Workers Retrain, Improving Skills, Safety and Efficiency

Ginger Faulconer

As Imperial Sugar’s rebuilt, state-of-the-art refinery in Port Wentworth, Georgia, gets back on line, approximately 300 workers have been retrained with new manufacturing and warehousing skills. As a result, sugar will be refined and processed faster, more efficiently and safer than ever before.

Ginger Faulconer, Imperial Sugar’s head of human resources at its Savannah Sugar Refinery, teamed up on the project with Ken Boyd, vice president for economic development at Savannah Technical College.

Boyd had suggested taking advantage of downtime during the refinery’s reconstruction to train employees – who were kept on the payroll – for new skills in areas such as warehousing, distribution or manufacturing.

Imperial Sugar also collaborated with the Georgia Department of Technical and Adult Education to prepare employees for the rebuilt refinery’s new technology and improved operations.

The most recent group of Imperial Sugar employees received their manufacturing certification from Savannah Technical College in summer 2009. Faulconer, who attended the graduation, points out: “The Savannah refinery will feature the most highly skilled workforce in the sugar industry.”

With the more than $200-million rebuild nearing completion, employees will be working with some of the latest sugar-making technology in the industry. For instance, the new packaging house – the length of almost two football fields – is being equipped now with high-speed machinery, making it the most modern sugar production facility of its kind in the United States.

Tons of granulated, brown and powdered sugar will be packaged at the new facility each day. As a result, employees need extensive training to learn how to safely and efficiently run the high-tech operations there – as well as apply new skills in other parts of the refinery. Their retraining will enable them to get up to speed faster, working safer from the outset and being productive sooner.

Savannah Tech normally offers two certification courses that take a year to complete. But, Imperial Sugar worked with the college to conduct dedicated classes for it employees that ran 40 hours a week for a total of five weeks – or 200 hours in coursework overall.

The retraining has been spread out over 2008 and 2009, with small groups of employees earning their certifications in various new skills. Faulconer says: “We are so proud of our associates. We are excited that they will be ready and fully trained for the new equipment when it arrives.”