60 Seconds with… Kathy Miller and Shannon Karels, founders of OPSisters

Title: Founders of OPSisters, a training, consulting and coaching organization; co-authors of “Steel Toes and Stilettos.”

Location: Illinois and Indiana

Experience: Between them, Miller and Karels have more than 50 years of experience in manufacturing, with a focus on operations and lean transformations.

Modern: We’re seeing more women in supply chain, and manufacturing. But that wasn’t the case when the two of you joined the industry. How did that happen?

Miller: I started in a vehicle assembly plant coop program as a 17-year-old high school student, and then went to the General Motors Institute, which is now Kettering University. After a four-hour interview, I went on a plant tour. It opened the door to a whole different world. I was often the only female in the room, but to be honest, the only time I thought about it was when we took breaks, and I didn’t have to stand in line for the ladies’ room.

Karels: I have a supply chain degree from Western Michigan University. Friends would ask me why I’d want to work in manufacturing, since I liked to wear cute shoes and then was wearing safety shoes and glasses. That’s where the title of our book came from: We believe that it’s possible for you to be yourself and still be successful in the manufacturing world.

Modern: A big focus of your book is lean transformation and creating high performance teams rather than gender. How did your interest in lean come about?

Miller: At the time we met, I was responsible for the P&L of a business doing $75 million a year with multiple locations in the United States and Mexico. I brought Shannon in to be my lean transformation manager. Our goal was to implement the principles of the Toyota Production System in our plants.

Karels: We led a three-year project across three different plants with different results, but at our model plant, our results included a 74% decrease in recordable injuries, a 93% decrease in defects and a 57% increase in profitability. Beyond that, we were often together out of town at a plant for an extended period of time.

One of the things we talked about was why we were successful as a team. We thought we had a great story to share. Not just from a lean transformation standpoint­—and we do discuss that process—but how we used an inclusive culture to bring people together.

Modern: Given that diversity and inclusion seem to be on everyone’s agendas, how did you build inclusive teams?

Karels: If you look at the two of us, our strengths and personalities are very different. Instead of dwelling on our differences, we focused on how to make our differences complement one another. We extended that concept to our whole team.

Miller: When we talk about creating a high-performing team, it starts with diversity, especially diversity of thought. At the beginning of the transformation project, I assigned people to cross-functional teams so they were working with people from different areas and with different skills. There was initial resistance, but we gave them time, respect and problem-solving skills and specific objectives. It was amazing how they came together to solve a problem. We ended up with the most diverse teams in the company, and it just happened naturally.

Modern: What is it that you want readers to take away from “Steel Toes and Stilettos?”

Miller: There were no female role models when we did it, so maybe we can encourage the next generation of female leaders who also have a propensity for math or science.

Karels: Manufacturing is no longer the industry we joined right out of school. There is so much opportunity to be creative, analytical and technical. We want to be the face for the next generation.