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Improving Quality, Efficiency
& Profitability
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"Being on par in terms of price and quality only gets you into the game.
Service wins the game."
Tony Alessandra
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 The manufacturing industry has changed dramatically from when I first got into it a million years ago. It was an industry that attracted talented individuals to universities across the country, and provided excellent career opportunities even to those workers without advanced education. Susan Hockfield, President of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, described our country's manufacturing history so well:
"The United States became the world's largest economy because we invented products and then made them with new processes. With design and fabrication side by side, insights from the factory floor flowed back to the drawing board. Today, our most important task is to restart this virtuous cycle of invention and manufacturing."
Now that the "giant sucking sound" of jobs leaving the country has quieted, it's time to begin to plan how we can create more manufacturing jobs in the U.S., which will in turn strengthen the manufacturing industry here again. We must also remember that it is our customers that ultimately make us successful - if they don't buy from us, we're in trouble.
The two articles this quarter address these two topics: the return of manufacturing to the United States, and the customer service that will be required to keep us all going. I hope you'll take the time to read them.
If you're ready to make your company more efficient, to improve the quality - and profitability - of your company, and be part of the resurgence of manufacturing in the U.S., give me a call.
Sal Ganino
Manufacturing ETC
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 Managing for Quality |
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Customer Service - or the Lack Thereof?
By Sal Ganino
According to Turban et al. (2002), "Customer service is a series of activities designed to enhance the level of customer satisfaction - that is, the feeling that a product or service has met the customer expectation."
How long has it been since you've experienced customer service excellence? See if any of these stories hit home to you:
- Have you ever gone into a restaurant - a real sit-down restaurant not fast food - and got the feeling that it was an inconvenience for the server to serve you?
- I went to dinner one evening with some friends and, while waiting for our table, got a glass of wine in the bar - $6. Once at our table, when I asked for another glass of wine, I was charged $7. A surcharge was added - for delivery? When I gave the server a twenty, he looked at me and asked, "Do you want change?". Click here to read the complete article.
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Managing for Quality
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Total Cost of Ownership and the
Return of Manufacturing to the United States
By Sal Ganino
They say that Ross Perot once said about NAFTA, that there would be a "giant sucking sound" as jobs left the U.S. There was, at that time, a tendency to scoff at this comment, even though he was right. As a result of these jobs leaving the U.S., there was a subsequent loss of the talent that existed then, and a further loss in the desire to become educated and follow in those careers because they no longer existed here.
The problem that now exists is that in the next five to eight years, we will be seeing a resurgence in manufacturing in the U.S. as the wage gap with China continues to shrink. Several states in the U.S. have become some of the cheapest locations for manufacturing in the developed world, according to The Boston Consulting Group (BCG). Click here to read the complete article.
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The two most important factors for success in manufacturing?
Quality and Efficiency.
With over 40 years of experience, Manufacturing ETC is uniquely positioned to help manufacturers improve the quality of their products, the efficiency of their processes and increase their profitability.
We do this through
Education, Training and Consulting.
For more information
call (518) 377-6107
Fax (518) 203-2595
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