Name: Steven Fielding
Occupation: President of Fielding Manufacturing. The company has been a leader in plastic injection molding and miniature zinc die casting, and recently added a “Section Inspection Division.” Fielding has 100 employees at its plants in Cranston and Providence.
Backround: Co-chair of the Manufacturers’ Partnership and sits on the board of the Rhode Island Manufacturers’ Extension Services and Rhode Island Plastics Partnership Council.
Education: Bishop Hendricken High School; Villanova University with bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering, 1982.
Age: 39
Residence: North Kingstown
Family: Married, four children
PBN: You have always stressed the importance of continued education for your workforce and have done that yourself. Has it been worth it?
FIELDING: I have a real simple saying: Life-long learning leads to life-long living. I have to walk the talk. I’m a voracious reader and a voracious experimenter. I tend to find a lot of people like to talk about theories and concepts, but I like to drive them down to the ground and put them into application. Right now I’m in a three-year program at Harvard’s Owners and Presidents Management Program, which takes place three weeks per year over three years. The real benefit is going back to school with new eyes. That’s why I think life-long learning is so critical. Through eyes of experience, you can rediscover things you have already learned.
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Do you think people in the manufacturing industry realize the importance of sharing what they know to help the greater good?
No. First of all, there is a question of the climate of manufacturing here. I don’t think the manufacturing industry is as bad as it is perceived in the newspaper. We continue at a governmental level to measure manufacturing on the wrong economic indicator. We think that healthy manufacturing equates with the number of jobs it creates, but it doesn’t. The measure of success will not be in number of jobs, but in revenue. For example, 80 percent of every dollar Fielding brings in is from outside of Rhode Island. We are bringing in a lot of dollars into the Rhode Island infrastructure. Without those dollars coming in, you don’t have a strong service economy. We cannot abandon manufacturing. Manufacturing has to deal on a global economy, but yet when we deal with the local infrastructure the two don’t compute. The local economy doesn’t have near the pressure on it in terms of cost structure as does the manufacturing community. For example, health care. We compete with Massachusetts, Connecticut and New York and as a state we struggle. As a manufacturer we compete with Mexico and the Pacific Rim and it is nothing short of brutal. If manufacturing gets written off you will have a lot of revenue that dries up and that will destroy your service economy.
What should manufacturers do?
What manufacturers can do for themselves I think it key. Manufacturers have to stop thinking somebody is going to solve their problem for them. There are a lot of solutions out there. They have to get outside their doors and commit themselves to it. If the presidents and CEOs of manufacturing companies are so entrenched in their business and not working on their business they will die a slow death. There is a lot of hope, but they have to get out and discover that solutions exist and are facilitated by groups like the Manufacturers’ Partnership. There are a lot of great things happening in the state. It is time for other people in manufacturing to stop talking about what needs to be done and start doing what needs to be done. They need to spend a little time trusting people. It’s not a money issue, but a time issue. You need to dedicate your time to this.
Your company has committed hundreds of thousands of dollars in technology. Do you think other manufacturers in Rhode Island are doing the same?
Yes, I do. The ones that are successful are. Instead of the number of employees, the real measure of a successful manufacturer will be dollars/revenue per employee. As long as that number is growing you will have a healthy manufacturer. What goes hand in hand with that is probably a reduction in employees. As people use technology they are reducing labor, which is not what the labor community wants to hear, but it is a reality.
While maintaining your specialty in plastic injection molding and miniature zinc die casting you have also tried to diversify your products and services. Tell me why you did that?
I came to that realization when I traveled to Mexico and saw a facility with one-sixth of the production base we have with the same number of people. They were profitable and we were marginally profitable. They were growing and we were struggling. They were paying 80 cents an hour for their labor, fully loaded. It became painfully apparent that we were not going to win the race by simply working harder. The avenue was to re-engineer ourselves to get to a higher plane.
What we have as a core competence in the Northeast is phenomenal educational resources and knowledge. I just don’t think we have figured out a way to use it to get the greatest results. If we ever figured out a way to tap into it, the entire Northeast region will continue to be a powerhouse. In Rhode Island we have to start thinking outside our borders and at least think of the region. Our competition is not Massachusetts and Connecticut. Our competition is Mexico, the Pacific Rim, South American and Europe. Our window of opportunity is getting kind of narrow.
How has your company changed over the years?
Our core business is custom plastic injection molding, custom miniature zinc die casting and tool making. That has not changed. What has changed is some of the support services: engineering services, rapid prototyping services and reverse engineering services. We have updated technology and brought it in-house so we can do a better job serving customers. Instead of three- or four-stop shopping they can do one-stop shopping.
What do you think are some of the deficiencies in the high schools, vocational schools and colleges in terms of meeting workforce needs?
I think they are too slow to engage business and industry. I think they are fearful, because they know when they do they have to change. Nobody likes change. Here at Fielding we want to survive, so change is not an enemy. Change is our ally. And all that is, is an attitude. We focus on the things we can control and that is our mindset. If I’m afraid of change there will probably be a negative outcome.
What does the future look like for manufacturers?
I think we have to start thinking long-term. For example, what is the long-term impact if manufacturing goes away? And Wall Street doesn’t think long-term. We out-source and ship more business overseas and we get into this feeding frenzy of that activity. I don’t know the answer, but I think the question needs to be answered to whether that is the right direction. What are we setting up our children and our grandchildren’s generation for if we give away some of those core competencies?
You have added several engineers to your staff in recent months. How difficult is it getting this heavily sought after group of professionals?
We try to attract them by providing a culture of teamwork and empowerment. It’s a three legged stool: excellent people, excellent systems and excellent technology. That is attractive. We’re a company that thinks outside the box and there are people out there who are intrigued by that. Those up for the challenge make it through the doors.
I can’t compete with some of these big company. That’s why we created the Rhode Island Plastics Partnership Council, because as an industry we are stealing each others help and it’s not getting any better. They are not learning, they are not progressing, but they are making more money. What message are we sending to these people. We are not going to die a slow death, but a fast death. With the Rhode Island Plastics Partnership Council, competitors come together to work efficiently to solve a common problem. We still compete, but when it comes to a workforce we compete for the same labor pool. If we don’t work together to solve our problem it is not going to solve itself. So competitors came together, took a small piece of common ground, and we developed a training program.
