Olivia Taliaferro's plastics industry career started in process development for thermoplastic polyurethane. She was first interested because the products go into endless applications and touch the lives of people every day.
As process development engineer for Lubrizol Corp.'s Estane TPU, Taliaferro focused on the scale-up of new products, manufacturing troubleshooting and changes to existing products.
Taliaferro became project manager for Estane TPU in March 2020, with a concentration on larger raw material qualification projects and external tolling activities. As a product manager for medical polymers, Taliaferro focused on "stabilizing business that was on allocation and had challenging disruptions in supply."
"My objective was to transition from a tough situation to one where we implemented best practices for future growth. The goal is to never settle for 'good enough,' but to always have a North Star for 'best in class' and continually improve the business," she said.
"When I started my [product manager] role, I had a plant with significant backlog and challenges. I was able to lead the team to improve capacity by over 90 percent without any capital expenditures and reduced lead times from 18 months to no more than six months within my first two years in the position. This turnaround was hard-won, but I am very proud to have changed the trajectory of the plant from significant supply challenges to a normal supply situation with upward momentum," said Taliaferro, now new business development manager for medical polymers.
Taliaferro is interested in highly customized medical devices.
"New technologies in 3D printing, modeling and [artificial intelligence] are allowing us to make more targeted medical devices that will be more effective for specific groups of people or even individual patients. This is very exciting, and we as material suppliers need to be prepared for how to support these new, hyperspecialized and high-margin applications," she said.
Taliaferro added that sustainability should always be considered, "as that's our license to operate for the future."
"For medical polymers, customers are sometimes more concerned about keeping products safe and consistent than focusing on sustainable improvements. As a result, my approach has been to proactively research and offer more sustainable alternatives. Customers may not want to spend a few years qualifying a new sustainable alternative for medical devices, but there are creative ways to offer improved sustainability without requiring additional qualifications for medical customers," she said. "Wherever I can find these creative solutions, I work to do so."
Taliaferro graduated from Case Western Reserve University in Ohio with bachelor's degrees in French and Francophile studies and chemical engineering. She has also earned an MBA, created a co-op mentorship program at Lubrizol that has expanded to all North American locations and led the co-op program at the Brecksville, Ohio, location.