American manufacturing is most definitely back in a big way—and it’s also definitely one of the most competitive and innovative manufacturing industries in the world. In order to remain competitive, American companies must continuously improve and focus on bettering their operations and products on a minute-to-minute basis.
This extreme focus on continuous improvement is something we take very seriously, and very personally. We realize the level of trust our clients put in us, and we’ll never sit back and rest on past success. We know that no matter how good a business is, there’s always room for improvement, and in order to continue to improve internally and remain profitable, this method must be implemented, maintained, and tracked throughout every aspect of the business.
We do this in a number of ways. One of them is through benchmarking, a practice that goes hand-in-hand with our continuous improvement efforts. Just as coaches of successful sports teams look at what other teams are doing effectively, and then use those principles and practices, we, as a manufacturer, do the same.
We often find the best use of benchmarking is by looking at our customers, for whom we have great respect. We will visit customers’ manufacturing facilities and see how they perform certain operations, picking and choosing what’s successful and relevant to our own facilities.
One customer of ours, a Tier 1 supplier, demonstrated an innovative inventory storage system, showing what was last produced and what stock was oldest. We subsequently implemented the same method with great success.
Another Tier 1 client of ours was holding daily meetings to track action items—now we use the same practice in our Advanced Product Quality Planning (APQP).
Using benchmarking along with our other practices in continuous improvement allows us to achieve across-the-board progress, while setting a baseline and tracking our growth along the way. While not every change occurs overnight, but rather is a constant work in progress with consistent forward momentum, it all leads to noticeable success.
While most of the country is worrying about staying warm and digging out from another polar vortex, it’s spring and summer time at Universal Polymer! Well, don’t get us wrong, it is still very (very!) cold here in Ohio. However, this is the time of year orders for plastic and rubber extrusions come flooding in from companies that specialize in warmer weather products. That is the thing about the start of every year, while there is a manufacturing and construction lull during the holidays, it disappears the second the calendar flips to January and February. So, who are the companies and industries that are working so hard to plan for the long hot days of summer?
The lawn care and lawn mower industry is one such industry in full manufacturing mode. According to experts, consumer lawn and garden equipment is worth staggering $5 billion and close to 68 million American households maintain their own lawns. As you can imagine, some of the biggest names in the industry are currently running 24-7 to be ready to satiate this overwhelming demand. If you look at a lawnmower, you can see that rubber molding, and rubber and plastic extrusions, play a major role in keeping them running at peak performance.
The outdoor equipment industry is starting to slow around May, which is when the construction season is just being ramped up. The construction industry, which was worth $900 billion in 2013, must take full advantage of the warmer weather to get projects started and completed before the cold weather returns.
For us at Universal Polymer, it is critical that we time these seasonal shifts carefully. In order to maximize profits and keep our customers happy year in and year out, we make sure to expedite production during the busier times. So, never fear, no matter what time of year it is, Universal Polymer is prepared to handle what ever you can throw at us!
If you were to travel back in time to manufacturing facilities from twenty years ago, you would notice the vast differences between those facilities and today’s facilities. Back then, each manufacturer focused on their own skills, and businesses had a larger amount of employees. Now, as we have seen even in our own business, small to medium sized manufacturers have a smaller group of employees who wear multiple hats within the business.
Since the recession hit in 2009, businesses, especially manufacturers, were forced to delegate business in a leaner manner. Lean manufacturing, as defined by the EPA, is “a business model and collection of tactical methods that emphasize eliminating non-value added activities while delivering quality products on time at least cost with greater efficiency.” Lean manufacturing, as stated in the article, has quickly been implemented by a plethora of industries in recent years.
Today, as more and more younger people are heading on different career paths and there is an increased use of automation and technology in the manufacturing process, businesses are learning to do more with less; we certainly have. However, we are hoping that as manufacturing continues to grow and come back, more college-educated people will see how other disciplines fit into the field and choose careers in the manufacturing world.
We know we aren’t the only ones faced with these challenges. Instead, lean manufacturing and the idea of working with you have has become widespread throughout the industry. Not only have businesses been forced into this survival mode because of the recent economy, but the introduction of new technologies has also lent itself to lean manufacturing. Together, we are all becoming more lean and adaptable to the quickly-changing industry.
Across the world of manufacturing, businesses are beginning to rebound from the recent recession. Manufacturers in a variety of industries are experiencing growth for the first time in years and they are building up for a peak in orders. As there has been a resurgence in manufacturing, we have also seen more support for local customers and for American-made products.
As a company that persevered through the recession, we believe that manufacturers who endured the recession are currently doing it again, by integrating lean manufacturing into their processes, investing in automation and new technologies, and making the right adjustments. We have seen this on a personal note as well.
Our parent company, Cypress, hosts an annual corporate managers’ meeting for all of their companies and staff. Every year, the senior managers meet, make presentations, and discuss various initiatives they have worked on in their business. It is a good opportunity for us to present what we have been working on, see what the other companies are doing, and network within our parent company in order to achieve best practices.
Not only is it exciting for us to be a part of a company that continues to grow, but it is also important for us to share experiences and tips on how to be a successful manufacturer in today’s marketplace as well. We plan on making whatever adjustments necessary to progress in this manufacturing resurgence.
