www.centralplainscement.com
Kansas City
Since 1907, the Sugar Creek Missouri Cement Plant, (formerly Missouri Portland, then Lafarge, and now Central Plains Cement Company) has provided Portland cement to customers in the Midwest. The company operates two cement manufacturing plants and five cement terminals, with a combined production capacity of over 1.7 million tons of cement annually. Central Plains Cement has always been dedicated to quality, constantly working towards cleaner and more sustainable operations. They pride themselves on their workforce as the “true living assets” of the company.
The company’s commitment to their people includes promoting from within, allowing employees to grow their skills and move up the ladder. This model has proven a tremendous success, and as employees advance they are given additional training which includes developing their leadership skills. After looking into various organizations that offer supervisor training, they found an array of “cookie cutter” programs that didn’t seem to fit their needs. Missouri Enterprise stood out for its ability to customize their skills development programs to accommodate the specific skills, scheduling and timeline needs of Central Plains Cement.
“Missouri Enterprise simply put more effort into in than their competitors,” says Curt Roller, Production Manager at Central Plains Cement. “Our needs don’t really fit the normal mold, and they made it custom for the site. They came onsite, met our people and assessed who was responsible for what, then they tailored their skills development program to fit.”
The customized skills development brought by Missouri Enterprise utilized the “Training Within Industry” model, and focused on communication styles and personality characteristics to help supervisors increase team buy-in and overall effectiveness. Through the program, supervisors learned how to communicate the company vision to their team members so everyone was focused on the same expectations and outcomes. “It was great to see,” says Roller. “Missouri Enterprise’s project managers focused on individual’s needs, and then they incorporated those individual’s unique needs into the classes without singling anyone out. It was very nicely done.”
As a result of their work with Missouri Enterprise, Central Plains Cement Company avoided approximately $20,000 in potential unnecessary expenses, and helped retain 5 jobs in the coming year.