Raising Packaging Talent with Dave LaMarca

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:41

Hi folks, welcome back to another episode. Today we'll be talking with Dave Lamarca. Dave has extensive experience in packaging equipment sales and capital project lifecycle management and has spent his career working with packaging engineers in numerous roles and industries. Before we dive into that, please hit the like and subscribe button wherever you're listening. I really appreciate it. And uh with no further ado, I'll let Dave introduce himself. Dave, welcome.

SPEAKER_01 1:08

Hey Matt, thank you for having me. Appreciate it. Uh Dave Lamarca, as Matt said, with uh quite a bit of experience in the packaging industry, the last 34 years selling everything from tube fillers, liquid fillers down to palletizers, uh check wares and robotic solutions.

Trade Shows And Origins Of The Topic

What Packaging Schools Teach Today

SPEAKER_00 1:30

So, Dave, we uh going back to kind of through our history, one of my first experiences with you was at a trade show where, and it kind of funny, you know, that's a common theme. You know, I do enjoy going to trade shows, but it was I want to say it was Pac Expo Chicago maybe five years ago. I came up to you at you were at the Stevenado at the time, and I came up to you, and I feel like I felt as though I knew you a lot better than you knew me. And when I first walked up, it was one of those, hey, there's my buddy Dave, and you're in your head, you're thinking, Who the hell is this guy walking up to me and you know, bro hugging me and shaking my hand, all that fun stuff? And it was just yeah, I I I kind of felt the awkwardness after the fact, but I've always felt a comfort level with you. And so when you approached me uh about doing an episode together, ironically enough, at a trade show, uh, I believe the genesis for this show came from a late night conversation you and I had in a casino in uh at PEC Expo Las Vegas. So uh I'm noticing a theme there with our uh our interactions again. So yeah, again, welcome. And uh for today's topic of conversation, we wanted to take a deeper dive into what the mainstream packaging schools in the U.S. are teaching their students and how that compares to some of the skill sets maybe you would like to see these schools adapt into their packaging curriculum to uh better equip their their graduates for positions that would deal more primarily with the packaging equipment and your function?

SPEAKER_01 3:17

Yeah, hey Matt, that's a great question. And yes, it was always enjoyable to meet with you at trade shows. Some of the main packaging schools, if you look at what those programs bring to the student, some look for uh, you know, whether it's a technology, RFID, virtual design, and prototyping. Uh, some schools may focus on CAD, packaging engineering, uh, process packaging, manufacturing. And then you have some that have a blend of science, math, materials, and or food and health. And uh some others might just be technical packaging engineering, whether that be, you know, shock vibration to a product or material testing and distribution and protection. So I think each one focuses on different things, but I don't see that they bring all those together. And I think the biggest one that's missing is the real life uh experience that you get from actually being in the packaging industry.

Internships: Office Work Versus Floor Time

SPEAKER_00 4:22

Okay. So one of the things that, and again, I can't I can't speak in great detail about the other packaging schools, but being a graduate of Rutgers Packaging and now being an adjunct professor in the packaging program at Rutgers, I do know that a lot of students will finish their degree program with a minimum of an internship and a co-op, or sometimes multiple. They're less concerned about graduating in four years and more concerned about graduating with experience. And again, not to set the Rutgers program apart from the other schools and say that it's better, worse, or indifferent, but only because I have intimate knowledge of what these students are going through, I can speak a little more intelligently about it, obviously. So the common theme that I have noticed, though, and something that I've alluded to in previous episodes as well, when it comes to internship and co-op experience, a lot of these students seem to land in more office-based environments. And one of the things that I really tried to preach was getting experience, what I call boots on the ground, right? Be down in where the magic happens, be down the production floor, be down in the manufacturing environment to fully understand voice of the customer, right? And as a packaging engineer, your customer is going to be the operators that are running the machines and the mechanics that have to fix the machines and the operators that are loading those components and how those components, how how the design of those components can make or break their day, right? And and things like that. And seeing that firsthand, I think helps make us all better packaging engineers.

SPEAKER_01 6:03

And what you just said is absolutely correct. But between that and maybe reality, it's two different things. My interaction was that the intern showed up, and oh, by the way, Dave, here's my intern for the summer. He's gonna download, or she is going to download information that you give them. Okay, great. Oh, here's our intern, and um, you know, they're just gonna watch us or they're gonna listen. And I think there's a big difference. So, from my perspective, I've run into many interns, and those interns end up doing paperwork, doing information gathering, but they're not really hands-on applications that I've seen. And so it's something that runs through the industry, in my opinion. And there's a difference between saying yes, check the box, I did an internship at X Company, or I actually achieved something through my internship at the end of it.

SPEAKER_00 7:09

Okay. Yeah, no, there's I I see the definite distinction between those. Thinking back on my experiences, so when I graduated from Rutgers, I had completed three different internships and one full-time co-op. And one of the internships was I was kind of working part-time on the side for one of my professors. He had a consulting business. And so there really wasn't anything goal-oriented about that. It was just experien be honest with you, it was really just a paycheck. I made a little bit of money on the side.

SPEAKER_01 7:43

But I think even if you look back at me, I started at a company. It took me a year and a half just to understand the process of packaging. Now that's different in college, you take those classes, you understand it. But I think, you know, if you go company to company to company in the field, like you do as a salesperson or someone that's you know trying to solve a problem for a company, I think you see everybody does it differently. So there's no real continuity from place to place, building to building, company to company. It's different. And that's the difficult part.

Project Lifecycles And Student Limits

SPEAKER_00 8:24

Yeah, and I think that that's a microcosm of what they're going to experience once they get out into the workforce. So I I don't necessarily see that as a bad thing, that they get that lack of continuity from internship to internship or co-op to co-op, but gaining those experiences at these various companies kind of gives them a little bit of a flavor for what they can expect after they graduate. What the challenge that I believe a lot of these internships and co-ops face, you know, an internship theoretically is a summer internship. You've got 10 weeks, nine weeks in the summer to bring someone in, onboard them, train them, try to get something value-added out of them versus just sticking them at a computer and saying, here, key punch this data into this Excel spreadsheet, where you're you it's clerical work versus something value-added for them. Even co-ops at six months, it's a challenge. You know, I mean, you know, you speaking in in the pharmaceutical industry, we talk about projects in in years. And so to effectively manage a co-op or intern program in the pharma industry or in the equipment side of it, where the lead times are so extensive, these students are never gonna have an opportunity to experience vendor selection process and URS development and design review and FAT and installation and commissioning. They're never gonna get to see the full life cycle. So as a professional that would manage this type of program, it's it's on us to give them a better understanding, a clearer picture of at least part of that life cycle, knowing that you're not gonna have a student work. I mean, I guess theoretically, you could have a student work for you for three years throughout the entire life cycle, but I I've never heard of that happening. I don't know if you have seen that in your experience.

SPEAKER_01 10:26

No, nope, I haven't. And I think that's maybe one of the the parts of the educational curriculum that can be changed. You know, maybe that's you know, where you have a real-world open-ended problem, and you're required to do cross-functional decision making, and you you know, the course is really built around I have a problem, how do I bring that problem to fruition? How do I solve it? How do I ask other uh parts of the company to help me uh solve that problem? I just think there's a something missing there.

SPEAKER_00 11:07

Okay. So before we started recording, you had mentioned problem-based learning, and I feel like you're kind of starting to dance around that topic now. So do me a favor and just expand a little on from your perspective, where you feel problem-based learning could or should come from in a college curriculum. And and I mean, what do you how would you envision these schools implementing something like that into their packaging degree programs?

SPEAKER_01 11:37

I think you find problem-based learning in in a couple of different areas in school, which is basically engineering uh and business schools, which use problem-based learning as as part of their curriculum. And I don't think uh it's far to say that you can integrate that type of scenario into a packaging program, right? So current, and I'm speaking from my side, but current packaging curriculums really are it should be a structured course and it's limited. Um, I don't think you see that from beginning to end. But you know, you being a part of that, you probably can give me a little bit more insight.

SPEAKER_00 12:23

Well, yeah, I mean, I've so far I've taught two semesters, and and each semester was a different class. This upcoming semester I'll be teaching a third class. So that'll give me a little bit more flavor as to at least how these three classes are administered. And again, I have a little bit of leeway as the as the professor to determine how the course gets administered, as long as I'm covering the the required content.

SPEAKER_01 12:48

So so the question is do you think or should problem-based learning be its own class?

SPEAKER_00 12:56

It's it's a it's a tough question to answer. I don't feel like there's a there's a black and white, you know, paint with a broad brush response to that. What I can tell you is in the two classes I've already taught and in the class I'm about to teach, I try to take the material that is presented and scrub it and present it through the eyes of an industry professional and say, yeah, this is good information to know. I'm less concerned about you memorizing what year so-and-so invented paper. I'm less concerned about you memorizing the ASTM test method for XYZ test. I'm more concerned about do you understand why that ASTM test method would be selected and the information you're going to gather from those test results? Are you able to interpret that information and apply it to your iterative packaging design, into your equipment design, into your overall supply chain? And I try to present the information in a more practical fashion than a hey, let's see how well you memorize these slides. And part of that, it kind of dances around the whole problem-based learning, I think, to assess their analytical skills.

SPEAKER_01 14:24

Yep. Do you think it should be maybe then integrated into existing, like say, materials distribution, and design courses?

Cross-Functional Mock Project Concept

SPEAKER_00 14:36

I think that could be implemented pretty much anywhere. So you mentioned cross-functional, and and we've talked about you know different projects and how how they're executed and the and the various cross-functional teams that are that have a seat at the table in executing these projects. Packaging engineering, packaging engineers being one of those seats. But it would be interesting, it would be an interesting exercise to provide an opportunity for these students to see the life cycle of a project through the eyes of the other members of their cross-functional team to help better to help them better understand, I guess, the different types of personalities and and backgrounds and whatnot that they'll be dealing with. And so, you know, when you talk about, you know, problem-based learning, I feel like there's an opportunity there for maybe how lawyers go through a mock court, maybe, I don't know, maybe a mock project for the packaging students.

SPEAKER_01 15:38

I think you're right on. You know, packaging kind of sits right at the intersection of, say, engineering, supply chain, marketing, operations, and quality. They they all get into those types of functions. They they touch them, they at least under, you know, have some kind of um interaction with those groups. But typically, and again, you being a professor, you know better than I do, students are typically in silos. You know, they're learning this function or this function and that function, but they're not really all kind of brought together into one course or one area of study. Um so some of the enhancements are kind of what you had said. So you can do some role-playing exercises, so packaging versus manufacturing versus marketing, uh, and kind of have that interaction. Group projects requiring input from these groups, these multiple departments, can also really give them the ability to understand how they're going to interact in the real world and what's going to happen. Maybe, you know, an assignment based on real cross-functional uh conflicts, you know, cost versus say brand or speed versus sustainability or line configurations and different things like that. I think those are really things that uh you experience when you're out in the real world and you're actually in a project, um, and you being a project manager too, along with other things that you've done, I think you can kind of see where that would be beneficial.

Real Constraints: Labels, Tunnels, And Facilities

SPEAKER_00 17:20

I yeah, I think in addition to beneficial, you know, my mind starts racing into how could something like this be achieved? Or I don't even know if if if you could pull something like this off, but I guess where my mind is going right now is, you know, let's say, and let's just pick Rutgers because again, because of familiarity, a Rutgers packaging engineering student, a Rutgers business school student, a Rutgers marketing major. If you were to pull students from each of those degree programs and or or multiple, let's say you were to pull five from from six different departments, right? So it's a class of 30 kids and it's a technical elective, but it's basically a semester-long mock project. And the packaging engineer represents packaging, and the marketing person represents marketing, and the business major represents uh, you know, the finance group, and you have a supply chain person and a quality person, and you know, an industrial engineer maybe to represent more on the facilities side and how those decisions that you make. Uh, I go back to a project I worked on years ago where we were launching a new product and the the label space was very, very small. So we had looked at doing a shrink sleeve, but because of the alcohol content of the product, it was an OTC, the alcohol content either pushed us into a steam tunnel, which they did not have the boiler capacity to support, or a dry heat tunnel. But because of the alcohol content, we would have had to build an explosion-proof room. And so I learned a great deal of information just trying to figure out how I was going to label this device. I learned a lot about the facility side and the implications of those decisions and the budget implications of those potential decisions. Having an opportunity to go through that type of experience before I graduated, I feel would be eye-opening number one. Uh, and two, hugely beneficial to me and and everybody else that is able to go through that type of class and that type of experience as early in their career as possible.

Line Speed Trade-Offs And Practical Awareness

SPEAKER_01 19:34

Right. And I I agree with that. So, how many projects have I worked on where it was, you know, a 300-minute line, a 400 a minute line? And so the lead machine, which is typically, you know, say a liquid filler or something like that, down to an inspection. And as you go down the line, the more processes you add, the more issues you create. So understanding that this little label can make that from a 400 a minute line down to a 200 a minute line is essential, even though you may not know exactly when you're doing it. It's at least understanding the method and understanding the process behind it, which is not not something you really teach in a class all the time. So it's a combination of the two class and out, you know, in your internship or in your co op or in real world.

Communication And Defending Design Choices

SPEAKER_00 20:32

Real world application, absolutely. I was gonna say that. So I'm gonna put you on the spot a little bit because I'm curious. One of the things that Was pushed on me as a packaging engineering student, or as I should say, as an engineering student in general, was a class called expository writing. Now, I don't know if that is still part of the general engineering curriculum or not, but I remember questioning at the time, I'm going to be an engineer. What what do I need to take expository writing for? And the response that I got basically was, well, you can be the best engineer in the world. Not to say that I am, but you know, it's just a conceptual statement. You can be the best engineer in the world, but unless you know how to communicate to people, what good are you going to be out there in the in the professional world? And it really kind of stuck with me that, hey, you know what? Yeah, I could be, I could be the smartest person in the room, but if I can't impart that information to the various people and personalities and backgrounds in that room, what value am I really bringing? And so I look back on on, and I actually took a second semester, I took two semesters of expository writing because I actually really enjoyed it. But I guess this was a long-winded way for me to get to my question of how do you feel or how would you assess the overall communication skills of these students? And is there something that could be or should be done to improve their overall communication skills when they're coming out of college?

SPEAKER_01 22:02

Matt, that's a great question. And I think that is definitely something that needs to be addressed, where basically graduates of these programs sometimes struggle to, you know, explain technical uh decisions to non-engineering people. So to the marketing people, to why we can't do something or why there's an issue with something, something like that. And so that's something that they need to do, defend their design choices, you know, maybe in a post-mortem review is that something that's part of the curriculum. So I think that's another important part that needs to be added. Um, communicate, you know, trade-offs in the business-friendly way. Like, okay, you can't have this, but we can do that, and we need to achieve this, but we can't achieve that. And just understanding um, you know, how that affects the business in which they're operating.

unknown 22:57

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 22:58

So I think you, you know, you add a maybe a communication module uh to the curriculum, technical writing skills, you know, who's the stakeholder and how to communicate to the stakeholder, you know, and a design defense, you know, why am I designing the lane line the way I am? And why does it need to be designed like this?

SPEAKER_00 23:20

Yeah, and I think there's there's definitely applications there above and beyond just the scope of packaging equipment. Uh, you know, obviously that can be that that is something that 100% can be applied across the board within a packaging curriculum. But yeah, you know, and and and part of it is not just the communication skills, but to what we previously discussed, their analytical skills, their ability to to analyze and and accurately defend their decisions and then being able to communicate them in a room full of various functions.

Business Cases And Stakeholder Alignment

SPEAKER_01 23:56

Yeah, I mean, d do you e even see them including a business case rationale into part of their curriculum? Because that's really important. Who am I speaking to and how I'm going how am I going to translate that information in a business case scenario?

SPEAKER_00 24:17

I'm just trying to envision how that might play out in a classroom.

SPEAKER_01 24:23

It would be a unique part of the curriculum. Do a business case scenario and defend that scenario. And then, but keeping in mind, you know, all the different areas that you're gonna touch by that business case. Quality, production, marketing.

SPEAKER_00 24:43

So that may tie back into that that that mock court example, that mock project example we discussed. And potentially implementing not potentially, definitely implementing that dynamic into that overall class curriculum. That could be interesting. So what about supply chain classes?

SPEAKER_01 25:06

Yeah, supply chain, I think we've all kind of learned about that uh over the last uh four or five years. Supply chain awareness is definitely present, but it's not really integrated, I don't believe, in the curriculum. And if if it is, it's probably not focused on very much. Just going back to Rutgers, they definitely have an intro to supply chain uh class, if I'm not mistaken. You know, some of the other colleges offer it, but I don't think they focus on it. So the missing elements are really real logistical modeling, which would help in some ways. Supply chain analytics would also be something you might want to add. Packaging impacts uh costs to serve would also be something you might want to integrate into that. And e-commerce for fulfillment, really, and damage rate modeling. You can do all these different things, vendor management, which is another key part of it. How do you manage a vendor um and do global sourcing? You know, I think for yourself, you've gotten into vendor management and what it takes to really manage the vendor um customer relationship.

Planning For Unknowns And Critical Thinking

SPEAKER_00 26:24

Yeah, well, you know, some vendors are more manageable than others, but we will uh we won't go into that too much. But I guess the the one thing I struggle with on on this on this uh line of discussion more than than the previous ones, and I'm definitely not going to get the reference correct, but when talking about sculpting, uh a true artist doesn't add clay, they remove strategically. And so we can't just and when I say we, I'm I guess I'm referring to all of packaging academia, we can't just en masse add all of these different classes. We have to strategically strip away some of the less valuable or less value-add parts of the curriculum. And I'm wondering if this is something that packaging schools would embrace and want to include in their program versus uh leave this one on the table, or I should say leave this one off the table, uh, and have it be something that their graduates receive on-the-job training for. Because these these schools are are going to walk a fine line between we want to make sure our students, our graduates are getting the proper technical training versus day one, they hit the ground at whatever company they end up hiring into. That company is then going to be responsible for training them on specific on-the-job type stuff. So when it comes to vendor management, I think back to my college years and how much I might have, and again, me personally, how much I might have gotten out of a class like that versus just kind of on-the-job training and on-the-job experience, and how much my early development in my professional career was a result of absorbing interactions between my superiors and my peers and our vendors. I mean, still definitely something to think about. I just I'm just kind of dancing around the idea in my head.

SPEAKER_01 28:44

Yeah, I think though, for the supply chain part, right, you could maybe have a school that partners with supply chain departments, you know, bringing them in and maybe giving real life applications to that. You can add a course that would maybe be like packaging and logistics systems, um, or enhance a packaging course with adding logistics. You know, integrating real transport problems into coursework. Like, how do you get a machine? You know, let's just use uh COVID. How am I going to get a machine from Europe to us, you know, not using the normal flow of the logistics system. So, you know, we all kind of learn that as we went went through it. So there are a lot of real life applications that you can give them examples of how to do this.

SPEAKER_00 29:40

Yeah, and and you know, there there's an element of you don't know what you don't know, right? So you go back to seven years ago, no one was thinking about what we would do if a global pandemic hit.

unknown 29:52

Right.

SPEAKER_00 29:53

It wasn't really on anybody's radar. Now it is. What else could or should be on our radar that hasn't happened, but could be, you know what I mean? Kind of thinking about, I mean, how many contingencies can you really plan for at the end of the day?

SPEAKER_01 30:09

Right.

SPEAKER_00 30:10

Right. Right. And and so you can you can kind of you can kind of get into that analysis paralysis where you just there there's so much to consider that you don't even know where to start. And so again, that goes back to you know, critical thinking, you know, your your analytical thinking and and how well you can assess the situation and and how quickly and creatively you can pivot. True.

SPEAKER_01 30:38

So I think, Matt, on a final note, I think we need to understand uh the internship outcomes, you know, employers, function, duration, hands-on versus design and marketing to maybe evaluate how much real-world manufacturing, distribution, or cross-functional uh learning um occurred and what they were exposed to. So maybe in your history, you can tell me how that's handled. Do you really gather that information and do you use it?

SPEAKER_00 31:15

That's a that's a great thought. So I I guess just to make sure I'm understanding, you're kind of dancing around the idea of when a student finishes an internship or a co-op, is there a post-mortem review at the university or college level to validate what they were exposed to, what they what functions they performed and what they learned? I can tell you from my personal experience, granted it was over 20 years ago, but from my personal experience, there was zero oversight at that time. Fast forward to today, and I have absolutely no idea, but I think it's a great question. Uh, I think that would be a huge value add. My understanding, though, of the current process. I know my process was I went out and I got my own internships and my own co-ops. I just went out and I beat the street and you know, went through a color one of my professors or just applying for jobs on my own outside of any university influence, if you will. I want to say it is similar in nature now, where a lot of these companies will they will come to the university to say, hey, I have an internship or a co-op, and the university or an administrator at the university will then disseminate the information of that job and how to apply to the students, but ultimately the responsibility falls on the students to apply for, eventually interview for, and then if they get the job, then you go and you you work at that internship or co-op. So I don't know how involved the university is beyond that. But it's a I think it's a great question. It's something I definitely, you know, after today, I I want to follow up on and get some information on because if it is being done, I'm not aware of it. And and you know, that's fine. I not to say that I have to be aware of it, but if it's not being done, what what could be done? Because I think I think you you've you've kind of happened upon a great opportunity or a huge missed opportunity if it is indeed a missed opportunity.

Alumni Feedback And Continuous Improvement

SPEAKER_01 33:23

Uh maybe you can interview the alumni from the packaging program and ask them, you know, what their experience was, what skills they find are missing in graduates today entering the workforce, because there may be even another section that you can gather information from and integrate that into the program.

Closing Thanks And How To Connect

SPEAKER_00 33:46

That's a great thought. I I I know, I mean, I can say I I had never really given that much thought before. I don't know, again, you don't know what you don't know. So I don't know if these schools are already doing that. But I would like to think that some of the best engineers, packaging engineers out there in the workforce administering internship and co-op programs are people that worked internships and co-ops themselves and apply what they liked and didn't like about their own experiences to to to make it iterative, to make it to make the experience for these current students that much better. I'd like to think that that is the case and that is exactly what's happening. But no, that's definitely definitely a good thought. I definitely want to look more into that and and ask a few questions and see what level of sophistication involves around that whole post-mortem internship co-op process. And if it's none, see what we can do to kind of get that ball rolling. I do think that would be a value-added exercise. Absolutely. Me too. All right. Uh anything else you wanted to touch upon before we uh wrap this up?

SPEAKER_01 35:01

No, I just want to thank you for the time to be a part of the podcast, and it was a pleasure and a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_00 35:09

Yeah, thank you, Dave. I appreciate your time today. Again, everyone, please uh consider hitting the like and subscribe button wherever you may be listening. I would very much appreciate your support there. Feel free to reach out. If you have ideas for future episodes or if you would like to participate in a future episode, please uh you can hit me up on LinkedIn. You can reach out to me in the contact us form on my website, www.precisioneng solutions.com. If you want to reach out to Dave, uh feel free, send me something, and I will make the connection. And uh, I guess with that, Dave, again, thank you so much. And ladies and gentlemen, we'll talk to you again next time. Take care. Thank you.