Women’s Leadership in Industry 4.0

Danielle Lafond, PDG Fondatrice de Labplas

by Nicolas Sacchetti

The survival and resale value of Québec's manufacturing sector depends on digital transformation, the Industry 4.0.

Danielle Lafond, Founding President of Labplas

Taking the digital turn does not necessarily mean launching a major project. A goal of acquiring a Metamorphic Material Handling System (MMHS), such as a manipulator arm or a pneumatic lifting system, quickly creates value in terms of profitability, ease of execution and versatility.

Danielle Lafond is the founding president of Labplas, a Québec-based company specializes in manufacturing sterile sampling and transport products for laboratory analysis. As a major international exporter, with 93% of its products sold in 60 countries, Labplas meets very specific needs in the analysis of safety and composition of food, environmental, veterinary and pharmaceutical industries.

Ms. Lafond took part in the Webinar on Governance and Women's Leadership in Innovation Ecosystems. The event presented by 4POINT0 in the framework of the First International Conference on Policies, Processes & Practices for Performance of Innovation Ecosystem (P4IE) held May 11 to 13, 2021.

An innovative company, Labplas' engineering department has manufactured 90% of the machinery. The manufacturer also has a computer department and a microbiology laboratory that allow them to innovate both in terms of automation and the design of new products.

"The most successful companies are the ones that are going to ride the technology wave; if you're waiting for everyone else to get it, you've missed the boat."

— Danielle Lafond, Founding President of Labplas

Break the Task Down

To create excitement about technology, she recommends breaking down projects into small steps to ensure that victories are accumulated and celebrated. It results in a solidification of people's confidence and encouragement to change. In this sense, Lafond invites investors to approach company presidents with small projects. She reminds us that the majority of Québec companies are SMEs, that some of them struggle to have a functional website, and that aging managers do not necessarily have the desire to invest millions when they retire.

The 90-employee SME has taken the digital turn over 20 years ago. Danielle Lafond recalls the first Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software package, developed and implemented in the plant, dating back to 1994. Progiciel is a contraction of the words product and software. According to the Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF), ERP has the integrated functions of "human resources management, accounting and finance, decision support, sales, distribution, procurement, and e-commerce."

Artificial Intelligence - AI

For the past four years, Labplas has been studying the implementation of an AI that would take care of the quality control of the products and allow automatic boxing.

In 2019, the 30-plus unit production plant switched to Epicor Kinetic, a cloud ERP. Kinetic is a suite of supply chain management (SCM) IT programs designed to work together. It is based on a Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA). People, systems, and processes are now connected. It is an interoperable system, capable of communicating and functioning with others.

The OQLF defines SOA as "a flexible software environment that is decomposed into services that correspond to the business processes of the enterprise, and that takes into consideration the specific needs and characteristics of the client system [...] The advantage lies in the possibility of eliminating the incompatibilities that isolate the various applications of an organization, as these applications have a tendency over time to operate in closed silos."

Product Lifecycle Management - PLM

PLM takes into consideration the stages of a product's life, from its conception to its end. In 2008, Labplas' innovation resulted in the first eco-friendly sampling bag, the Twirl'em Ecolo. "To this day, we are still the only ones on the market to offer an eco-responsible solution in analytical laboratories around the world," says Lafond.

Resistance to Change

As Western Washington University Economics Professor Steven Globerman, then Fraser Institute Addington Scholar-in-Residence wrote in the July 11, 2019, Vancouver Sun: « AI will kill jobs—and create them. » Globerman explains that automation increases productivity as well as the demand for skills, resulting in better wages for workers.

Many computer scientists including Canadian AI expert Yann Lecun caution it will take decades to build AI systems that are even close to human-level intelligence. Furthermore, even as machine-learning technology advances and enables computers to make increasingly sophisticated decisions, new opportunities will emerge for humans to employ automated intelligence to do wholly new workplace activities and do their existing jobs more effectively. — Professor Steven Globerman

Danielle Lafond specifies that she took the time to ensure everybody understands the intentions behind the implementation of AI, and committed to everyone that no one would lose their job as a result of it. She confides that putting people at the center of the company is the key to its success.

"Leadership requires a measure of communityship."

— Professor Henry Mintzberg, Management Studies, McGill University

Considering the expertise of the staff - from electromechanics, handlers, to inspectors - and having an attentive ear to the problems and solutions expressed by them, resistance to change towards 4.0 is not a major issue. It is expected that the added value of AI will make employees' tasks more interesting and motivating. "As a leader, my job is to facilitate this discussion," says Lafond.

Communication

Communication is a key tool for running a business. Communicate your decisions as a leader, and the reasons behind them. "In the company, I act as a coach to help my employees grow. Growing your world means growing your company," says Lafond. She ends on this comment: "Staying yourself, that's how you are credible.

This content has been updated on 2022-09-30 at 23 h 47 min.