At Innovize, we are privileged to have a team of exceptional associates who are deeply committed to our shared purpose of creating a culture and products that improve people’s lives. Every day, our associates harness their passion and drive to achieve remarkable feats in their work.
To celebrate and recognize these exceptional achievements, we have a special program where five associates are chosen by their peers each quarter for their outstanding accomplishments in areas such as Improved Product Quality, Increased Profitability, Revenue Growth, Meaningful Experience, and Living our Values.
This program highlights the incredible efforts of our associates and serves as a testament to their dedication and hard work. It is an opportunity for us to honor their contributions and inspire others to reach new heights in their own work.
Join us in celebrating our remarkable associates and their accomplishments at Innovize!
ASCENDING ASSOCIATES – Q3 2023
Pablo Ayers – Meaningful Experience
Pablo’s recognition: “I’m amazed at what a talented leader you are. You provided so much info. On my 1st week of my transition, you showed such amazing trouble shooting skills, along with always being there to help. Your personality and leadership makes the rotary team feel like a second home.”
Victor Hernandez – Revenue Growth
Victor’s recognition: “Thank you for your quick work in helping me make my fake medical device “believable”. This graphic will be a huge step forward in answering the question “What exactly does Innovize do?” in our marketing efforts. The clarity will help drive more customers and businesses to Innovize. We could not have done it without your engineering power.”
As a Senior Development Engineer, Victor spends his time at Innovize developing processes and tooling needed to create finished products, Interacting with customers to define project parameters that meet our production capabilities, and creating prototypes and samples. “One of my favorite projects that I’ve worked on so far at Innovize was when we were approached by our now customer to assist with a wearable device that was being manufactured by another company,” he said. “They were having quality and hand assembly issues and needed a new converter. We were able to define the trouble areas they were experiencing and developed a plan to integrate solutions. We (Innovize) knew that we were able to define a converting process for producing parts off of our equipment. Our fist challenge was to design an automation process that would handle an external part and place it on the converted part with accuracy, then place into a pouch. We were able to work with our internal automation team to handle the multiple materials needed and create an automation cell that would
perform the part lamination, then placed into a pouch. We have continuously integrated more and more upgraded automation, with support from our customer has allowed us the opportunity to start on production of the second generation product. While it has been a long challenging process, in the end it was well worth it to prove to our customer we are able to deliver product to support their current needs. This process has shown me that developing relationships with our customers not only provides new opportunities, but provides a solution to people who depend on this product.”
Victor says he’s motivated to come to work everyday just knowing that the products we design and produce will help improve someone’s life. “The medical device space is constantly changing and evolving. I enjoy the challenges of working on complex projects that continue to push our capabilities,” he said.
Fun fact about Victor: he’s an avid golfer!
Der Jong Pao – Living Our Values
Der’s recognition: “You are a true rock star! Thank you for pushing your break back and packing out the [customer product] to meet customer demand. Their line was down and they were counting on us to supply them. Rock star.”
As a line coordinator on our team, Der’s job is to make sure that product is properly rewound, bunched into the correct quantity and fan-folded into customer required boxes. She also organizes the pack out area with her team to make sure the day’s priorities are met and the product is error-free.
“Creating and maintaining work cells has been my favorite part of Innovize so far,” Der said. “We built a new area that processes product more efficiently and set up a pack out area. In the pack out area we have concentrated on using one piece flow and training our associates to review batch records. Assuring that line clearance is occurring and properly setting up jobs has been important to ensuring we are turning out a quality product.”
Der enjoys being able to work on products that are important and improve people’s lives. “It’s easier to get up and go to work when you believe in what you do,” she said. She also mentioned that she enjoys spending time with her team!
Outside of Innovize, Der likes to garden, watch (mostly historical) movies, and cook. “I have a large garden that I plant flowers and veggies (tomato’s, cauliflower, peach and apple tree). I like to spend my weekends working and watching them grow. On Sundays I volunteer at my church and I cook at home. My favorite dishes to make are Chicken, soup, and beef on skewers. I like to try new things!”
Darek Olejnik – Increases Profitability
Darek’s recognition: “By far our best run yet on the five-up tool for [customer product]. You like to think outside the box in come up with creative ways to make it run better. Doing this we ran 15,000 parts with only a couple pins breaking, before we used to run maybe 1,000 parts before we had multiple pins break.”
Boon Xiong – Improved Product Quality
Boon’s recognition: “Boon, you’re a Rock Star. While measuring [customer] parts for die qualification you quickly implemented a request to measure parts on the new clear liner. You informed the QEs that keeping parts on the clear liner reduced variation. Then you suggested we remove, remeasure, and compare the results to not removed. Great idea! The variation was cut in half by not removing parts to measure! Less work and less variation. Rock Star level WOW!
Congratulations, again, to all of our Ascending Associates!
Check back in January to meet our Q4 2023 Rockstars!
