line operator

maintenance technician

loader

production associate

production supervisor

Advanced Drainage Systems

The main part of the joke is anyone of the employees that have stayed here for longer than a month!! 

This place nothing but a sweat shop!!!

All smoke and mirrors when it comes to the interview/hiring process!!! Anyone with any type of knowledge or understanding of systems and learning specs well you will not get that here. Better yet, you will feel like you are bother to be asking for the proper training in order to better understand the said position you were supposedly hired for. So, instead of learning the processes for the said operator position you were told you were hired for, you’re instead thrown to the wolves to keep up with production on complete garbage of a product. 

So, I guess the joke is on me. Not only for falling for they’re Tomfoolery, but actually for a short time thought this place would turn around and that I would grow to like this place, NOPE!!! 

Between the constant display of arrogance from the supervisors up to the slugs in upper management, to the lemmings who’s noses are permanently Brown this place is just flat out sucks!!! 

Never in my life would I have thought that I’d deal with such unprofessionalism and unorganized chaos. 

Along with the multiple safety violations that get tucked under the rug and if you’re to question/write up a discrepancy on an issue it does not even get looked at or addressed. 
 
Another thing is the safety coordinator/ second shift Supervisor. I refer to him as a more annoying version of Kevin James. I’ve seen this staff member perform multiple safety violations as if he is above following the rules!!! I mean come on!! What kind of place is this?? 

The first shift Supervisor has the absolute worst display of arrogance that I have ever experienced. Not only does he not know how to lead, he lacks any sort of discretion on how to approach his understudies. The whole upper management team needs some serious human performance training ASAP!!! 

Also, do you like having to share PPE??? 

No?? 

Well guess what?? 

Yup!!

After constant requests to multiple shift Supervisors. It was like asking for a million dollars for my own hard hat and face shield!!!! 

What a joke, right??? 

My supervisors response was,”well, we just kinda deal with it lol!!”

Granted this after a lame excuse for handling blood borne pathogens “training”

As well as just having gone through the “orientation process” where it stated......
NO SHARING PPE!!!!

Haha what a great joke!!! 

As for the so called Plant Manager, the guy is one of the most inconsiderate people I’ve ever been around. Also, has complete disregard for anyone’s personal time. Maybe if he and his big bigot bosses were not so cheap moral would be better, but I doubt it. 

Speaking of cheap!!!!
God forbid they were too buy some cups???
Like Isn’t there laws against this???
When you are dying of thirst but cannot find cups I guess you have to work dehydrated!!! 
What a joke!!!  

Or if your using the lavatory and are brave enough for it. You can enjoy bogeys caked onto the walls 

This place is absolutely the worst company I’ve ever dealt with in my life!!

Pros

The people are good for the most part, management will occasionally provide lunch, snacks, or other freebies. Employee stock plan. The company will reimburse employees for protective gear such as impact-resistant lenses and steel-toe boots.

Cons

Turnover is high with lots of temp workers being brought in like a revolving door.

The pay is not commensurate to the difficulty and danger of the work, with Downstream Technicians (DST) making slightly above minimum wage to start despite being the most at-risk and most-often-injured position. Line operators are the second most at-risk, while also frequently being denied their rest and meal periods (ten and thirty minutes respectively) if the equipment is malfunctioning.

Training is almost non-existent and most of what you learn will be through screwing up repeatedly. On top of that most of the equipment is nearly a decade old and constantly malfunctioning, so you'll have to learn how to make good product and stay caught up while working around all of that because there's only one DST per line and operators are often preoccupied with other things (like Facebook). Don't count on the shift supervisors being around either unless one of the line operators calls out, then they have to be on the floor.

The benefits are not the greatest either. The health insurance focuses primarily on "teledoc," a service that in my experience is about as useful as an online symptom checking tool. Seeing a doctor in person has a copay, as well, which is great for when the teledoc inevitably can't diagnose something they can't see or examine. You're almost better off not having health insurance, honestly.
The work-life balance is absolutely abysmal, with weekend availability being mandatory and schedules that have you working 6+ days in a row, often with a handful (or all) of those days being 12-hour shifts. The schedule can change daily as well, but management won't notify you if they changed your schedule even if they did so after you've gone home for the day. (They will get mad at you for not showing up "on time" though).

For a company that boasts so highly of its "sustained safety culture," it sure does love working people to exhaustion, increasing the likelihood of injury in the process. No ergonomics or repetitive motion injury prevention are in place either, so you'll be using the same group of muscles and performing the same handful of motions upwards of 200-300 times per shift.

A typical work day for me consisted of cleaning up the warehouse and blend stations, after the second shift blend technician. Then would be setting up for new blends of plastic, and calibrating each component.
During my normal work I would also have to supervise employees on the production floor, to be there to lend a hand or do the job for them.
Then I would have to unload trucks of material or tooling for the 3020 line or other lines of operation, sample the material that was unloaded, then put the material into designated isles in the warehouse(all the while still supervising production floor, and covering employee breaks), grinding scrap pipe that may have been produced, troubleshoot the blend stations and hoppers on the production line, and dump boxes into an outside silo(through a dumper) for blends that would be shipped to other ADS facilities.
Also on the agenda would be transporting of finish goods if need be.
That is not including the days that there were the removal and installation of mold blocks to the production lines.
I did however learn a lot about shipping and receiving(by my own trial and error), operating diesel forklifts, and loading trailers with pipe products. I did also learn how to calibrate blend stations and the plastic properties.
The management and co-workers at ADS were horrible as a whole, I had an encounter with one operator of a production line that had gone outside(away from the line) to masturbate, I walked around the whole facility looking for him to answer alarms on the line only to find him outside with his pants around his ankles masturbating.
The hardest part of this job for me was dealing with the constant ridicule by my shift supervisor and the constant passing of work duties on to me. 
The most enjoyable part of the job was transporting the finished goods, because it gave me the opportunity to become more familiar with the diesel forklifts and work independently.

Work is endless. 7 days a week guaranteed!! 8-12 to 16 hour days sometimes.  Some are required to work it, others give excuses and don't have to,some the supervisor makes excuses for. Those who don't have to, will be the supervisor's buddy's. (Line changes are saved for weekends). So short handed, half as work from 99% of the guys who show up. Alot of ,I don't know how to do that, nobody showed me mentality.  There are some really good guys who work there. Hopefully you get the opportunity to get on their shift  3rd!!! Management is deffinalty the worst part of this place. It's a very hard job to learn, and do it all well!! It will take many, many years to learn how, and why, and when things are done in order, and why they are done at those times. Self motivation is key, because not many others around you have any. Alot of "heart beats" walking around. Alot of issues with employees, Middle school atmosphere seems like. Expect at best 50cent raises. Wooster ADS is the lowest paid ADS of all ADS plants. They exploit the cheap labor cost with high demand in the area And the employee makes next to nothing at raise time.Always finding excuses to not give you a good review! Wooster ADS is the most over worked then any other ADS. With 50 to 75 line changes a year compared to other plants 20-40 average a year. Those are100%proven facts! And again, a very large portion of the line changes happen on the weekends. If you are a family person. This job is a life changer when it comes to family time, or weekends off.  Regional manager is a heck of a guy. Can't say enough good stuff about that guy. The last plant manager was a awsome guy as well. And the new plant managaer is a very outstanding , out of your normal plant manager. Hes def not scared to hope in, and get his hands dirty and learn the in's and outs of the processes. Somthing his shift superviser should be doing and wanting to learn and is required!!

Job is challenging and not for the lighthearted. A typical day is 15-35 phone calls, 15-25+ orders, and 50-100 emails. Most supervisors are passive aggressive nitpicky and condescending. Work culture suppresses dissent and pretends everything is fine. Corporate is continuously pushing to squeeze more and more work into the same 8hr period and our workload has doubled if not tripled in the last year. Order management department is the epitome of the conept of working harder, not smarter. All they do is add more and more to our plate and then we have team meetings about how we should ask for help if overwhelmed. We are ALL overwhelmed but no one will say it to the toxic supervisor team. Overtime is no longer allowed because I guess allowing us to do our jobs is less important than the bottom line, so we get punished instead of the company reassessing its own outdated and disorganized processes. Management also never ever gives actual positive feedback, it's always backhanded. It's like instead of someone having anything thoughtful to say about a painting you did, they just say, "Wow! There's a lot of blue in this! You sure worked a long time! It has a lot of shapes!" Great, thanks a lot for that. Let's be clear: This job can still be rewarding, even with all the challenges. Working with yards, plants, distributors and coworkers is rewarding as is the chance to learn the industry. The benefits are good and it's great to work remotely. And yet there is no upward mobility, and managers will do things like gaslight you saying you should just be thankful we get PTO at all. We are understaffed and underpaid and the department's supervisors need to be held accountable before they drive more good workers away. 

Amazing work place if you can manage to get in full time instead of contract. However that is much easier said than done. The only downside is they seem to thrive on contract employee's and do not often bring individuals on as an actual full time employee off contract. One other downfall is the pay is monthly pay, which is VERY difficult to adjust to. I've personally never known a company to pay monthly. With that being said they do pay well at least in IT based more in line with the national average for someone with good IT experience/background unlike alot of "IT" companies in central ohio that pay extremely poorly, which is becoming a growing concern in central ohio. With that alot of companies are finding ways around any type of benefits support ie Health/Dental/Visual Insurance by using contract employees, so no benefits of any types are provided. But at ADS the atmosphere is amazing, the team of co-workers are an incredible group to work with each with their own little niche expertise. The atmosphere is laid back as long as you do what is expected of you. I also cannot say enough about the direct manager for IT who is simply amazing and I know would in a heartbeat change the hiring rules/setup if it was up to them. Unlike alot of corporate managers they actually have a heart and treat everyone like human beings which sadly isn't the case in alot of places at least in IT in central ohio, where you are more of a "warm body" than anything.

Advanced Drainage Systems is the leading company I'm drainage pipe. As a line oporater I would mass produce pipe by extrusion. Not the ideal job but a.d.s has very good pay to start off more then you'll find in most places. Downfalls are you most likely are going to land in the 3rd shift or 2nd shift spot. 1st shift is everyone who has worked there for many many years. A.d.s is in the stock market wms and the longer you work there the more invested you are in the company. They use cigna as a health insurance company and in my experience cigna is awful very difficult to get information from them and my prescription was waiting to be filled for 3 months and I never heard back from them. Over all good company to work for very military oriented and if your coming out of high school it's a great job to start out at if college is not for tou. Downfalls very confrontational between employees alot of arguments and a stressful fast paced job. Also before you can get hired you have to work through a temp agency and you don't no for how long alot get cut once production slows down 1 Maybe 2 will get hired if your lucky.

The entire company was a boy’s club. Some of the people were fine to work with, however, none of them worked very closely with me. I received no training and was thrown into the fire with no guidance as a new graduate. I was sent to plants all over the country for days at a time with no warning and no prep or agenda, and often, when I got there, I had nothing to do but stand around. As the only woman on my team, I was often belittled or brushed aside by management and was given critiques on my personality and the way I spoke in meetings, not about the actual work I was doing. Not to mention, upper management constantly changed their mind about almost every decision they made for our projects, making it extremely difficult to complete work. When I attempted to transfer departments, I was implicitly told they were disappointed because I was the diversity hire and they thought I could open doors for more women, which was impossible when everything I did was overshadowed by men. At the end of the day, the transfer never went through because of a “hiring freeze”, so I got a new job. Best choice I ever made.

This place sucks you work your self to death trying to keep up with the lines,its twelve hours in either the scorching heat or freezing cold,you dont see your lead unless its time for them to break you out for a few minutes and they are slow about doing that and you can forget about them helping out much,you are pretty much on your own,the equipment is probably from the machines are antiques from the 1960s and you are supposed to be able to fix it to keep it going.Worked there for three years and got 15 cent raises every year and their medical insurance sucks it doesnt pay for many of your prescriptions or pay much toward anything else.If your line produces a lot of scrap youll have to try and grind it up while keeping up with your machine or you can stay over after twelve hours and grind it.They also love to do random drug test and like anybody cares anymore ive saw some good workers get let go because of this and yet these companies keep whining about how they dont have enough employees.

This is a great company to work for lots of good people. 
They have been working on better break rooms.
Better computer setups. 
We can listen to music while we work.
It’s kinda fun to see someone just start dancing at work to the music just letting loose for a minute.

Most of this reviews are from my personal views not meant to sound bad about the company in anyway. I really enjoy working here but I am not going to upsell or undersell this place.

If I were offered a better job more pay somewhere else with better job opportunities I would move on. 

Honestly you can enjoy the people around you just not enjoy working with them at the same time. 

There’s not much room to move up in the company and most management has a hard time promoting any kind of personnel improvement programs. They do all mandatory improvement computer safety courses.




Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Line operator 17 salaries reported	$21.71 per hour
Maintenance technician 6 salaries reported	$27.50 per hour
Loader 14 salaries reported	$20.00 per hour
Production associate 2 salaries reported	$18.60 per hour
Production supervisor 2 salaries reported	$33.76 per hour

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