Unstoppable People - Shawn Smith - Director of Business Development

Milliken’s Unstoppable People series highlights Milliken & Company associates who guide us to success and embody our values: integrity, excellence, innovation, sustainability, and people.

Our pursuit of excellence often drives our quest for continuous improvement. We know that we can—and should—strive to be our best however we can.

That drive toward excellence has defined the Milliken Performance System (MPS), a holistic system of identifying and improving operations within our organization. It’s also helped make an impact outside Milliken. “Performance Solutions by Milliken works with other companies to increase productivity, put new processes in place, and help them with training initiatives. We take our MPS learning over the years from within Milliken and apply them to our customers' needs."

Performance Solutions by Milliken utilizes the MPS methodology to make a difference from supply chains all the way down to the production floor. Since 2007, Shawn and the Performance Solutions by Milliken team have worked with companies and businesses on their own journeys of continuous improvement.

"As the Director of Business Development, I'm usually the first point of contact for a company. I design engagements and work with them to clearly define the 'win.' Then, we'll put together a plan that gets us where we need to go."

Whether it’s an operational need, a quality need, a productivity need, Performance Solutions by Milliken can chart a course uniquely tailored to its customer. And Shawn is there from the beginning, building a relationship and fostering trust along the way.

“Decades ago, Milliken sent associates to Japan to explore how we could increase productivity and safety with better systems. Their work developed into MPS, which we now use across our global manufacturing sites. It's about a family atmosphere, and it's about having an operating system that we can all understand so we create the safest possible environment for the team.”

Shawn draws from his industrial engineering background and Milliken career daily. Much of his time at Milliken—more than 18 years—involved working with MPS, and he’s a firm believer in what it brings to the table. “I think it builds trust. When you have trust and an ingrained safety focus, there's a natural rapport and engagement among your team. When teams have a say and can trust those around them, we can turn our attention to the operational excellence side of things and watch the business excel.”

Want to join our team of #UnstoppablePeople? Visit our careers webpage to learn more about your next opportunity.

Do you know an Unstoppable Person you’d like to recognize? Nominate them at [email protected].