Production engineer Luis Villalon always envisioned a career in the automotive industry. However, his aspirations took a new direction after touring REHAU’s production facility in Sturgis, Michigan. Plant manager Mark Reverman and director of engineering Mark Kraus envisioned scaling up the warehouse into a complex production facility, presenting Villalon with a unique opportunity.

“Transforming the warehouse into a production facility would be complex with all the procedures that would need to be implemented,” Villalon shared. “This challenge is what attracted me to REHAU.” 

Villalon’s background prepared him to scale up Sturgis. With a degree in industrial engineering from the Polytechnic University of Aguascalientes, he worked in Mexico’s automotive industry as a mechanical process engineer. He then fulfilled a lifelong goal of moving to the United States, where he worked as a quality specialist and refined his skills in process engineering, project management, failure response, data analysis and problem-solving.

Switching to the millwork and cabinetry industry involved a learning curve, but Villalon knew that building a communicative work culture would form a strong basis for growth and effective production. 

“I touch base with our team first thing in the morning and put a plan together for our goals each day,” he said. “I also communicate with various departments, from our sales team to engineering, to identify priorities and set new goals.”  

Villalon has made significant contributions during his nearly two years at REHAU, including creating a workflow for manufacturing appliance panel doors. However, his biggest focus has been introducing a lamination line to the facility. This line applies the wide range of RAUVISIO House^SM surfaces – from gloss to matte, crystal, natural and metal – to MDF or particle boards as the first step in fulfilling a cabinet door or board order.

According to Villalon, it took time to understand the inner workings of the line and establish procedures for assessing board quality and identifying and resolving issues. The team started by producing a small number of boards per day, but have steadily grown production.

This improvement reflects Villalon’s dedication, remaining present on the line to document best practices for operators. He shared, “It was weeks on end of watching the boards, examining how the behave after the glue was set, determining if the outcome was good or bad and putting all the knowledge on paper.”