Will Robbins

Process Engineer/LSSBB, Minneapolis, MN

Problem solver. Champion for continuous improvement. Data-driven decision maker.

Barbara Hall, American television writer, once said, “The path to our destination is not always a straight one. We go down the wrong road, we get lost, we turn back. Maybe it doesn’t matter which road we embark on. Maybe what matters is that we embark.”

And, we’re so glad Will Robbins embarked on his not-so-straight path to Olympic Steel.

Will graduated from college with a degree in Environmental Studies and accepted a position that, at the time, he thought was a good fit. After about six months, he realized he was on the wrong path. Will left that industry and tried a few others before finding a third shift Supervisor position at Olympic Steel’s Minneapolis, Minnesota (Coil) facility.

Third shift provided opportunities for Will to make a difference creating structure to support business operations. After 15 months, he moved to day shift to schedule the lasers. Will continued in that role while also working on his Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, which he earned in 2016.

During this time, the Minneapolis divisions were moving to the A/X operating system and Will quickly became a resource for both Minneapolis-Coil and Minneapolis-Plate. He was promoted to Master Planner for the Plate Division, using his A/X “super user” skills to guide the division through the A/X system and the material requirements planning (MRP) engine that drives it. His involvement in the A/X implementation is one of Will’s proudest contributions to Olympic Steel.

His other proudest moment? Participating in the start-up of the Lean Six Sigma Green Belt training program. In October 2018, the Operational Excellence Department was created and Will moved into the department as a Process Engineer. In this role, he was an integral part of the Green Belt program launch.

“Will is a valued asset to the Central Region Operational Excellence team. He has a desire to continually make things better and more efficient,” said Robert Erion, Project Manager/Environmental, Health and Safety Manager at Olympic Steel’s Minneapolis divisions. “Will’s drive to follow the data to formulate informed decisions makes Olympic Steel better. He has extremely high standards for the work he produces.”

Generally speaking, Will is always finding new ways to solve problems and make improvements, and he credits the training and development support he’s received from Olympic Steel as instrumental to his success. It makes Will happy to give his time to solving problems. “GO LOOK” is a Core Principle in Lean Six Sigma. If you don’t know something, study the process, learn it, gather data and put the facts together to make a data-driven decision. It’s an approach Will has embraced personally and one he teaches others.

For this reason, it’s no surprise that Will’s advice for how to be successful and build a great career with the Company is to “learn as much as you can and take the initiative to solve the problems that are in front of you.”