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Executive Profile: Ocean Nutrition Canada's Transition Manager
Interview with Blair Clark
New plant managers and engineers are keeping pace with new technologies in the industry, but being aware of the "hard asset" technologies may not be their biggest challenge. As capital becomes scarcer, plant managers and engineers must become more adept at presenting complete business cases to sway company management to fund upgrades.
 Walk me through your early career; what made you join Ocean Nutrition Canada?
Opportunity for growth and challenge led me to joining Ocean Nutrition Canada (ONC). Arriving and being prepared for this opportunity has been an interesting journey.
After receiving a Bachelor of Science from St. Francis Xavier University, I accepted a Quality Manager position with a franchise bottler of Coca-Cola. This led to obtaining progressive quality management promotions with Corporate Coca-Cola and on to plant and regional general operation management roles.
My last portfolio with Coca-Cola included regional responsibilities for Quality of Manufacturing, Automotive, Sales Equipment and Service, and Buildings and Grounds.
After Coca-Cola, I started a food and beverage sales and distribution business with a partner. We developed, marketed and distributed our own branded line of beverages as well as distributed and marketed other companies' spring water, draft beers and snack foods throughout Atlantic Canada. As Vice-President of Operations, I concentrated on forming relationships with co-packing, distribution, transportation and warehousing suppliers.
Having a strong operations background I decided that my long-term career would benefit from a rounding of my skill set. Therefore, I registered for and obtained an MBA from the Sobey School of Business, Saint Mary's University, which I further supported by obtaining my CMA professional accounting designation.
With these additional skills I worked in the Regional Office as a Business Analyst for Trimac Transportation and then as Plant Manager for the largest fluid milk-producing dairy facility in Atlantic Canada, Farmers Co-operative Dairy.
Having this rounded experience led me to recognize that Ocean Nutrition Canada was a growth-orientated company that would demand and reward a diverse skill set.
The profiles of its people often involve exceptional skill sets that share an entrepreneurial desire to create and grow. My previous exposure to the opportunities and challenges of growing a company along with my entrepreneurial drive to create made ONC an attractive place to work.
I have been more than pleased with having the opportunity to work with such a skilled workforce and competent management team, and I am proud of helping ONC deliver wellness through innovation.
You were earlier Production Manager with Ocean Nutrition Canada and have now moved on to Transition Manager. What are the changes in your roles and responsibilities?
The most obvious difference between Production Manager and Transition Manager is in span of influence and perspective from which I now operate.
In regards to span of control, as Production Manager, for our Dartmouth, Nova Scotia facility, I was more locally focused on building a team and taking a single pre-existing plant operation to a 24/7 operating level.
In the role of Transition Manager, I am now working on multiple sites, with more people and departments and helping to standardize larger commercial scale operations and processes.
The perspectives from which both of these roles are accomplished are indeed different.
When operating as a Production Manager, training, requests for capital and procedure development were seen more from an ownership and final user perspective. Although other department needs or desires were considered, production was the primary driver.
As a Transition Manager, I see most of my efforts as being performed from a customer service perspective. In designing or approving machinery or processes I am very cognizant of the fact that our internal customers are relying on us to deliver equipment and processes that they will be able to learn and run on a consistent basis.
As Transition Manager, my success is much more defined as a broader portion of Ocean Nutrition's success and, therefore, my responsibilities and performance hinges on truly making other people successful.
Looking back at your role as Production Manager, what used to be your day-to-day involvement in plant production situations?
As Production Manager, I was charged more with the daily outcomes of the plant operations. These outcomes could be defined in various terms including, quality, HACCP, productivity, financial and safety.
The situations that I would be involved in would vary from interviewing, hiring and coaching plant operators, to assigning crew schedule and maintenance and production work, to attending to safety concerns and programs and ensuring that relevant production and accounting information was processed.
What day-to-day challenges do you face in your present role as compared to your previous position of Production Manager?
The day day-to-day challenges that I face in my current Transition Manager role with ONC as compared to past positions as a Production Manager is the level to which I communicate with functional groups of ONC and outside stakeholders.
As Transition Manager, I interact with Design Engineers, Contractors, Plant, Quality and Finance Management personnel to facilitate the transfer of hard asset and process knowledge throughout our rapidly growing organization as we build and expand plants.
This transcends the complete project from design, construction, installation and operator training to process performance verification.
A primary challenge in any position, and the Transition Manager in particular, is that of achieving effective communication. I operate not only with functionally segregated groups but also with co-workers across significant geographic divides.
A second day-to-day challenge that differs from Transition Manager to Production Manager is that the Transition Manager role is focused on creating something new and bringing it to a point that another group can run and maintain it.
Often times the Transition role demands more creativity and troubleshooting abilities because the path or operating parameters are not totally clear when designing or commissioning a system.
When we turn a system over to operations it should be clear how to run and maintain it.
Narrate a typical day as Transition Manager
A typical day as Transition Manager could be summarized as designing, implementing, following up and communicating.
For example, a recent day involved first meeting via teleconference in the morning with our team on design concepts for our new Dartmouth plant. After this meeting, I went on to leading installation and operational qualifications of a centrifuge system with the Arcadia-based team.
Then, and consistent with any operational position, a significant part of the day was apportioned to making sure that milestones (delivery, financial, process) were achieved and if they were not, the reason was identified and corrected. This involved contacting suppliers and making sure plans were on track.
Concurrent with these commissioning and planning activities, various stakeholders (QA, QC, Finance, etc.) had to be updated on progress and status of projects so that they could be aware of what was happening to plan their specific activities as well.
Additional to the interdepartmental communication, I ensured that training documents such as Standard Operating Procedures for operators were being constructed to guide them while learning to operate newly installed equipment.
Being a Transition Manager, what are the immediate changes and developments that you are working on?
The immediate changes and developments that I am working on are:
- The continued physical expansion of the newly commissioned Arcadia, Wisconsin facility
- The design, building and commissioning of the new Dartmouth, Nova Scotia facility
- Providing input and support to ERP software and technical process changes that are being planned for 2006
What do you like most about working at Ocean Nutrition Canada?
The three things that I like most about working at Ocean Nutrition are:
- The level and skills of my co-workers
- Contributing to the rate of growth of ONC
- How dynamic the challenges are to perform the activities of my position
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