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 erry, Ga., is home to Frito-Lay's largest facility nationwide, and Quick Start and Middle Georgia Technical College are poised to continue to supply training and skilled employees as the local economy grows. Americans who love their snack foods can enjoy some of Frito-Lay's most popular items — Doritos, Ruffles, Cheetos, Funyuns, and Rold Gold pretzels — fresh from the Perry plant. The aroma of fresh corn and potatoes being baked and lightly fried in vegetable oil is everywhere. Within an hour of arrival, potatoes straight out of fields from Florida and Georgia to Wisconsin are unloaded, washed and peeled, sliced, fried, salted, and packaged. When the plant is running at top capacity, the bags of chips are out of the warehouse within 48 hours. The Frito-Lay company sits on 1,500 acres in the southwest portion of Houston County, processing more than 800,000 pounds of potatoes and 250,000 pounds of corn on an average day. In addition to a huge bakery and frying facility, the Perry plant serves as the main distribution center for the Southeast. The thirty-acre truck yard has almost 300 trailers full of produce on any given day. A nine-story warehouse stores the snacks until delivery, while robots and humans move throughout the highly efficient facility, making sure Frito-Lay lives up to its reputation for flavor, freshness, and fun times for consumers. Frito-Lay came to Perry 12 years ago. It began with a workforce of 190 employees and approximately $65 million in investment. After 12 years, the company employs 1,100 people and has more than $300 million invested. Annual estimated payroll expenditure is about $44 million. Perry is the largest of Frito-Lay's 42 plants nationwide. What makes this growth possible, and how can it be sustained? Tim Martin, Houston County's Development Authority Executive Director, believes Frito-Lay and his county are a perfect match. "This is a highly efficient, state-of-the-art facility that uses its resources in unusually careful ways. There is very little waste here. The water used in the cooking and cleaning process is treated and used to irrigate surrounding Bermuda hay pastures. Even the starch that's washed off of the potatoes is processed and sold," he explains. "The company has been especially good at training and maintaining a stable workforce and has participated in just about every aspect of the county's education, civic, and charitable organizations. Team Houston and its partners nominated Frito-Lay for the Georgia Economic Development Award for Existing Industry. We are very, very pleased to have them in our midst," says Martin. Perry's central location and access to I-75 is a big plus as well. But as Billy Edenfield, president of Middle Georgia Tech, states, "Location isn't the sole deciding factor it once was. A trained workforce is absolutely essential. You've got to have willing workers with a good attitude, who show up for work on time, and who can learn how to do the job." Houston County is blessed with an unemployment rate of less than 3 percent, which, ironically, creates a challenge to local employers. Edenfield explains that Middle Georgia Tech has played an important role in keeping companies like Frito-Lay supplied with trained people. Even after the Quick Start training program is done, Middle Georgia Tech continues updating and improving the level of training. "Like Quick Start, we are here to train people for jobs, not just educate them in the traditional sense. We have an ongoing Certified Manufacturing Specialist program that feeds directly into existing industries in the county. What we design program-wise . . . is meant to meet the needs of economic development in our area," Edenfield adds.
"I think one of our company's strong points is a willingness to let our employees take an active role in their jobs as they relate to the rest of the plant. Everyone has access to our production statistics on a regular basis; each person is challenged to make our efficiency and productivity part of his or her responsibility. That way we really work as a team, and the employees have a real stake in the product. They haven't just 'done their job' at the end of the day. They have participated in the whole process," he explains. Quick Start has been on-hand for every expansion at Frito-Lay. Multiple training programs have nurtured the company's growth. This partnership clearly demonstrates the mutual benefit of commerce and workforce training. Since 1996, approximately 812 hours of training have been delivered in courses ranging from general plant safety to ergonomics to packaging. QS
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Andy Watson, director of Training and Team Development at Frito-Lay, notes that the combination of Quick Start, Middle Georgia Tech, and Frito-Lay's in-house Continuous Improvement Program has meant healthy growth at every stage in the Perry facility.
