Instilling an Agility Mindset at NOVA Chemicals
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Manufacturers have had to contend with a massive amount of disruption over the past few years. But, according to Walter Pesenti, VP of Manufacturing Excellence at NOVA Chemicals, his company has responded to the challenges simply by adapting the way that it does business.
The key? The agility mindset of NOVA Chemicals’ people, he says.
NOVA Chemicals’ polyethylene resins are found in everything from garbage bags and flexible food packaging through to bottle caps and plastic containers. Headquartered in Calgary, Canada with over 2400 employees globally, the manufacturing processes that the company runs are complex and integrated.
Pesenti drives operational excellence, asset management and oversight of capital projects at the company. In this interview, he discusses how an agility mindset was key to responding to the disruption of the past few years, the challenge to take the company to the next level of performance and why he doesn’t like the term transformation.
Diana Davis, IX Network: How have the disruptions of the past few years affected operations at NOVA Chemicals?
Walter Pesenti, NOVA Chemicals: In reality, we have been very agile when it comes to those disruptions.
In the past few years, we have found different ways to move our products around, we have found different ways to manage our contractors, and we have found different ways to do our business in general.
They made an impact, but we have been able to overcome the challenges very quickly and have emerged a stronger company.
Diana Davis, IX Network: What do you think was the key to NOVA Chemicals’ ability to respond to those disruptions?
Walter Pesenti, NOVA Chemicals: I believe that it’s the agility mindset of the people that we have working here. Our people are experts and have a strong desire to make an impact. The pillar of our business is the people.
Diana Davis, IX Network: What does an agility mindset look like and how do you instill it at NOVA Chemicals?
Walter Presenti, NOVA Chemicals: Here at NOVA, our value is in our people and their commitment to our values. We call it NOVA’s Nature: Be responsible, be passionate, innovate and collaborate. Agility does not mean doing it fast. It really means thinking about the right steps and mitigating all risks to reach the desired goal.
Diana Davis, IX Network: I understand that your role - VP of Manufacturing Excellence - is a fairly new one. What's behind the creation of the role?
Walter Pesenti, NOVA Chemicals: My role is to take the company to the next level. In practice that means I look after the reliability of the operation, turnarounds, capital projects and pretty much anything that has to do with the manufacturing operations at the company.
NOVA Chemicals is now approximately 90 percent complete with its second Advanced SCLAIRTECH™ technology manufacturing facility located at our new Rokeby Site in Ontario, Canada, and the third phase of our Cracker Expansion Project. SCLAIRTECH™ is our proprietary dual reactor process that has resulted in hundreds of new products and innovative resins.
These projects represent more than CDN$2 billion in investment in Ontario, bringing new technology, jobs, and long-term viability locally and beyond. Start-up is projected for the end of 2022. In the new year, we will have an additional one billion pounds of premium-value polyethylene resins for recyclable packaging.
We’re aiming to get from where we are today to the top quartile to be the best in the industry in safety, environment, reliability and ultimately operational performance.
Diana Davis, IX Network: And what's your focus at the moment? What are you looking at specifically?
Walter Pesenti, NOVA Chemicals: The number one issue that I look after is safety. That's important. We don’t ever want to take our eyes away from safety. NOVA Chemicals strives to achieve our goal of an injury-free workplace and have a commitment to ensuring all workers return home safe each day
The second is reliability. I believe that safety and reliability go hand in hand.
We have to make a site safe first, then we make it reliable and then we optimize the operation.
Diana Davis, IX Network: At our OpEx Week Canada you’ll be joining a panel discussion to discuss embedding enterprise-wide agility to drive resilience and excellence. Why do you think this particular topic is so relevant right now?
Walter Pesenti, NOVA Chemicals: Companies are moving fast. What is first quartile today might not even be fourth quartile in the future. You need to keep improving and agility is important to move to the next level.
As I said at the beginning, we are a very agile company. The key is setting the mindset. But we also have to keep that momentum going or we risk falling behind. We need both continuous improvement and agility.
The way that I look at it is that we may not be far off the industry standard. We want to look at the best of the best within the company and move forward from there rather than drastically changing everything.
In a sense, it’s not about changing, it's about adapting.
Diana Davis, IX Network: We hear so much about transformation these days. Do you think transformation is just a new name for something we’ve always done or is there something different going on right now that manufacturers are having to respond to?
Walter Pesenti, NOVA Chemicals: I think you must be careful with the word transformation. The term transformation sometimes leaves a bad taste.
The way that I frame operational and technological changes is that they are ways to implement your strategy so that you can execute it. We don’t call it transformation. Doing the work the right way and looking after the manufacturing core is not transformation, it’s operational excellence.
Interested in Learning More about this Topic?
Join Walter Pesenti and over 30 other world class transformation thought leaders at the Pan Pacific Hotel in Toronto October 17-20, 2022 at Operational Excellence Week Canada 2022.
Exciting new opportunities are emerging to accelerate digital transformation, operationalize sustainability, improve supply chain agility and boost productivity - making it easier and quicker than ever for companies to capture this value. Find out how at Operational Excellence Week Canada 2022.
