September/October 2022 - 22

FACILITY MANAGEMENT
LABOR
 Broccoli being case packed on a robotic line, which offsets the need for
humans doing repetitive, monotonous tasks.
Training methods
Quest focuses a lot on training because
they know their customers are going to
have challenges. " They're going to have
different generations of people operating
the equipment. They're going to have a
high turnover rate. So, we spend a lot of
time making our equipment very easy
to use. And most of that is driven from
the main operator interface. "
It's easy to get customer training from
Quest. " (Our customers) have different
generations of operating equipment. We
spend a lot of time getting our equipment
easy to use. The main interface is
easy, things that require a mechanical
adjustment, " explained Womble. " We
want to eliminate as many of those
manual changeover points as possible.
And robots are a great way to do that.
Robots give flexibility to adapt to different
products and configurations. Again, using
the flexibility of the robot versus a bunch
of mechanical changeover points that
you see in more traditional machinery. "
Quest has seen customers take on a
variety of tactics to attract new talent,
some of which are time-based incentives:
By staying with the company over a
period of time, employees will see
specific and real incentives.
" Also, I do think training is a critical
piece of that. Making workers the owner
of their process and including them in
the process improvement strategy is
a big, big deal. I think it helps create
ownership, " Womble said. Those people
are living and working that role every
day and they see opportunities to do
22 SEPTEMBER /OCTOBER 2 0 2 2
 Another robot picks cucumbers from a conveyor and places them into trays.
things smarter and better than people at
10,000 feet don't see, " Womble explains.
The real cost for their customers,
especially in the produce industry, is
fresh product has only hours of shelf
life. " You measure that in an hour
sometimes versus days and that time
really matters. Lost production time
typically significantly exceeds what
you're paying for from a labor standpoint
to fix the problem, " said Womble.
Generational gap
Womble said that
they do see
generational gaps. One generation is
phasing out of the workplace and new
employees aren't fully trained. " Going
to college was a big thing, now there is
a gap in skills ... we are maybe starting
to correct that. "
According to Gallup, Gen Z and
millennials now make up 46% of the
full-time workforce in the U.S. There
are four company traits millennials and
Generation Z look for in an employer:
* The organi zat ion cares
employees' well-being
handling equipment being widely
adopted. AGVs, [automated guided
vehicles] are not a new concept, but
there's a lot of new guidance and control
technology out there that's starting to
become more full-fledged, just continuing
to be developed. I think that's probably
the next big boom. And I think we're
right at the right at the bottom of that
slope right now.
If you look at the traditional method
for lift equipment, the labor, the cost
of the equipment, and safety is probably
one of the biggest impacts, Womble
shared. " There are certainly collisions
that happen. But one of the highest
rates of injury in the workplace is
people getting up and down off lift
equipment. And then you have person
to vehicle collisions. So, there's labor,
safety and efficiency.
Womble predicts that labor shortages
about
* The leadership is ethical
* The organization is diverse/inclusive
of all people
* Older mi l lennia ls want open,
transparent leaders
* The bottom line? They want ESG -
environmental, social and governance
- in a workplace.
What's next?
There's already technology in the
market, but Womble sees material
will stay at about this level for the
foreseeable future. " I think between the
growth demand, especially around food
production, the North American public
is always going to be heavily focused on
having their food and beverage products
come from within our borders. Or at
least on the continent significantly, " he
said. Therefore, the labor will still be
on North America.
Much of the manufacturing industry
was already hurting for labor even
before the pandemic; however, during
the pandemic is when it was really
magnified. Womble added that in the
last 12 months, the industry has stayed
at a high rate of unfilled jobs.
September/October 2022

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