DeVos' answer for manufacturing in Michigan: Flexibility, teamwork

HOLLAND -- Dick DeVos may have been soundly thumped in his bid to unseat Gov. Jennifer Granholm 15 months ago, but he still believes he has some answers for what ails Michigan's economy.

"This culture," he said, waving an arm across the floor of his Windquest Cos. factory in Holland last week, "this fast, flexible, teamwork culture, is the future of manufacturing."

We were touring the plant that DeVos bought 18 years ago when it sold only closet-organizer systems, nearly all in one color -- white. Today Windquest and its 130 employees -- up from 60 in 2001 -- make organizers for kitchen pantries, garages, laundry rooms or offices, using many colors and materials from sturdy plastic to luxurious-looking cherry or maple woods.

Every worker on the two production shifts is trained to do multiple tasks. Shift lengths are adjusted to suit rapid changes in order volume. "We might be six hours one day, 10 hours the next," said Eric Wolff, the firm's president and chief operating officer.

"The old manufacturing world, with 14 layers of pay, long lead times, inflexibility, us-versus-them attitudes -- those days are gone," said DeVos, son of Amway Corp. cofounder Rich DeVos. Dick DeVos was president of Amway, renamed Alticor in 2000, from 1993 until 2002.

DeVos and many of his fellow west Michigan business leaders often draw similar contrasts between the perceived business cultures of west and southeast Michigan. One more entrepreneurial, the other bureaucratic. One nonunion, the other unionized. One more flexible and friendly, the other kind of cranky and distrustful.

There is some evidence, statistically, that west Michigan's economy has been outperforming southeast Michigan's in recent years, although it's hardly a roaring success story -- more like one sector suffering a bit less than the other.

In a speech last week to the Economic Club of Grand Rapids, George Erickcek of the Kalamazoo-based W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, said private nonfarm employment is expected to grow 0.7% a year for the next decade in west Michigan. That's better than the 0.4% annual rate for Michigan as a whole, but only half the 1.4% growth rate for the nation overall.

Data on manufacturing employment support DeVos' theory about manufacturing, at least as practiced in his modest Windquest plant in west Michigan.

Manufacturing jobs in west Michigan have stabilized at a level 10-12% below that in 2000, according to Erickcek's data. But nationwide, jobs in manufacturing have dropped 20% -- and in Michigan overall by more than 30% -- during the same period.

In a recent study by Michigan Future Inc. of Ann Arbor, which concludes that bright young talent and therefore economic growth is shifting increasingly to large cities, a bright spot for west Michigan is that more college graduates are settling in Grand Rapids than in outlying areas. Detroit skews badly in the other direction. The bad news for both sides of Michigan is that educational attainment levels are well below the nation's average.

DeVos, 52, a longtime Republican Party activist, said he hasn't decided yet whether to take another run at public office. But in the meantime, he'll try to prove that Michigan is in fact a place where business can grow and jobs can be created.

Last summer, he bought SpaceMakers, a family owned Atlanta firm in home organization products, and is now merging it with Windquest, consolidating the manufacturing in Michigan while retaining the well-respected SpaceMakers name for marketing in the Atlanta area.

Windquest sales, which the privately owned firm does not release, were growing at 30% a year or better until last year, when the nation's housing sector hit the skids and caused Windquest's revenue to flatten out, Wolff said. But he and DeVos expect growth to resume this year.

All employees at the plant are eligible for a bonus related to company performance, and that bonus was down a little last year. But employees understood why -- they get a rundown of performance at all-employee meetings every three months.

Success, as DeVos is fond of repeating, is all about culture.

It can be the culture of a city or a region, which is why the DeVos family and other business leaders banded together a few years back under the name Grand Action to build a new arena and convention center, and to persuade Michigan State University to put its medical school in Grand Rapids.

Culture is equally important in the workplace. At Windquest, while much is shared with workers, much is also expected.

Sound a little corny? Maybe so, but those are the criteria for hiring each new employee and for evaluating each existing worker on the first page of his or her annual performance review.

After seven years of net job loss in Michigan, some culture change is worth a try.

Photos by Nick Tremmel