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April 20, 2021

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Quality takes center stage in Trane Technologies, TSMSDC workshops

By Caryn Berardi

The TriState Minority Supplier Development Council has been providing learning and networking opportunities for its member minority-owned businesses and corporations through its unique Raising the Bar Mini-Series for five years.

To continue this important opportunity for minority business enterprises and corporations to connect and grow during the pandemic, the three-part series went virtual in fall 2020. Teaming with Trane Technologies, the workshops may have looked different, but their main goal — to assist minority-owned businesses and corporations seeking strategies for exponential business growth and success — remained.

“Within a short span of time, the collaborative partnership between Trane Technologies and TSMSDC yielded mutual benefits with several referrals of minority businesses to the supply chain, translating from contacts to contracts and increasing favorable awareness of Trane’s supplier diversity benefits,” said Cheri Henderson, president and CEO, TSMSDC, which serves Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia. “This joint effort creates and delivers a continuation of learning opportunities to grow businesses to new levels to become world-class suppliers.”

The Raising the Bar Virtual Mini-Series offered TSMSDC members one-hour sessions led by Trane facilitators focused on a different area of business that is essential to the development and success of MBEs. Topics in this series included sustainability, supplier risk and quality.

The final workshop covering quality was chosen as an area that is particularly important to minority suppliers and the supply chain, as the data derived from supply chains provides insight into performance areas, Henderson said.

“Quality is essential to business success,” she said. “The goal of this workshop was to increase the MBEs’ understanding of how a customer sees data and address how an MBE can improve its current quality management system.” 

In the workshop, Trane facilitators Rob Chisholm and LaMont Parson shared insights with the audience for producing and elevating quality in their products and business practices, as well as the importance of making quality an integral part of an organization’s overall vision and purpose.

Quality essential to business success

“At the end of the day, it is about listening to internal stakeholders and external customers, understanding what they are looking for and meeting or exceeding those expectations,” said Parson, director, supplier quality and development, Ingersoll Rand Inc., parent company of Trane Technologies.

For Trane and its suppliers, this quality includes compliance with the International Organization for Standardization requirements, producing reliable and cost-effective products that ship on time and continued quality improvement throughout the entire value chain, according to Parson.

And quality is not just about the efficacy of a particular product or service, said Chisholm, senior manager of sourcing excellence. It is part of the fabric of a company’s overall purpose and a key factor he looks for when visiting potential business partners.

“One of the first things we do when we walk into a supplier is look around its lobby,” Chisholm said. “If quality is truly a purpose, we should see evidence of that. And when we walk down the assembly lines, there should be metrics out there on the floor that we can see. Quality should pop out to us.”

The company also gauges management’s commitment to quality when conducting its off-site assessments. This is extremely important within Trane as well, where the focus on quality is visible and communicated, coming down from the CEO and executive leadership all the way to the production floor.

Leadership’s support facilitates another important element of quality according to Parson and Chisholm — employee empowerment.

“The person closest to the customer — such as the person building the product — is a significant part of quality,” Chisholm said. “The employees on the assembly line must know if they have the products in their hands and the quality isn’t right, they have the power to pull the stop. And leadership must show support for those employees when they have the courage to do that.”

This focus on empowerment extends to Trane’s relationships with its diverse suppliers. Supplier diversity is an integral component of the company’s global integrated supply chain, Parson said. During the Raising the Bar workshop, he and Chisholm shared the corporation’s “Global Supplier Quality Manual” and other public resources, so diverse companies understand Trane’s expectations and requirements as they seek its business.

The company’s commitment goes beyond just doing business with diverse suppliers. It includes developing, mentoring and enhancing the women- and minority-owned businesses’ capabilities.

“It is key that we invest long term in the well-being of those suppliers and develop them, because it all trickles back to the communities they are in. It’s a win-win situation, as those expert voices with great ideas also enhance Trane’s competitiveness and capacity,” Parson said.

TSMSDC’s Henderson agrees that the collaboration between the council and Trane Technologies through opportunities such as Raising the Bar provides a mutually beneficial experience that ultimately strengthens businesses and communities.

“With Trane Technologies as a partner, MBEs have access to procurement opportunities and training programs that can enhance their skills, as well as workshops and mentorship programs that provide strategies for selling to Trane and beyond,” Henderson said. “Minority entrepreneurs play a vital role in the economic health of our communities, and it is critical that we continue to equip them with the necessary tools, insights and perspectives.”

 To learn more about Tristate Minority Supplier Development Council, visit tsmsdc.com