When we address inefficiencies in our processes, these five perks happen:

1. We shorten our lead times to deliver parts to our customers more quickly.
2. We provide learning opportunities for our employees.
3. We free up time that increases our capacity.
4. We catch and address quality issues sooner so they don't make it to our customers.
5. We reduce our costs, which we pass onto our customers to stay competitive.

We spent a good part of the week addressing inefficiencies using Total Preventive Maintenance (or Total Productive Maintenance - TPM) with help from our consultant at the Massachusetts Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MassMEP). Our team observed our thin wheel insert production to find microstops and tackle repeat problems in real-time. The result: improvements to our Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) to avoid repeat problems and run a tighter ship so our customers have excellent experiences buying their metal stampings from Donahue Industries.

With guidance from the Massachusetts Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MassMEP), we've successfully implemented pull manufacturing. Pull manufacturing is a production system based on actual customer demand instead of forecasting or producing to stock.

Pull manufacturing helps us control our inventory. Controlling our inventory frees up cash to purchase new equipment so we can provide our customers with new and better services.

We thank our shipper and material handler for configuring our brand new Work in Process (WIP) area.

In preparation for visiting current and potential customers in Mexico earlier this month, we translated our marketing materials to Spanish:
Our website in Spanish
Our product guide in Spanish

Our goal: to expand our international customer base and to figure out what specific needs each customer region has.

Next up: website translations in French, German, and Portuguese.

We're grateful winter is over (especially here in New England), but with the warmer months comes humidity, and humidity means potential rusting. If you don't have an air-conditioned facility, here are a couple of ways you can prevent rusting of your metal stampings:

• ​Order parts just in time. Place orders more frequently to hold your metal stampings for less time in inventory. Less time in inventory means less of a chance for rusting.
• Order galvanized cup wheel inserts and safetybacks. Galvanizing metal prevents rusting. In the warmer months, ordering galvanized parts gives you peace of mind knowing that parts can be held in inventory longer with no effects on your stampings.

Life is a series of choices. In his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Dr. Stephen Covey says that our choices can lead us from dependence to independence to interdependence. The following seven habits can lead us through these stages to happiness in all areas of our lives:

1. Be proactive
Reactive people focus on what they have little control over - the circle of concern - and blame external sources for their behavior. But they can instead be proactive by choosing their responses and behaviors. Proactive people focus on what they can control - what Covey calls the circle of influence. 

2. Begin with the end in mind
Create a vision, a mental image of your end goals. Understand what you want and then figure out how to get there based on your unique moral compass so that you have a direction. A mission statement helps define your end goal and keeps you focused. 

3. Put first things first
If habit 1 is about taking initiative and responsibility, and habit 2 is about having a vision, habit 3 combines habits 1 and 2 for the vision creation on a day-to-day basis. Determine what your biggest priorities are to get to that vision and focus on them instead of the distractions that creep into your life. Learn to say no to some or even most of those distractions. It's not just about time management. It's about life management. Organize priorities and put first things first.

4. Think win-win
Win-win focuses on collaboration rather than competition. When you think win-win, you seek mutual benefit. You stick to your feelings and express them with courage and empathy but believe there's plenty of benefit to go around. You play both nice guy and tough guy. Empathetic yet confident. Considerate yet brave. 

5. Seek first to understand, then to be understood
Listen to understand, not to reply. When you prepare a response through your own life filter, you decide prematurely what the other person means before he finishes speaking. You tend to judge, ask questions, advise, and interpret. These responses are only appropriate when the other person asks for help.

6. Synergize
Synergy is creative cooperation that leads to new insights. It's teamwork, open-mindedness, and problem-solving through personal experience for greatest results that can't be achieved alone. It's the idea that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

7. Sharpen the saw
Maintain your life in four main areas: physical (eating, exercise, and sleep), social/emotional (relationships), mental (learning, teaching, reading, and writing), and spiritual (art, prayer, nature, and music, for example). When you self-care in these four areas, you improve your ability to manage your responses in habits 1-6 to create a vibrant, energized outlook.

To improve lead times for you and cut inventory costs to bring you better prices, we're implementing pull manufacturing. Right now, we're working on a plan to reduce our WIP (work in process) from 14 weeks to one or less. So from the time you email us with your order to the time your order leaves our shipping dock, your parts will flow through our plant in one week or less. We'll do the same with our eight remaining product lines and then implement the entire system. 

The result: shorter lead times and lower prices for you.

Spencer manufacturer FLEXcon needed to be able to mold thermal insulator powder into spacesuits. And Somerville startup Voxel8 can take almost any raw material and turn it into an ink for 3D printing after being exposed to a physical or chemical change. 

A partnership between the Worcester-based Massachusetts Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MassMEP) and Somerville startup incubator Greentown Labs made this win-win connection happen, according to reporter Laura Finaldi in her February 15, 2016 Worcester Business Journal article "Manufacturers helping to create statewide incubator." Called the Manufacturing Initiative, the program connects clean tech hardware startups housed at Greentown Labs with manufacturers across the state. The result: 33 startups connected with 86 Massachusetts manufacturers, resulting in 16 contracts for work. The ultimate program goal: products invented in Massachusetts get manufactured in Massachusetts.

The partnership came out of the need for startups to know what they need and know how to connect with manufacturers. Startups wouldn't know they go to different manufacturers for prototyping versus mass production.

When initiative's program manager Micaelah Morrill issued surveys for both manufacturers and startups, she found that the two industries don't understand each other. Morrill says that startups have people who graduate "from universities in Boston, but they may not be familiar with the rest of the state, I want them thinking about Worcester, Springfield, and North Adams before they think of China." But in many cases, manufacturing a product in Massachusetts hadn't even occurred to some startups.

"The real value here is we started a movement," said Peter Russo, program manager for growth and innovation at MassMEP. The program has received nationwide attention.

We're teaming up with area manufacturers to provide startups and other product developers with a network of companies to create their products. Networking with area prototypers, plastic injection molders, and more, we plan to make the manufacturing process easier for area startups and product developers while increasing business for local manufacturers.