Eric Willis follows my blog and is a manufacturer of fasteners in the UK. Eric works as a distribution manager at EJOT UK providing high tension custom fasteners to the aerospace and defense market. EJOT’s global distribution network makes it one of the largest fastener suppliers based in Europe.

He’d like to share his insights on how to stay ahead of the game.

How to Stay Ahead of the Game in the Fastener World

The volatile and unpredictable economy we live in today has wreaked havoc not only for consumers but also for businesses and offices in all markets and industries. The global recession has brought about certain impacts and effects that have rattled businesses to their knees and has made business stability seem like an utter dream.

In the fastener manufacturing market, the level of competition is high and continues to escalate in rampant proportions. It looks as if new manufacturers and suppliers of fasteners are established every day. Unfortunately, the rates of consumers and prospective buyers looking for these materials and supplies have not significantly increased throughout the course of time. This has made the level of competition fiercer than ever.

So what do you do? In the mind of a true businessman, staying ahead of competitors are of paramount concern, one that should be above all else in your list of priorities as a business executive or owner. Staying ahead of the game in the world of fastener manufacturing and distribution is something one cannot simply plan overnight even for the versed and experienced owner or director. To stay ahead and ensure that traffic flows come your way, meticulously planning and perfectly executing the plan is of key essence, and can make or break your business.

For people who know little or have no familiarity or knowledge at all regarding the market or industry of manufacturing fasteners, you won’t likely think of the difficulty owners face when competing with each other. Making sure your business is always competitively operating in multinational markets is also very difficult with lots of variables outside of your control. With the ubiquity of outsourcing and the access of global resources in today’s modern day and age, the manufacturing world is actually in a consistent struggle with rivals.

Here are 3 tips and guidelines on how you can add a competitive edge on your game in the vast and “dog-eat-dog” world of manufacturing, in this case manufacturing of fasteners.

First, lower the expenses of your business. In a simpler and more comprehensible context, if you can make the fasteners while consuming fewer funds for the same quality and quantity as compared with rivals, you’ll be able to provide more savings and discounts to your consumers and tilt the game to your advantage. Several of the most effective means of lowering expenditures involve tactics like outsourced manufacturing of the product, correctly forecasting to allow demand-based manufacturing, eliminating all delays in prefabricated parts and creating shared utilities. When provided with respective applicability to your facility, these techniques may yield a substantial benefit over competitors who opt not to play strategically.

Secondly, understand the standards and demands of your clients. Avoid leaving any worries or doubts in your customer’s mind when they opt to work with you in the future. Meet your client’s needs and demands by rendering them with the fastener supplies they need quicker and cheaper as compared with rivals.

Thirdly, find or create a unique selling point. These could be large brand awareness campaigns through supplying high-profile events such as F1 cars, Prototype Aeroplanes or Extreme engineering designs. Brand awareness in a saturated market can be the difference between stagnated growth and true development of a business.

I’ve always been a big supporter of promoting manufacturing and tradesmen jobs. I recently came across a post from a client of ours, PMPA (Precision Machined Products Association). Miles Free, their Director of Industry Research and Technology, writes their blog, Speaking of Precision and I wanted to share his post.

We hope you have a good show. See you there.

These factory jobs aren’t low tech anymore, or are they in dingie old factories. These are high-tech, high-salary jobs running multi-million dollar manufacturing cells using the latest computer technology. Right Skills Now is a program that was started to get both technical schools and colleges to work together to train workforces. Its model can be started anywhere in the country and for various types of jobs.

If we want to have a resurrection of manufacturing jobs here, we need to start letting parents and kids know there are alternatives to a 4-year degree. If you’re a manufacturer or contractor, here are some grass-roots things you can do in your community to promote these kinds of jobs:

• At career days at your schools, volunteer to talk to the kids. Give them the benefits of the opportunities that are available. Make it fun, exciting and cool!
• Work with your trade associations and school guidance counselors to make sure they have the proper info to give to kids.
• Have an open house or career day event and bring local students to your place and show them the opportunities.

What things can you add to the list? We’re all in this together and we need to let young people know about these opportunities.

So whether you’re a manufacturer, distributor or a contractor, what are you doing to play it forward to make sure we have skilled people ready for the work force? Might I suggest you get involved especially on a local level.

• Talk to high school students and show them that there are options to a 4-year college degree.
• Let them know that technicians in the electrical, HVAC or plumbing fields use sophisticated equipment in doing their jobs.
• Let them know they can’t export those kinds of jobs and the rest of us depend on them on a daily basis.
• And oh, by the way, they can make a damn fine living.

For those who want to work in a manufacturing facility, they may be running machining cells worth millions of dollars. In order to compete for those kinds of jobs, you need to be trained and must come to the table with skills like math.

So what are options if we want to be good corporate citizens? There are local trade schools, technical and community colleges that either have or could initiate programs to train future workers. One such program is Skills America which is a regional program that can be taken and adapted to your needs.

More importantly, you can support the schools by giving away scholarships to students in need. Financial help via government loans are drying up. For those who want to improve themselves and contribute to society, what better way of supporting them. Now I’m not talking thousands of dollars in scholarships. What if you could give a few $500-a-year ones? It would help with books and tuition. More importantly, it will send a message to the community about who you are.

Most of you belong to national trades associations and some might have local programs you could participate in. If you can’t find a local source, there are always places like Mike Rowe’s foundation that supports the trades.

The key is now that the economy is starting to turn around, let’s do something that will improve the workforce and eventually come back to help each and every one of us. The key is DO SOMETHING.

We hope you have a good show and enjoy Chicago.

I just returned from the STAFDA meeting in San Antonio. I was able to talk to several manufacturers and reps to get their thoughts on the show itself and what the outlook is for 2012. There were some interesting comments.

Listen to the Podcast:

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The biggest issue I hear from both contractors and manufacturers is lack of work isn’t the issue, but lack of qualified people to do it is. Right Skills Now  may not be the end all but it’s a model that can work for both on a regional basis. I know one of Mike Rowe’s passion is training the professional tradesman and this is a step in the right direction.

According to a Skills Gap study by the Manufacturing Institute, more than 80 percent of U.S. manufacturers can’t find qualified people for the nearly 600,000 skilled production jobs that are currently unfilled.

For American manufacturing to be successful, employers need machinists that have the right skills, and they need those skills now. That is the impetus for a new, fast-track education initiative called Right Skills Now.

The program is an accelerated, 16-week training course for operators of precision machining equipment. It provides classroom and hands-on shop experience to prepare students for immediate employment. It also allows individuals to earn college credit and national industry certifications.

One of the founders of Right Skills Now is Darlene Miller, CEO and owner of Permac Industries in Burnsville, Minn. She helped launch the training program for CNC machinists in her home state.

As a small business owner representing the manufacturing sector, Ms. Miller was asked to serve for two years on the President’s Council for Jobs and Competitiveness. The Jobs Council is comprised of citizens chosen to provide non-partisan advice to the President to help foster economic growth, competitiveness, innovation and job creation.

Photo caption: Darlene Miller discusses the capabilities of the University of Pittsburgh/VA Human Engineering Research Laboratory with Director Rory A. Cooper, Ph.D., during a recent PCJC listening and action session.

PMPA provides staff assistance to Ms. Miller for her Jobs Council duties. Miles Free, PMPA’s Director of Industry Research and Technology, helped assure that the initial draft curriculum for Right Skills Now focused on delivering relevant skills needed in today’s advanced precision machining shops.

According to Ms. Miller, the first time she met with President Obama, she was asked to talk about the economy as it related to manufacturing and small business. “One of the things I said to the President was, ‘Not every student needs to go to college,’” she says.

“He had recently made a speech saying that every student should go to college. But he later agreed that while not all students must go to college, they do need some educational training beyond high school.

“I told him that in the precision machining industry, we have an urgent need for skilled people,” Ms. Miller continues. “We can’t afford to take just anyone off the street, provide some training and then put that person in a machining job.”

Despite the nation’s high unemployment rate, attracting workers with machining skills has been difficult for small manufacturers. “Because of the recession, we’re all strapped financially,” Ms. Miller explains. “We need people who have math skills. Our equipment is very high-tech, so we can’t afford to hire someone who hasn’t had technical training.

“It is critical that new hires have the necessary math and safety skills to understand and operate the machines,” she adds. “There is so much more involved now than there was 10 years ago.”

Serving on the Jobs Council with Ms. Miller are some of the country’s top corporate leaders from GE, American Express and DuPont. After the council meeting with the President, the members were divided into sub-committees. Ms. Miller was asked to co-chair the High-tech Education Sub-committee with Intel’s CEO, Paul Otellini.

The group held meetings and brought in two of Minnesota’s technical schools—Dunwoody College of Technology and South Central College. The sub-committee was also able to elicit help from the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM); the National Institute for Metalworking Skills (NIMS); and American College Testing (ACT), the company that developed the testing for applicants. The program has also received funding from the Joyce Foundation.

“To make this work, there had to be a partnership between the business community, the technical schools and organizations like NAM, NIMS and ACT,” Ms. Miller emphasizes.

To be eligible for the program, applicants have to take ACT workforce development tests, which are geared towards the machining industry.
The three WorkKeys tests used are Reading for Information, Applied Mathematics, and Locating Information.  Each of these tests is scored from 1-7 points.  People who score at least 3 points on each of the 3 tests earn a Bronze-level National Career Readiness Certificate.  Scores of at least 4 earn the silver-level, 5 for gold, and people who achieve at least 6 points on each of the three tests earn a platinum-level NCRC. As Ms. Miller said, additional training is available for those who don’t score as high as they’d like to match the job skill requirements of the employers who use NCRC scores. If an individual doesn’t qualify for the program the first time, there are remedial classes available.

“Problem-solving is huge part of the curriculum,” Ms. Miller says. “There is a mix of both classroom learning and shop time. After 16 weeks, the student will intern at a manufacturing company for eight weeks.

“That person can stay with the company and continue his or her education in a specific field,” she adds. Some go into programming, Swiss machining or advanced CNC skills. Others may end up as operations managers, quality managers or even entrepreneurs.

“We intend to replicate Right Skills Now nationally,” Ms. Miller sums up. “It’s not just for CNC machinists. It can be used for nearly any job skill. The program is so well-defined and accredited, it can be tweaked very easily to train anyone from welders to healthcare technicians.”

• Use a recognizable Twitter handle - keep it short and align it so it can go across several platforms.
• Brand your page - make sure your Twitter page has the same look and feel as the rest of your branding efforts.
• Twitter bio - should be there to help others figure out what you’re all about.
• Let followers know if you’re going to be increasing your tweets - an example would be going to a conference or trade show.
• Give credit where it’s due - acknowledge the originator.
• Beware of TMI (too much info) - tell what time it is, not how to build a watch.
• Pay-it-forward - contribute helpful info and re-tweet and support others without expecting anything in return.

What can you add to the list?