Bocce, burgers, and beating the heat. We celebrated our employees today at our annual summer cookout by giving out awards to standout employees. We thanked those who've gone above and beyond by:

• Setting up supermarkets in our pull system to reduce our inventory so we can produce to customer demand
• Performing incoming inspections on-site at supplier locations
• Suggested such ideas as setting up a signal system for the material handler and making tool racks more easily accessible

We thank our employees for embracing LEAN manufacturing and helping to create a winning team at Donahue Industries.

Worcester manufacturer Saint-Gobain makes "more than 250,000 types and sizes of bonded abrasives - most of them customized - for everything from highly technical precision manufacturing solutions to home improvement projects." They're working on a major capital investment campaign to better serve customers in the steel, automotive, and aerospace industries, according to the Worcester Business Journal's July 5, 2016 article "Saint-Gobain Abrasives making capital investments."

Vice President of Saint-Gobain Abrasives North America Bradley H. Johnson says "abrasives play an important part in our daily lives as consumers, whether it's sandpaper for sanding furniture and preparing walls for painting, saw blades used to cut concrete and stone for our homes knife sharpening, or discs to polish cars to a flawless finish." 

With manufacturing facilities in 27 countries, Saint-Gobain has a research and development center right here in central Massachusetts in Northborough.

On the heels of releasing our Spanish version of DonahueIndustries.com, we now launch French and German versions. We launched these translated website versions to better serve grinding wheel manufacturers and crane and rigging companies in Latin American and European markets.

Our translated websites are part of a larger global sales and marketing effort, including a trip to Mexico this spring to potential grinding wheel customers.

Up next: DonahueIndustries.com in Portuguese.