Pipia delivers for glass manufacturer ...and thousands of Michigan orphans

Mike Pipia, global logistics manager for Auburn Hills, Mich.-based Guardian Industries Corp., may not exactly look like Santa Claus, but, for thousands of Michigan orphans and other children in need, he has been guiding the proverbial red sleigh for more than a quarter of a century.

As gratifying as he finds his work – meeting the challenges of getting glass products and raw materials used in their manufacture safely shipped throughout the world – Pipia derives his greatest enjoyment from his long-time volunteer role as logistics manager for Child and Family Services of Michigan’s Operation Good Cheer. In a wide-ranging interview with the American Journal of Transportation, the native Michigander offers insights into the global glass industry supply chain and the importance of both best practices and flexibility, as well as his beyond-work pursuits. How and why did you get involved in bringing Christmas to Michigan children in need? It’s without question the most enjoyment I get out of logistics: Using logistics to make something good happen. It started for me when someone asked, ‘Does anybody know anybody that can find me a truck? We have to move a couple hundred gifts for some children.’ My name got tossed out as that person. I was at General Motors when the call came in, ‘Mr. Pipia, can you give us a truck for here to here?’ I said, ‘Sure,’ and all of a sudden one of the locations was Ford Motor Co. I said, ‘Something’s wrong here. Why am I sending a truck to Ford; this is General Motors?’ She says, ‘Oh, no, no, no, you’re picking up gifts to make Christmas happen.’ That was 26 years ago. We started with about 500 gifts and one truck. This year, we’ll have more than 16,000 gifts and we’ll make Christmas happen for 5,300 children – orphans across Michigan. I’ll have about 27 trucking companies and 150 airplanes and one very large hangar [of Pentastar Aviation] as a base to work out of. On the first Friday in December, we gather gifts from across the state. The next day, we fly about half of the gifts around the state, anywhere there’s an orphanage, and then the other half is delivered by truck to facilities in Southeast Michigan. The challenge is to get your arms around 300 to 400 volunteers who want to get involved and help. We are still dealing with logistics, so order is important. It’s trucking companies that aren’t worried about the details. They just say, ‘Here you go. Here’s my truck. Here’s my driver. We’re willing to opt in to support the community and support the children and the cause.’ I’ve had truck drivers and corporate vice presidents melt when they show up with a truck full of gifts at an orphanage, and the kids actually unload their own gifts. They can’t see them, but they unload them, and they know that it’s Christmas in a truck. Turning to your ‘day job,’ what kinds of challenges are associated in your industry with shipping not just finished products but also materials used in their manufacture? The issue today with finished products is that the industry continues to change very rapidly. We have float glass plants around the world, and they were built to service surrounding regions. But, as the world has changed, regions and product types have also changed and expanded. As a result, we now ship glass farther from the plants. Logistics is now global. The costs associated with logistics can greatly affect a project, and we need to be flexible and meet the demand and the needs of our customers. Global also means more complicated shipping. Demand for specialized equipment via road, sea and, in some cases, air adds new challenges. Remember, we are delivering glass, so safety is our primary consideration. When it comes to sourcing the raw materials needed to produce glass, we’re buying bulk materials, and here, too, the sources are changing. New suppliers are constantly emerging in different regions of the world. Suppliers change locations, but our plants don’t move. So logistics becomes critical as the shipping patterns change. For years, our core material, sand, had a limited number of users. Now sand is very popular for the fracking industry. The change in demand resulted in a change in pricing and suppliers – new suppliers needed to be sourced, and transportation became very important. What role has the increasing globalization of your company played? Guardian began as the Guardian Glass Co. in 1932 in Detroit, producing windshields for the automotive industry. Mr. [William] Davidson took over the company in 1957, and his desire was to go beyond the service industry to manufacturing float glass. Guardian’s first float glass plant opened in 1970 in Carleton, Michigan, producing glass for the Midwest-based automotive companies. Back then, glass was shipped to the customer, by truck, and that was about it. Raw materials also came from very close sources. Today, we have 26 glass plants with 27 furnaces and operations in 25 countries around the world. Guardian has become a very global company. Guardian plants produce a variety of products. For example, you’re producing one type of product in the United States and another product in Europe, and the customer in the Middle East wants the product that’s coming out of Europe, because that’s what the architect has specified for the building. A good example of this is the Burj Khalifa in the Middle East [the world’s tallest building, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates]. There is more than 6 million square feet of Guardian glass on that building. We have three plants in the Middle East, but that glass came from our Germany plant because the high-performance coated glass required for the project was not produced by our Middle East plants. We are moving product farther. We have to protect it, and we have to be able to get the proper equipment to move it and move it safely. These challenges are ongoing. To meet these needs, we focus on right product, right place, right time and right price. At the end of the day, it’s all about creating value for our customers – internal and external – and the company. How important is the sharing of best practices? Knowledge sharing is very important throughout Guardian. We have 26 plants globally, and while the plants may be producing different products, the basic glass manufacturing process is the same around the company. We’re very flexible. We’re not wasting time. We’re using our people to their best advantage in the organization. In transportation, as we manage the global corporate commitment for logistics, we try to supply all best practices to all of our regions, and this not only means best from within but also from outside our corporate structure. My job is keep bringing the best available knowledge to the logistics process. We meet challenges head on, and we share the results. Best practices keep us lean and keep us moving. How has your professional experience with a major user of Guardian Industries products, serving nearly 20 years at General Motors Corp., and with a significant player in breakbulk and bulk shipping, with 16 years with Fednav, helped shape your approach over your eight years at Guardian? I started at Fednav right out of college [after earning a bachelor’s in business from Eastern Michigan University in 1972] as a stevedore and worked my way up. Fednav was the size of company where everyone is part of a team; you were allowed to do things. I was allowed to take two ro/ro [roll-on/roll-off] ships that were Canadian-flag and reflag them to the U.S. flag and run them out of the Great Lakes to Europe, in a full liner service. That allows you to learn more and learn quickly, because you’re actually doing it. When I moved over to General Motors, the largest corporation in the world at the time [1988], I had a totally different experience. You weren’t really trying to solve logistics problems. You were trying to move freight fast, safely and economically. Because the volumes were so great, a small mistake could add up very quickly. General Motors was a consumer of logistics, Fednav was a supplier of logistics, and working on both ends of it allowed me to be more understanding. So, when I stepped over to Guardian [in 2007], I was very flexible, very fast to move into areas that needed attention, because I’d seen the situation from both sides and had first-hand experience. I always say that, in the logistics world, the wheel is round. It’ll happen today, and it will happen again down the road, maybe a new twist, but overall the same issues. We’re still moving materials from Point A to Point B. I feel pretty lucky to have experienced both sides. So how did you get into the business? My father was a truck driver. At 16, he made me drive a truck for a summer. He said, ‘Now that’s why you don’t want to drive a truck. I don’t ever want you to drive a truck. You’ve got to do better than that. You’re going to college.’ Then he got me my first job on the riverfront as a stevedore. After working on the docks, I moved into the customs brokerage area and continued to expand my knowledge of the global aspects of logistics. The bug of international logistics gets into you, and you grow to love the complexity, global challenges; all aspects of it. I believe you have interests in photography, boating and breeding dogs, but can you tell us how you find time for these outside activities? I guess you could say those are my release valves, because global logistics is a 24-hour job. When I do break away, I love to boat, cruising the Great Lakes. Labradors are my passion. I breed and train Labradors. I had one graduate to become a working guide dog for Leader Dogs for the Blind. I think they’re the greatest dogs – a dog for all seasons. And photography gives me a chance just to walk away from everything and be by myself, be quiet and be creative. I think it’s something you have to do. You have to be able to have that break. You can’t continue on at the pace that global logistics today drives people to. It is an industry that’s fun, and it’s challenging, but it’s a driving industry. It’s very intense. Everyone needs to take a break.