Building Leaders for Growth: How Lucta Transformed Frontline Leadership with Maryland MEP

Building Leaders for Growth: How Lucta Transformed Frontline Leadership with Maryland MEP

The Client:

Lucta Brands acquired Flavor & Fragrance Specialties Inc in 2015. They design and manufacture customized flavors, fragrances, and oils for a wide variety of industries including beverage, bakery, meat and alternative proteins, confectionary, dairy, pharmaceuticals, animal feed, home care and personal care. The company has their US manufacturing center in Baltimore and the North American headquarters and innovation center in Mahwah, NJ.

The Challenge:
Lucta approached Maryland MEP, part of the MEP network, in 2023 for assistance in developing the capabilities of their frontline leaders. As is typical in most manufacturing facilities, the frontline leaders had been promoted mostly from within, based on their high level of technical skill in operating equipment and their solid work ethic with minimal leadership experience. The leadership saw the opportunity to invest in the frontline leaders, training them in the tools and principles of leadership and also immersing them in the breadth and depth of the role of a leader within the overall business. The expectation was for a strong frontline leadership team to enable capacity growth through improved employee engagement, communication, problem solving, attrition, and team performance.  
The Solution:

In support of this, the Maryland MEP team worked with Go Lean Six who taught the Basic Supervisor Training curriculum to build the skills of leadership and clarify the role of the leader among the team leads. This group of leads embraced the concepts and techniques they learned and significantly changed the way they lead the day-to-day operations with a focus on “winning” every day through improved communication with their own teams and between teams, and improved coaching and training for their team members. There have been improvements in capacity and on-time delivery as well as promotions for several of the participants who have thrived in the new work environment. It has been a great year for the Lucta manufacturing facility and its customers. 

Following the successful completion of the first wave of frontline leaders in Baltimore, Lucta’s senior leadership chose to expand the training to the middle and senior managers in Baltimore, so they can help support the development of the people with a thorough understanding of the techniques learned and embraced. Lucta further expanded the leadership training to their Mahwah, NJ facility. These sessions included a cross-section of employees from high-potential individual contributors to general managers across various business units. The interaction among the participants at different levels from different business units has brought even more richness to the conversations and exercises as they share this common experience. 

Maryland MEP is helping set the stage with a standard leadership foundation across the company, upon which they can begin their lean journey.