making process improvements and making sure our production team stocks in parts accurately to avoid delays and ensure high levels of inventory accuracy,” said Adam Senchuk, PC Manager.

Andrew Fry – Completed April 2019

Andy is thankful for everyone who helped him grow his skill set, as well as his wife who supported him and accommodated to his changing schedule during the program. His favorite part of the Apprenticeship Program was Machine Finishing.

When he’s not working, Andy spends as much time as he can on the lake with his family.

In 1997, the DMMI Scholarship Fund was started to assist children of DMMI associates with the rising costs of higher education. Winners are chosen by a BCCF (Battle Creek Community Foundation) panel based on activities and work experience.  This year, $1,500 scholarships were awarded to three children of DENSO associates who are going on to earn advanced degrees. The 2019 recipients are Co Nguyen, Olivia Scheel and Flora Sung.

Co Nguyen

Daughter of Cuong Nguyen, Production 2 Advanced Associate

In the fall, Co will be attending Grand Valley State University majoring in Mechanical Engineering and minoring in Biomedicine. After graduating she aspires to create machines for medical patients with missing limbs, which will help them perform and function more efficiently. Co participated in a variety of extracurricular activities in high school, such as Marching Band, Tennis, National Honors Society and Spanish Club.

Olivia Scheel

Daughter of Paul Scheel, Production Control Director

Olivia enjoys helping others and is pursuing her passion for Speech Pathology at Western Michigan University. In the future, she wants to work with children, whether it’s at a local elementary school or a hospital overseas. Outside of school she enjoys being active by running, playing soccer and kayaking. Oliva has always admired her father’s work ethic and good attitude, and appreciates her mother’s dedication in homeschooling her and her siblings.

Flora Sung

Daughter of Maria Tawl, Production 1 Associate III

Flora will be a junior in the fall, transferring from Kellogg’s Community College to Western Michigan University. She is pursuing a Biology degree, and plans to go to Medical school afterwards to fulfill her dream of becoming a doctor. Flora loves having fun with the people she is close with, from playing sports with her friends to cooking traditional food with her family. Her mom is one of her biggest role models because of her kindness she extends to others.

Congratulations to our 2019 DENSO scholarship winners, we wish you the best of luck in pursuing your higher education!

Shane O’Neil – Completed March 2019

Throughout the program he enjoyed rotating through the different groups which allowed him to meet and work with all the journeymen, and learn multiple repair techniques. Shane is thankful for Paul Phillips who helped him launch a new mod machine C-1211 during the program.

Outside of DENSO Shane enjoys fishing and riding dirt bikes with his two children, and looks forward to taking his family on camping trips.

Richard Saylor – Completed February 2019

Richard appreciates the numerous people in each department that helped him learn important skills so he can succeed in his job. His favorite part was being rotated through the different areas allowing him to gain a variety of experience.

Something not everyone knows about Richard is that he started working on cars when he was only 13 years old!

Over 100 middle school girls participated in the Society of Women Engineers Corporate Engineering Challenge at the Kalamazoo Air Zoo on Saturday, February 16, and DENSO was there to support them.

DENSO was an event sponsor and several engineers and members of the DENSO Women’s Network were on hand to help. Volunteers shared the fun of math and science career options at DENSO by showing off Travbot, a cobot our engineers programmed to play Tic Tac Toe.

In addition to corporate sponsor activity like Travbot, participants also took on an engineering challenge in the afternoon. Teams competed in the “Moon Landing and Exploration” engineering challenge. Team DENSO mentors Sara Rodriguez and Sidd Arora, both Total Industrial Engineering engineers, guided their team to create a device that simulated landing on the moon followed by exploring the moon’s surface.

“It was fun to watch the girls get excited about the technology,” said Rachel Thole, Advanced Condenser Process Engineer, who coordinated the event. “I enjoyed networking with other companies and being out in the community.”

Every day at DENSO, someone is making a prototype for an automotive part. Now up in the North Office, the Internet of Things (IoT) Team is prototyping something drastically different—a modern office environment.

The IoT office space is filled with big blue couches, circular desks, bright bold colors and a whiteboard that spans the entire office. This prototype is based on one central concept—collaboration.

“We want to create an environment that encourages discussion and openness,” said Teresa Hansen, IoT Section Leader.  “This helps encourage learning between senior staff and new staff.

Most DENSO office areas are a sea of grey or beige, so the IoT office stands out. But modern office environments are now commonly designed with color and collaboration in mind.

“I like the color scheme and all the little nooks where you can meet up,” IoT Programmer Nam Le said. “We couldn’t separate ourselves for focused time if we needed the seclusion before. Now the whole room is very flexible.”

As the war for talent gets more and more intense, job seekers are coming to expect modern, collaborative office environments. But even longtime associates like Advanced Software Developer Joe Delbridge love the IoT prototype office.

“It’s the first time in my 21 years that I have seen an office change this drastic… and it’s a great change.”

The door to the IoT office space is locked for security reasons, but Teresa said that this doesn’t mean associates aren’t welcome. In fact, anyone can stop by to take a look around, or bring their laptop along to try out one of the collaboration spaces.

“We want people to see this and want to be a part of it. We want this to show that we’re changing the game at DENSO.”

Contact Teresa or a member of the IoT team with questions or to set up a time.

In support of the United Way Diaper Drive, we held our own diaper and feminine product collection at DENSO Manufacturing Michigan and designated our donation to Charitable Union.

Our team donated:

• Diapers: 1449
• Feminine Products: 1560
• Baby wipes/powder/vasoline: 1901

Thanks to everyone that donated!

How long have you been at DENSO?

25 years.

What do you do?

As the Director of Product Design Engineering, I lead three teams including Manufacturing Product Design, Supplier Engineering, and Mold Design Engineering responsible for both HVAC and ECM Products. One of the unique aspects of this role is that these three groups support all TAC facilities and work closely with each other to support the development of TAC Products.

Manufacturing Product Design issues product designs from DNJP, supports ECI implementation, and is responsible for the development of Design For Manufacturing (DFM).

Supplier Engineering supports the development of new manufacturing processes at suppliers, localization of products, and the Design For Manufacturing.

Mold Design Engineering is responsible for the development and procurement of injection molds used to make our larger HVAC and ECM components. Injection molding is a process used to make plastic parts that many of us use every day, even things such as Lego’s. Injection molded parts in DMMI’s products include HVAC cases, radiator tanks, and cooling fans.

What’s the most interesting part of your job?

We get to see vehicles in their infancy and then watch them grow up. From the very earliest stages of design, we see cars develop through concept, quotation, prototyping – all the way to the troubleshooting mass production issues and potentially warranty improvements.

Our PDE Team was reorganized in 2017 to focus on Design For Manufacturing which is also very interesting. In product design, kaizen—continuous improvement by many small changes—can be too late. We need foresight during the design and development process to implement changes before the product is manufactured. Our biggest challenge is in making the product easier to manufacture and doing it during the design phase. It’s a big change for DENSO that we’re working on across North America.

What important lesson(s) have you learned in your career at DENSO?

I think the biggest thing is reflecting on what they do and don’t teach you in school. I pursued a really good education—a Bachelor’s in Mechanical Engineering from University of Cincinnati, an MBA from Western Michigan University—but what they don’t teach you in school is that people are your most important asset. Company A and Company B can have same facilities, same technology, but it’s the people that make it happen. The company that focuses on people is the company that will succeed.

My management philosophy is servant leadership. I believe that I’m here to help the individuals on our team that are doing the work. I’m not here to manage them, I’m here to help lead them to be successful. If I do my job well, they won’t need me anymore.

What advice would you give to an associate who wants to advance their career—either through a management path or as an individual contributor?

Take ownership for your future. Every job in this company is important. You need to find the one that will provide you with the motivation to succeed. When you find the right job, success will follow. What drives you to succeed is what you enjoy. No one will hand that to you. You have to find it.

What is your fantasy job?

F/A-18 Pilot

Tell us something that people may not know about you.

I’m actually at my best when my feet are not on the ground. My passion for the last 20 years has been flying, both hot air balloons and single engine aircraft. I’m also certified to inspect and repair Lighter-Than-Air aircraft.