Auto industry Careers

Switching lanes for automobile production supervisor

“i will be watching the fourth day's the next Cricket Test of Australia against Southern Africa, ” said Sheri Olinyk in the nights Jan. 5 from the woman house in London, Ontario. “We have a unique cable channel labeled as Cricket Plus with all-day cricket. We change it on when I cam home from work, I really watch it for 2 hours at night.”

The remark is surprising, not only because few Canadians are cricket followers, but couple of cricket fans anywhere tend to be ladies. But becoming alone among women in a male-dominated group is absolutely nothing new for Olinyk. She is a plant supervisor for Saint-Gobain’s construction-materials plant in Plattsville, Ontario, a situation few ladies wish to and a workplace few women enter. Olinyk invested the last 12 many years in production opportunities at a few automotive companies, a similarly female-averse business. It’s been like this since she had been a woman.

“It takes a particular kind of person to deal with that sorts of environment, ” she said of working in a world of brawny, hard dudes. “Maybe it is because we spent my youth as a tomboy. And when we went along to engineering school, I became the only woman in a course of 600. It's a breeding ground that I've known my entire life, then when I-go to your workplace and there is me and 40 men, and everyone that reports in my experience is male, and there could be one administrative associate on the other side of this company that I am revealing your bathrooms with; that is precisely what We Have become regularly.”

Just what she'sn’t used to will be at the top of the operation. Olinyk made the jump from automotive manufacturing to construction products in October to ultimately achieve the top place in a plant — and escape a business that seems to be on drop.

The industry switch got Olinyk the plant-manager job she constantly wanted and a fresh possibility to interact with ladies in her position and mentor young women entering the manufacturing industry in growing numbers.

The off ramp from automotive

Olinyk, who's a Six Sigma Master black-belt (business-management official certification) invested the majority of the woman time trouble shooting problems within production and business procedures at automobile flowers. After 12 years, but the most effective post of plant manager had yet to materialize.

“Everyone loves automotive. I love the rate being from the hemorrhaging advantage, ” she stated. “I'd invested lots of time in senior positions with various features in the automotive industry. And I had invested a great deal time across latter half my job being the voice behind the throne that I just decided it absolutely was time for you place my cash where my lips had been and take on the part myself while trying to make the cultural change to a Six Sigma environment. And Saint Gobain offered that.”