Personally or professionally, in what way have you been a pioneer?

It’s a blustery February morning in Philadelphia, and I’m trying to walk fast enough alongside two dozen of my company’s operations managers to prevent my teeth from chattering. We are on our way to a meeting about the operational impact an expected increase in business will have, and I’m presenting a new customized software tool that I've pioneered to improve warehouse efficiency. My goal for this meeting is to convince the group that this customized tool will enable them to both smoothly onboard a new customer and increase efficiency in packaging orders. However, as the only industrial engineer and the youngest in attendance, it will be a challenge to overcome resistance to this newly developed tool.

The customized software tool I’m presenting matches forecasts from our procurement teams with inventory data to determine ideal product placement in the warehouse and irks even the most technologically savvy operations managers with its intricacy. Adding another layer of complexity, I designed the tool to onboard the new customer in waves, first distributing a select group of products and gradually increasing to the customer’s full balance. Any misalignment in timing could cause warehouse inefficiencies and potentially delay customer orders. By the end of the presentation and lengthy discussion, the managers agree to add implementing this tool to their growing list of to-do’s as a way to optimize picking operations during the new business rollout. A few months later, we successfully onboarded the customer and increased warehouse productivity, resulting in the tool being used for subsequent new customers.

Pioneering this customized tool taught me two important lessons. First, effective leaders need to take initiative and persevere when solving complex problems. With internal teams already swamped with critical tasks for onboarding, I persisted in obtaining the data needed to customize the tool for the greatest impact. Second, strong leadership requires effective communication and collaboration, especially when persuading others to use unknown tools or processes. Presenting new material to a room full of dubious company leaders was daunting, but I ultimately gained their confidence by demonstrating how the tool was both easy to use and would positively impact operations.