WEDnesday Woman
SHERRY SHEN
Operations Excellence Manager
Alcoa Warrick Operations
By Susie Schenk for Stepping Up Sherry Shen was recently named as the OpEx Manager for Warrick site. Besides her previous responsibility in ABS/Lean manufacturing implementation, she is also responsible for recovery improvement, quality assurance and new product development.
Sherry joined Warrick Operations in 2008 as an Alcoa Business System Specialist (ABS/Lean Manufacturing), and was promoted to ABS Manager in 2009. Sherry became ABS Manager for Alcoa Global Packaging – North America in March 2012. AGP-NA includes Warrick and Tennessee Operations. It has approximately 2,000 Employees with annual revenue over $2 billion. Under her leadership, Warrick became the model site of ABS implementation. In June 2013, Sherry took additional responsibility as Warrick Plant Services Manager. She managed Truck Shop, Environmental Lab and Stores. From June 2014 to October 2016, Sherry was assigned as Ingot Plant Manager. She led her team through Ingot step change for capacity improvement and also guided the employees to overcome the challenges for a successful cold metal plant transformation during Smelter shut down. From November 2016 to February 2020, Sherry was the ABS Manager for Alcoa Rolled Products, she set directions and facilitated ABS implementations to achieve the business results.
Before joining Warrick, Sherry was Management Consultant, AOMC (Alcoa Operations’ Management Consulting). Her responsibility was to facilitate ABS implementation across Alcoa global organizations. She facilitated various projects in Howmet Dover USA, DeChambault Canada, Wagerup Australia, Sao Luis Brazil, and Jamalco Jamaica.
Sherry started with Alcoa at Davenport works in 1998. She first served as a Mechanical Engineer for Davenport Finishing area with the responsibilities for Slitters and Litho Line. She joined ABS Department as an ABS Teacher in 2003.
Sherry holds a Master’s Degree of Science in Mechanical Engineering and an MBA, both from the University of Iowa. She and her husband, Don Zou, have two children. They live in Warrick, Indiana.
Your work appears to have been an amazing combination of both your Master’s Degrees. At what point in your career did you complete those?
- I started my career with Alcoa after I got my Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering in 1998.
I started my MBA program in 2000 while working full time. This was designed as a three year program with (2) courses each semester and (1) course during the summer. The last year’s course took me (3) years to finish because I became a mother of a baby girl. So, I worked full time, had a new baby, and also went to school to finish my MBA. Finally, I got my MBA May of 2005. An opportunity came up right after I got my degree to be with
- AOMC group (Alcoa Operations Management Consulting). Therefore, I relocated to Pittsburgh in July of 2005.
You have been with Alcoa for over 20 years and worked in several different locations. Have you seen any change in workforce diversity in that time?
- Absolutely. I still remembered when I first started at Alcoa Davenport plant in 1998, I was the only foreigner that was hired in that plant. Davenport plant had about 2,500 employees. A supervisor dragged me door to door at work to introduce me, starting with “can you believe she was from China, and she is now working here!” Sounds like this was totally unbelievable. Now at Warrick Plant, we have quite a few foreigners, so is at Davenport plant.
It seems that Warrick has been the primary location where you have continuously developed your work and reach. Is there something about this location that has kept you here?
- I lived at Bettendorf IA and Pittsburgh before moving to Newburgh area. I liked Bettendorf’s small town convenience – no traffic, everything is within 20 minutes; I liked Pittsburg’s big city benefit – more things to do after work – museums, shows. I think Tri-State area has the advantages of both small town and big cities. I like it and wanted to make it home.
- However, when I moved to Newburgh in 2008, there is not much going on for Chinese Ethnic group. So I worked with several friends to start organizing traditional Chinese New Year Celebration for local Chinese community. We have been doing this for eight years! With getting the Chinese community members together, now we also have a Chinese School.
- This is what I learned: if you like a place, do something to make it your home, and it will be. This is how I felt about Tri-state area.
