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Bennie Caldwell is the director of quality at Bullen Ultrasonics. He oversees the full spectrum of quality operations, including quality engineering, CMM programing, calibration, and final inspection. He also recently wrote an article for Quality.

Michelle: Can you tell our listeners a little bit about your background?

Bennie: Sure. I have been in manufacturing my entire career. I grew up in the Dayton area, and so in the Dayton area, at that time and in the ‘70s and ‘80s, manufacturing was really big.

My father worked in manufacturing, and honestly, it's pretty much all I knew, I grew up with it and it just felt like I was going to work in manufacturing in some capacity. So, for the majority of my career, or at least to start, it was process engineer and quality engineer. Sometimes, back and forth, sometimes at the same time.

Eventually I got into quality management. And my career has spanned over multiple industries. Aerospace, semiconductor, and medical device. I've worked for the publicly traded companies as well as family businesses and pretty much whatever's in between. So that's kind of my background with this line of work.

Michelle: Can you tell us a little bit more about how you picked this topic to write about?

Bennie: Yes. Just being in manufacturing and around quality for a long time, a lot of coworkers over the years have worked in quality and, at times, that can be a really stressful part of manufacturing. At times, you never feel as if you're a part of the team. The company has a jersey and the competition is the other team, and [with] quality, sometimes you're not the competition, but you're not on the team either. You're more like the referee.

I started to notice things that made it difficult. One is just the nature of the job. You're in a position where you have to deliver bad news. You have to tell people that they're doing something wrong or their part was wrong. So, it automatically puts you in a position where you're seen as an outsider. So, over the years, I've realized that you have to work extra hard to show that you're on the team.

Don't tell someone they did something wrong. That's part of it, but also be a part of the solution and get in there and show everyone that you are a part of the team. And when it comes to things like the whiteboard, it was just a matter of changing the way we talk about things in manufacturing.