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Manufacturing Technology, Inc.

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Interesting work, but poor management and communication. - Anonymous employee Manufacturing Technology, Inc. Employee Review

2.0
Feb 18, 2016
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

It's a small enough company that your voice and ideas can be heard.

Cons

Communication is lacking, management doesn't inform employees or useful happenings. Company structures each department as 'business units' which makes collaboration across departments almost as difficult as working with outside companies. The company spends way too much time developing a "pyramid" which is overly wordy (about 20+ items per side...including the bottom). All of this is common sense and adds zero value to my workflow, yet the company has spent money on instructional videos, in class meetings, origami style pyramids, and banners. A lot of employees are set in their ways and against trying new things. Despite the small size of the company (roughly 300 employees), and working here for 3+ years, I still know the names of very few people outside my small group of 15. Machines are rushed out the door in order to be considered 'on time' even if they are not ready. Lastly, they tend to low ball during the salary negotiation phases. After finding out what former employees in my position were earning, I am severally underpaid.

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Manufacturing Technology, Inc. Response
10y
Thank you for taking the time to review your experience at MTI. I am disappointed you are not happy with the leadership team and the work we are doing. I freely admit we are not always successful at making the work environment ideal at MTI but we will continue to work hard at it. We are working hard on the path to greatness but it is a bumpy, winding path. As for the MTI Execution Pyramid. I am glad you are smart enough to fully understand the importance of how to fully leverage Vision, Leadership, Implementation and Growth to make MTI great. For those not as intuitive as you, we are creating training for this important tool. Even though there are 13 boxes on each side plus a base, I have a number of people utilizing the tool box and trying to build our culture from vision, strategies and agreements. Based on your knowledge, I encourage you to be part of our Pyramid in Action process. You can help others see how intuitive it is. With your help, the execution of the pyramid concepts will make MTI a great company. Business Units were developed to provide product and customer focus that MTI was lacking with a more functional structure (engineering, project management, sales, etc.). The unfortunate reality of every structure is they all have pros and cons. BU structure drives focus on product but can create silos. Thus, we have to work at improving cross BU communication, not hide behind BU's to not communicate. A functional structure improves functional focus but separates everyone from the customer and end product. There are dozens of structures, I would be happy to listen to your suggestions on how to structure the business to improve the outcome. The challenge is getting our 200 people worldwide working in concert and focused on meeting our customer’s needs. You mentioned communication issues a number of times in the review. There is always room for improvement here. However, please take advantage of the numerous communication tools we offer. The monthly all employee meetings discuss business unit activity, HR issues, full financials for the month and year, and there is always room at the end for questions on any topic. There may be some "fluff" in this meeting, but I do not know many privately held companies willing to give out as much information as we do. If that forum is not to your liking please come to one of my monthly town hall meetings. In that meeting you can ask any question you want, there is not fixed agenda. Alternatively, we have the newsletter every 6 weeks, emails every day. Alternatively, just stop me when I walk by or just come to my office and ask a question. I will be happy to answer your questions. Many others in the organization have done this with pretty good success. I fully agree that pay needs to be more standardized. We are working on making sure we have a good structure for insuring we are competitive with the marketplace. That said, if you believe you are "severely" underpaid, please bring it to my or HR's attention and we can look at it. We reviewed all wages in the last six months and I do not remember seeing huge discrepancies, but we could have missed one. All this said, you have worked for us for over three years. I certainly hope you can find a way to enjoy working for MTI. Life is too short to work someplace you are not happy with. If you want to help us improve the workplace, we will work with you. If MTI is not for you, we will be happy to help you find something more suitable. We are happy to help you with either path. We want everyone who comes in contact with MTI to be successful, in or out of the company.

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Pros

Very interesting, complex machines that keep you challenged

Cons

Overall not much. The pay could be slightly better

2.0
Jan 29, 2025
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Pros

Lots of learning opportunities. Lots of friendly colleagues. They try to have a family culture/ Christmas party etc. The CEO is an approachable guy.

Cons

After a year of working somewhere else where i was respected as an engineer, I realize I should have left this place way sooner than I did. The final straw was watching as they brought in people with the same and less qualifications as me to the same position - then titled them as an Engineer - when they never did that for me, and I had the qualification from the start. MTI is wicked bad Siloed as a company. Its hard to get any collaboration to happen across departments.

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