Kendal White, Author at Unitherm Insulation Systems

July 12, 2011 by Kendal White

5 Keys to Survival After the Recession: Consistency vs Efficiency

Manufacturers looking to dramatically increase profits must constantly reduce overhead costs and increase product output. Achieving this is often much easier said than done and in order to meet goals for short-term growth, many manufacturing leaders focus on the short-term solution of pushing employees to work harder, faster and more efficiently.

To actually generate sustained growth, manufactures must ensure that workers consistently follow processes and fully document problems so that management teams can review solutions, identify costly tasks and improve procedures.

Documenting: A Path to Success

Documenting and analyzing procedures requires a hybrid form of technical writing that involves many levels of company participation. Traditionally, companies outlined processes and hired a technical writer to create a static training manual for employees to follow.

Today, manufacturers who wish to implement and maintain an agile, responsive system of processes must outline a set of procedures via a company intranet or meeting-place for employees and team-leaders to contribute information about process failures and solutions.

[Read more…]

July 7, 2011 by Kendal White

5 Keys to Survival After the Recession: Lean Manufacturing

In a recently released report, McKinsey & Company attributes almost 50% of all US productivity growth since 2000 to manufacturers. The manufacturing industry also experienced a lower amount of job loss during the recession than any other industry. These statistics are likely reflective of the fact that manufacturing companies are increasingly developing lean manufacturing processes to develop more agile, efficient operations.

What does lean manufacturing really mean?

A quick Google search reveals that lean management, also known as lean production or lean thinking, is a production practice for maintaining product value while doing less work.

Beyond the literal definition, lean manufacturing is really a company culture or philosophy centered around finding ways to:

Reduce waste and overhead costs
Improve worker efficiency
Manage inventory

[Read more…]

July 5, 2011 by Kendal White

5 Keys to Survival After the Recession: Reduce Overhead Costs & Maintain Quality

After surviving the recession, most manufacturing companies understand the importance of budgeting and reducing overhead costs all too well. Unfortunately, with energy and transportation costs rising more each day, some companies look to cut spending on vital research and innovations.

In the long run, reducing spending on product research and development can cost manufacturers significantly more as they struggle to compete with growing international manufacturers. How can companies shrink their budget without sacrificing product quality and innovation?

Crowdsourcing IT and HR Tasks

The last few years have shown a notable increase in outsourcing of human resources and information technology departments as companies seek ways to shrink company budgets without losing the skilled workforce they need to operate. Contracting third party companies for HR and IT needs enables manufacturers to offer superior benefits and take advantage of improved technology at a much lower rates.

In a discussion about the value of outsourcing human resources, business specialist Renu Chopra discusses the flexibility of outsourced programs because they “…can turn relatively fixed HR costs into variable costs that can scale with business changes such as acquisitions, divestitures, growth in new markets and contraction in times of economic downturn.”

In addition to the overall costs of outsourcing these departments, companies benefit as HR and IT firms work to improve quality of service and resources to remain competitive. Working with an agile, adaptive third party allows companies to focus spending and time on growing their business rather than updates and training for stagnant in-house departments.

[Read more…]

June 30, 2011 by Kendal White

5 Keys to Survival After the Recession: Innovative Manufacturing Technology

What do radios, neoprene, instant photography and nylon have in common? All were developed during or slightly after the Great Depression and drastically changed the course of manufacturing history as manufacturers desperately sought ways to efficiently produce groundbreaking new products.

Innovative Technology

According to Boston Consulting Group’s “Innovation 2010” report, innovation in manufacturing is vital to your survival as a manufacturer after the recession because “your competitors are themselves working very, very hard to become more innovative—they, too, see innovation as a top strategic priority.”

Companies in countries like Brazil and China “are increasingly investing more in it, and have redoubled their efforts in order to be positioned to thrive in the recovery,” making R&D more important now than ever before.

While many are reluctant to budget money for R&D, researching more efficient ways to create products can lead to substantial savings. Often, existing employees already have ideas that could lead to improvements or even a revolutionary new product line.

Companies can develop agile and adaptive manufacturing systems by including modeling and simulation tools into design processes and installing superior sensor and part genealogy systems to detect errors or defects before they effect an entire production run.

[Read more…]

June 29, 2011 by Kendal White

5 Keys to Survival After the Recession

The United States economy is slowly recovering from the so-called Great Recession and many manufacturers are looking to the future. With a surge in international manufacturing, increased competition has company leaders desperately searching for ways to survive and grow in today’s volatile economy.

With manufacturer’s in mind, UniTherm is launching the “5 Keys to Survival After the Recession” series. The series focuses on ways that manufacturers can lower supply chain costs, raise profits and compete in an increasingly competitive market.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll feature ideas and strategies for ways to increase manufacturing products by focusing on innovation, reducing overhead costs and resource waste, improving consistency, and modernizing marketing efforts to increase yield.

Would you like to see your company featured in the “5 Keys to Survival After the Recession” series? Let us know what steps your organization is taking to be more competitive and we’ll feature you throughout our series.

Don’t miss the first installment of “5 Keys to Survival After the Recession,” subscribe to receive updates from the UniTherm Blog.

June 28, 2011 by Kendal White

New Blog Contributor

I’m Ashley Jernigan, Marketing Specialist at UniTherm. I’m a Texas native, but I love to travel with my husband and two-year old son. I love coffee, music and watching the Rangers play baseball. I look forward to chatting, learning and working with you!

June 20, 2011 by Kendal White

The Down and Dirty on Reusable Shopping Bags

Whether you use them to do your part to be a little greener, or your city/state has enforced a bag ban – you probably own at least a few reusable shopping bags. (I personally own a few dozen since I never remember to put them in the car and end up buying more each time I shop.)

My usual routine is to come home, unload the groceries, and then cram all the bags inside one giant Central Market bag, shove them in the bottom of the pantry and forget all about them. But that routine is changing starting this weekend. Something I never thought about before is the stuff that gets left inside those bags – namely bacteria and mold.

The Canada Times found that “64 per cent were contaminated with ‘some level of bacteria,’ about 30 per cent had ‘elevated bacterial counts’ higher than what is considered safe for drinking water, 40 per cent of the bags had yeast or mould, and some of the bags had ‘an unacceptable presence of coliforms.'” (Yep, coliforms, as in “found in feces of warm blooded animals” via wikipedia)

It should probably be obvious that the fruit, vegetables, leaky milk jugs, and packaging that’s gone through who knows how many hands would be covered in some pretty nasty stuff, but how many people really wash their shopping bags between each use?

How To Clean Reusable Shopping Bags

Fortunately its pretty easy to get rid of the mold, bacteria, and yeast with a quick warm water and mild soap rinse. Hang those bags to try on a clothes line (or hang them on your kids’ swingset like I do for all of my line-drying needs) and fold and store them when they are totally dry. Its also a good plan to bag meats and fish separately, as well as put your produce together. And if you like to purchase in bulk from warehouses like Sams and Costco, try taking your own plastic bins to carry items home in, a quick rinse with the hose and some dish soap will leave them clean and ready for the next trip to the store.

How many of you still use plastic bags for shopping? If your area has banned them, how has it affected the shopping experience for you?

June 7, 2011 by Kendal White

[Review] Total Quality Process Control for Injection Molding

Peter Van Puyvelde of Materials Views provides the following book review of M. Joseph Gordon’s Total Quality Process Control for Injection Molding, 2nd Edition.

Total Quality Process Control for Injection Molding, 2nd Edition
M. Joseph Gordon, Jr.
Hardcover
746 pages
US $175.00

In this lengthy book, a total quality approach for injection moulding applications is presented. The aim of the work is to provide a detailed planning for the implementation of total quality management (TQM) control procedures for the production of plastic parts. Moreover, limits for quality control assessments are established.

In the first chapters, an overview is given of the different aspects of TQM. Next, the complete chain of a plastic product processing operation is discussed, going from the material, over the machine and mould design towards the final processing operation. When discussing the received material to be processed, one should for instance be aware of the inherent variability of the feedstock that is used. This discussion leads to procedures to properly characterize for instance the thermal properties of the material. In the part that describes TQM principles for the machine, attention is given to the machine itself and the auxiliary equipment that is needed for a successful operation.

Continue reading at Materials Reviews >>

June 3, 2011 by Kendal White

Husky Completes Acquisition of KTW – Leading Closure Mold Maker

Congratulations to our NPE 2012 neighbor, Husky Injection Molding Systems (find us directly behind the Husky booth at NPE)

Husky Injection Molding Systems today announced it has completed the acquisition of KTW of Waidhofen, Austria, recognized as a global leader in closure mold making.

With the addition of KTW, Husky becomes the closure industry’s only provider of complete injection molding systems, including mold, machine, hot runner, temperature controller, as well as a range of consulting and after-sales services. Husky will now offer KTW-branded closure molds as part of its fully integrated turnkey systems. [Read more…]

May 11, 2011 by Kendal White

Energy Management Bootcamp

This blog post is based on Dr. Robin Kent’s Energy Management Bootcamp webinar presentation. You can view the presentation below.

Reducing energy expenses is top of mind for almost everyone in the plastics manufacturing industry. Energy expenses account for about 6% of costs (very close to labor which equals about 10% of costs) and that number grows every day.

You’ll find the near-complete recording of Energy Management Bootcamp below, due to technical issues the first 10 minutes have been excluded, but we’ll do our best to sum up what’s missing.

Dr. Kent begins his presentation by talking about the new words – the words that drive media and activists; global warming, greenhouse effect, carbon management, carbon footprint, sustainability, life-cycle analysis, corporate social responsibility, stakeholders, and energy efficiency. These are words we won’t be focusing on today, instead we’re going to focus on the old word (and the most important word) Money.

Dr. Kent is not a tree-hugger. He is in this for the money and while he believes the new words are important, he reminds us that none of us would be here without the money.

Energy costs can easily be reduced by up to 30% with a 3-pronged strategy. 10% is management, 10% is maintenance, and 10% is technology or capital investments. Management must walk the walk instead of simply talking the talk to seriously impact energy costs. That’s a different session though, today we’re talking about the technology, and the low-cost investments that can bring the largest returns.

Taking energy management seriously is difficult because energy has always been low-cost and low priority. Most facilities aren’t equipped with the right tools and skills to handle the job, but energy is now the second or third largest variable costs – and rising. Energy supplies are no longer assured and totally secure and other countries and companies are already ahead of you in their efforts to reduce energy costs. [Read more…]

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