Rose Henninger began her career in Mount Pleasant twenty-five years ago today as a slitter operator. “One person would run the slitter machine, and another person did the packing at the machine,” says Henninger. “We had to bag the rolls by hand and put them into Styrofoam containers that looked like big egg cartons.”
With only a few machines at that time, Rose was the sixth person hired for the slitting shift. “The formulation and item number had to be stamped onto the core of every ribbon. There were no ink jets, so we used tweezers to build a stamper from a container of letters and numbers. If we made a mistake, we had to redo it all.”
“Today change-over takes very little time,” she says. When Rose ran the machines in the late 90s, it could take an entire shift to perform the task. “We used a lot of shims to get the right size for the rolls.”
A few years later, Rose became the first woman to join a coating team at the facility in Pennsylvania. “There was only one coating line when I worked in that department,” says Henninger. “Now there are two coating lines, which means quicker and faster production - greater quantity in less time.”
Rose has been a fixture of our Warehouse for twenty years now. “In the beginning, it took an endless amount of handwriting and a lot of math to create a billing label,” she says. “If we needed to expedite a shipment at ground rate, we had to look up the zone it was shipping to and get pricing from a special book.”
A lot has changed over the years. Rose has witnessed many technological advancements and process improvements throughout her career. “Now we have an automatic label shipping maker that has all the information on one tab. It also adds up the price, so you don't have to go looking through any special books or try to figure anything out on your own, which makes it a lot easier for us and there are fewer mistakes. This also helps us ensure the customer gets the proper information on the shipping label.”
“We have accumulated so many new modern technologies that contribute to the way we can process and work faster and more efficiently. It amazes me that we keep coming up with new ideas all the time,” says Henninger. Throughout her quarter of a century manufacturing thermal transfer ribbons, she has embraced each new role and adapted to all the changes. “I have learned how to run every department to the best of my ability, whether it was the long way with handwriting and looking up certain products, or the new way of typing information on a computer and printing it out.”
“I'm just happy that I can say that the last 25 years I have been lucky enough to be here through all the ins and outs, the good and the bad. We're one big team here at DNP, and we learn to work together,” says Henninger. “We push everyone to the best of their ability and help each other when we're struggling. I wouldn't want to belong to any other team or company. I'm happy that I've been here, and I've accomplished 25 years here.”
Please join DNP in wishing Rose a happy 25th work anniversary. We are very proud that she has been a loyal member of our team for so many years. Her positive attitude and willingness to do whatever it takes to get product out the door are commendable. Our success has been and will continue to be dependent on experienced and dedicated employees like Rose.
