Cort spends his time focusing on people, culture at Sekisui SPI

No more traditional sales people.

Commissions eliminated.

A training "dojo."

A production floor turnover rate in the low single digits.

It's not a description of some utopian manufacturing company in a far-off land. Instead, it's a peek inside the walls of the business Ronn Cort and his team at Sekisui Polymer Innovations LLC have built in Pennsylvania and Michigan.

It's certainly atypical for the plastics industry. And it seems to be working.

Cort, the president and chief operating officer, said sales are "north of $150 million" and have grown 27 percent in the last five years. The company, which is popularly known as Sekisui SPI, is a subsidiary of Japan's Sekisui Chemical Co. Ltd., which has sales of $11 billion.

The key, according to Cort, is to focus on people.

"We recognize the skills set today are not being taught. There is no place to go poach people from. We have a training dojo. In a separate building, we do workforce development. We have a vice president of culture," said Cort, who has also taught his team to refer to their two offices in Bloomsburg, Pa., and Holland, Mich., as campuses rather than plants, facilities or offices.

"I say this all the time: Our teams spend 50 percent of their time learning and 50 percent of their time teaching."

Sekisui SPI operates 16 sheet extrusion lines in 600,000 square feet of manufacturing space over three campuses. The company focuses on aviation interiors, mass transit, medical devices and heavy equipment.

Its internal focus on people came from Cort and is backed by ownership in Japan. Cort's plan involves getting his team geared for automation and much more.

"As they go through their life here, they get a chance to look at where they want to go," he said, mentioning that Sekisui SPI spends $300,000 per year on in-house training and offers up to $10,000 in tuition reimbursement at nearby colleges.

"Most of our middle management came from off the production floor," said Cort, 53, adding that more seasoned workers are moved to training positions to take advantage of their knowledge and to save their bodies.

"I don't want them flipping sheet. We move them into training and mentoring roles."

Cort's first tour with Sekisui ended in 1994 when he worked in technical sales and customer service. He rejoined the company in ​ 2005 after a stint in the urethanes industry, landing as international business manager and then vice president of sales. He became president in 2014.

Sales have been strong under Cort's leadership, and Sekisui SPI is putting those dollars to work. For example, the company invested $17 million in 2016 and $24 million this year for capital improvements.

"We've been on a continuous upward trajectory," Cort said, adding that working for a Japanese company has brought a level of thinking where manufacturing is looked at as art done with passion and nobility.

The company's strategy involves end markets (aviation, mass transit) tied to the growth of the global middle class.

"Our scope is intensely focused. The middle class will grow by more than 3 billion people by 2030," Cort said.

Some in Cort's leadership team have moved to Sekisui SPI from Maryland, New Jersey, Mexico and even outside the plastics industry. "Some have come to the organization for equal or less money. They are more interested in culture than money," he said.

Cort said Sekisui SPI's organization chart is inverted, with customers and production floor employees at the top and company leadership on the bottom.

"All the pressure is on the ground," he said.

Despite his emphasis on people, it's still the aspect of his job that keeps him up at night.

"My ability to keep up the speed of our workforce development and the speed of artificial intelligence [keeps me up]. The rate of change in manufacturing and rate of change of our employees and how to do that more rapidly. The rate of change of automation," he said.

"I have a 13-year-old son at home. That generation will soon be in engineering and purchasing roles. Anything less than two days' delivery will be a failure. It's happening. So, am I prepared for my son to enter this business?"