machine operator

production technician

maintenance supervisor

machine technician

process engineer

First Quality

When I first started at FQN almost 4 years ago, it wasn't a bad place to work. I worked in two different departments while I was employed with them, and was able to see both sides of the coin during my time there, as I started in production, moved to quality, and became a QC specialist.

Production works rotating 12-hour shifts (2 on, 2 off, work 3 days every other weekend) It's not a bad schedule. Just when you're starting to get sick of the place, you get 2 or 3 days off to forget about it. There is always OT available, as well, if you're into that sort of thing.

The problems come in with regards to the hierarchy in the facility. The old saying, "too many chiefs" is very true with this company. You have your floor workers, above them is a slitter lead, above him is a line lead, above him is a process engineer, above him is a line manager, above him is the production manager, and above him is the plant manager. We had more people to report to on each line than we had actually doing the job. It was complete and total overkill.

Also, there are mandatory quarterly meetings which, in a nutshell, are the company big-wigs telling the employees why they're terrible people, don't deserve any sort of raise or compensation, and finishing it up with "work harder for less!".

I was salary before I left, and it was a complete joke as well. Don't bother applying to FQN for a salary position. Your job security, if you're on a bottom rung can be measured in moments. Every day, you have at least 1 meeting, most of the time it's 2-3, possibly more. The meeting are completely unnecessary, and could be handled in a 1 paragraph e-mail, but they drag these things out to an hour and longer.

I'd recommend looking elsewhere unless you want to keep your head down and never advance your career, because not doing so results in getting fired with no recourse.

As an aside, don't bother going to HR. In all the years I've been working, I've never seen an HR dept with so many employees and yet were so completely and utterly inefficient that they couldn't find their butts with both hands and a flashlight.

So I started as a temp through an agency because at the time I didn't have the qualifications to be directly hired but I was determined to prove myself. I've always wanted to work for First Quality because I got to see just how much of a difference their product makes in a person's life through being a caregiver for disabled children and adults for over 8 years. As much as I loved my job being a care giver, I wanted to make a bigger impact on the world and help as many people as I could even if it was making a product that helped those disabled people live normal lives when going out into public and enjoying all the things we love to do in our spare time. 

I loved being challenged and learning new skills and still being able to help people both with the product we make and the team I got to lead. I always believed in sharing my knowledge with others to help make their jobs easier, more efficient and safer. Training then became my biggest success, and I focused on our teams that make things better every day and began to realize that without these teams we wouldn't be able to help so many people live normal lives. I took a Technical Trainer position so that I could help focus my skills on upskill my team members and future team members become successful and more knowledgeable than they originally were. I get to work closely with new team members and help them gain the skills they need to be successful while also helping them take pride in the products they are making.

If you're looking for a challenge and an amazing purpose, I would highly suggest First Quality. There isn't anything we can't make better, together.

Where should I start...First, I have been there 8 years did 3 and a half on night shift and the rest on daylight and I'm currently on the way out. I have read some of the reviews about McElhattan and they seem spot on management has no clue what goes on, run lines without sufficient amount of people, and HR is terrible. For example, on the platform I work on we recently had to wear GoPros on our heads so management can see what we do during product change overs. My manager told me we had to do this because there are aspects of the change over that is done that they didn't have documented. How hard is it to come out of your office once in a while and observe what is going on?

Currently since we have a new Production Manager things have really gone down hill people are getting fired days before they retire and people that have been there forever just quit. They now run more lines with less people and wonder why bad product goes through eventually perhaps because there is no one there to check product every 6 minutes that they require. Also, the Production Manager doesn't like that we have a local cleaning company come and clean so he rather take people that can run lines and make them clean for 12 hours instead (how does that make sense?) and then we have mandatory meetings on how we need to run better...... Management is so out of touch they rather care about how the floor looks than anything else.

First Quality is not family oriented currently I have heard that they were early on but not the case now.


I do enjoy the people I work with though and wish them the best of luck with their employement with this company.

A Temp agency found a position at First Quality for me. During my employment as a Temp, I learned as much as possible in the warehouse, recycling facility and production lines by volunteering lots of overtime and taking notes. 12 hour shifts here, but you get used to it pretty quick. The manager was friendly and informative even though I tend to ask a lot of questions. The co-workers were often too busy to properly train new people, so as a new worker, you might get "thrown to the sharks" with little formal training in your assigned job. My best advice is to ask questions if you aren't sure of something. If you don't know what to ask, just talk to your lead - that's why they are there. Anyway, after a few months as a Temp, First Quality hired me on full time and within a year I was promoted to Warehouse Lead due to my knowledge of all aspects of warehouse operations, including shipping, line driving, receiving, traffic, inventory and railcar unloading. I enjoy this job because I can train and supervise my team the way I want while adhering to company policy, focusing on safety, good morale and team cohesiveness. I would definitely recommend applying to First Quality if you are a motivated and reliable worker. Attendance and Safety are extremely important here. If you keep a positive outlook and have a willingness to work hard, you will do fine. It's the best factory job I ever had.

Admittedly at first, I was apprehensive about working for a company that made diapers. However if you just see the manufacturing side and processes, hopefully you can see how ignorant the previous assumptions may be perceived. This company is at the literal cutting edge of technology.  The Human Resources department is amazing. The work environment is comfortable and welcoming. The training and management system is old school and fortunately very well received. The benefits are amazing, would hope for a slighter higher company match on 401(k) but I'm also not complaining. Safety is as always at the forefront of their perspective.  Job security as long as humans have problems with their bowels. Company culture is perfectly balanced and same goes for work Schedule. 3 days straight at most, 3 days off at most. That's wonderful to me. They care for their employees and the owners have worked with their own hands in building and establishing the company. I hear all the time about how the guys used to see the owners working right with them. Family owned. 3rd generation in the nest. Definitive reinforcement for doing well, quarterly incentives, year end bonus,  company trips and parties. If you're educated and looking for experience in manufacturing apply to first quality. If you are uneducated but work hard and are willing to earn your keep and learn, apply to first quality.

There is strong favoritism in some areas, like upstream operation in converting is more favored over downstream, so if you work down you seem to get less help and feel walked over. They will send bad product tofrom upstream that should never make it past the log saw and say it's Down's problem now. Some managers are super great and others play heavy favorites as well. There's plenty to do but there is also long periods of time where you will have to look busy cause there is nothing left for you to do. 

The job itself is super easy in converting especially if you have a great partner on the line and communicate with your fellow operators and sister line. If you can multitask and watch for stopped machines or have a good mechanically inclined head on your shoulders you'd probably do great here. Even if you have no manufacturing experience. 

The job would be perfect if it was 8 or 10 hour shifts or just straight shift but that's never going to happen.

If you're a new parent or you have issues finding childcare this may not work long. On night shift my children stay with their grandparents, so I don't see them for 2 or 3 days at a time, but day shift I can see them everyday. 

The pay is great and you get small raises every qualification but depending on where you work in the plant you might not get the support you need to get them. They care more about new hires then people who have been there for years. 

A typical day at First Quality involves straightforward tasks. The work itself is easy once you get used to the swing shifts and long hours. The real challenge comes from the culture and lack of accountability.

Unfortunately, management tends to take hearsay over actual observation or worker reputation. Hardworking individuals often go unnoticed, while those with poor work ethic are rarely held accountable. It’s disheartening to see consistent violations of safety protocols brushed aside, even when witnessed by leadership.

There’s a widespread lack of teamwork and mutual respect between shifts. Cleaning and prepping for the next team is rarely reciprocated, and bringing it up to leadership doesn’t lead to change. In fact, it often feels ignored entirely.

Those who stay committed to doing their job well — cleaning, helping others, and maintaining safety rarely get recognition. Instead, they are left dealing with messes, poor communication, and inconsistency across the board.

If First Quality focused more on leadership presence, enforcing standards equally, and listening to feedback from workers across all shifts, the job would be much more enjoyable and productive.

Safety is put first and has even helped me develop safety habits outside of work. This is not an assembly line so it requires critical thinking which provides some people with more job satisfaction. Pay is great! The culture elements are well defined. All the overtime you want! If you want to grow your career, the company will help pay for schooling. But if you want to be a good operator, you have to find someone to train you and keep bugging people because everyone is too busy doing other things.  even though your performance review has qualifications as an "expectation." 

Issue: Training is the hardest because most tasks are things you would not know how to do unless you have previous paper mill experience. The paper training department is more dedicated to new hires than existing employees. Once a new hire is on shift, its up to the team to train them. Some shifts end up with too many new employees at once and cant spend enough time training them and operating the machine. Also, this process has no structure so people do tasks differently because SOP's are too old. Most leadership/management are too busy to add focus to this issue. The company used to do a great job training. 

First of all, I have NEVER worked in a factory before. I am a former office worker that DID NOT want to go back to sucky customer service work and I needed to get the bills paid...having said that, your starting rate depends on what you test at...I tested at an Op 2 level so my starting pay was $16.25. There is supposed to be a 90 day training period, ok, it is...but it is CALENDAR days, NOT DAYS WORKED. If you've never done work like this you REALLY need those 90 days of hands on work training...and you are thrown on your own way before the 90 day period is up. And the Leads, that's you line boss, WILL and DOES expect you to know everything, and I mean everything. You will be thrown in to total and utter chaos, radio for help and will be ignored until you are on the verge of walking out the door. You will be running around one day catching stuff as it is falling off the line and the next day, doing the exact same thing, you will be called slow and undependable. 
Co-workers are "friendly", if they like you, it is a very young environment so I hope you are or relate well to young people if you gain employment there.
Benefits are ok, 401k, which I've never been offered at previous employers, life insurance, short and long term disability, and medical, dental, and vision...NOW...it is VERY EXPENSIVE...about 1/3 or more comes off EVERY WEEK.

Supervisors and management are an absolute joke. All they care about are the numbers. And I never worked with a more miserable group of people in my life. If you try to move to different positions on the floor, all you'll do is end up doing every one else's job while your machine goes completely downhill. You'll cover breaks out in sortation and come back to a train wreck at your machine and then have to cover the other person's machine when they go to break and never get caught back up. You'll have the so called "line leads" who are more clueless than a new hire half the time giving you attitude with their mood swings and shadyness. Trust me if you work on C crew you'll see what I mean real quick. I don't know I really liked it when I started but it went downhill real quick. They're adding another line when they don't have enough to people to run what they have now. Also at the end of the day after you work your 12 hour day shift, you'll be waiting till 15 after 7 for the other crews to finally come and relive you. It got old at that place real quick. The pay and benefits are good. I'll give them that, the work was ok but as I said the supervisors and management in general are a JOKE. Bunch of snakes there. Apply at your own risk.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Machine operator 3 salaries reported	$20.83 per hour
Production technician 2 salaries reported	$19.50 per hour
Maintenance supervisor 2 salaries reported	$20.15 per hour
Machine technician 7 salaries reported	$20.15 per hour
Process engineer 3 salaries reported	$68,667 per year

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