Molex’s commitment to Koch’s principle of Stewardship and Compliance helped build mutually beneficial relationships with government leaders, the local community, and the contractors hired during the construction of the company's new facility in Guadalajara, Mexico.
What’s more difficult than building a 645,000-square-foot (60,000-square-meter) manufacturing facility? Doing it during a global pandemic. But that’s exactly what the team at Molex, a Koch company, set out to do when it began constructing its new state-of-the-art facility in Guadalajara, Mexico.
Despite the challenges, Molex’s application of stewardship — including their commitment to complying with all laws and regulations — enabled the team to complete the project without major injuries. This had a lasting influence on the contractors working on this project, affecting how they worked on future projects.
“There is only one way to go, and that’s the principled way,” says Max Markvicka, an operations manager who was also on the design team for the Guadalajara project.
Principled approach
Construction contractors are often pressured to do the job as quickly and cheaply as possible. So, Molex’s strict adherence to creating a jobsite where each individual worker could complete their work safely and in compliance with regulations came as somewhat of a surprise to many of the contractors.
“It was about changing their paradigm,” says Javier Sanchez, director of operations during the project. “They knew how to do it one way, but we were trying to demonstrate that there is a better way.”
For example, he says the crews could find fill material around the corner at a lower cost than material from approved sites, which were much farther away. But the cheaper alternative didn’t meet environmental quality standards.
“It was another shocking moment for them,” he says. “For other companies, it was OK; they’d just say, ‘Let’s bring in the cheapest’ because cost was the biggest factor, but we were committed to compliance and acting with the proper regard for others — including the use of clean fill.”
To connect everyone to the fact that safety and compliance was foundational to the success of the project, site leadership emphasized three things:
- Set clear expectations with contractors from the beginning.
- Established daily safety meetings for all workers.
- Immediately followed up on any near misses — even if that meant stopping work on the whole site.
Max says the safety meetings and other interventions might have extended the project timeline, but the results proved that pursuing mutually beneficial outcomes for everyone involved was well worth the investment. They completed the project, which had as many as 900 workers on-site at a time, with no major injuries and only one lost time incident — a remarkable and far better result than most construction projects this size in this region.
“We want to make sure you go home the same way you came to work that morning,” Max says.
Molex also worked proactively with the local government to make sure that all the necessary permits were documented and approved before starting any work. Occasionally, this would take government officials by surprise. They weren’t used to companies proactively seeking approval. The collaborative process ultimately helped build better trust between Molex and the government.
Mutual benefit
One key to the success of the project was creating a mutually beneficial relationship with the project's main contractor, Grupo Chufani.
“We thought we had very strict safety standards, but we saw with Molex that we could get better every day at applying them,” says Jorge Peña, Grupo Chufani’s construction manager.
He says he also learned a lot from the way Molex leaders, like Javier, helped the workers understand the importance of compliance. They were always respectful while explaining the why behind every correction.
“Every time someone from Molex saw something that wasn’t right or not going well, they’d say something,” Jorge says. “And they’d always spend time explaining why it was a better way.”
Koch and its companies believe that when employees understand the principles behind a decision, then they will be empowered to use their judgment to get the best outcome. While this includes following all laws and regulations, it also involves operating in a spirit of mutual benefit. Applying stewardship and mutual benefit during this project helped Molex develop trusted relationships with local government leaders and regulators, the nearby community and contractors such as Grupo Chufani.
Jorge says Molex’s principle-based approach to work and commitment to compliance has had a long-term effect on his company’s culture. During the project, Jorge worked with the unions to ensure they followed all requirements — including those they weren’t used to complying with. One instance of this was making sure there were covers for every truck bed that carried material. They’ve continued this practice and overall stricter adherence to regulation as they’ve moved on to their next projects. Jorge says it’s given them an added advantage when bidding for jobs with other large companies.
“I think we learned a lot,” he says. “And we’re applying the knowledge we learned from the Molex project to the other projects we’re working on.”
