“Geoff Forester photograph, courtesy of the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund”.

Dave Gregory, whose experience includes over ten years of quality management and twenty years of machine design, has joined Graphicast as our Manufacturing Process/Quality Engineer. Dave’s focus and methodical approach to manufacturing will help us move to the next level of capability and quality, including our effort to become an ISO 9001:2008 certified facility within the year.

“Geoff Forester photograph, courtesy of the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund”.

In a recent  survey of design engineers , Product Design and Development magazine found that four major challenges exist in the new product development process:

1. Project management
2. Controlling costs
3. Improving time to market
4. Component selection

“Geoff Forester photograph, courtesy of the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund”.

Two interesting manufacturing focused reports came out this week. The National Association of Manufacturers published their assessment of strategies and policies necessary for the health and growth of manufacturing in the United States. The Alliance for American Manufacturing revealed a survey conducted among likely voters of their thoughts on the value and importance of manufacturing to our economy. The voters see manufacturing as a critical aspect of our economy’s strength and important to the vitality of our nation. The NAM report cites a number of national policies critical to sustaining a manufacturing base. Both studies point to the need for consistent, national policies amined at providing stability and support to the manufacturing environment. Both studies also imply a decidely poor response from our federal government in supplying that stability. Republicans were seen by the voters to be worse than the Democrats, which is telling given the Republican’s normally pro-business persona. The voters get it, the manufacturing associations get it. When is the government going to get it?

“Geoff Forester photograph, courtesy of the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund”.

Many of you are familiar with, or subscribe to MFG.com, the online manufacturing community where Buyers (purchasing and sourcing professionals, engineers, etc.) and Suppliers (contract manufacturers, factories, distributors, job shops, etc.) connect, exchange information and do business. As one of the services to to our community, MFG.com maintains a manufacturing blog, MOJO, where opinions and comments about manufacturing are flowing. Recently, MOJO’s blogger, AJ, came across Graphicast and explored our social media strategy. He felt our use of Social Media could be a model for other manufacturers to follow, as he concluded (and I paraphrase), “Graphicast is a small manufacturer that gets the Web & Social Media. You don’t see that everyday.” Thanks for the review, AJ!

“Geoff Forester photograph, courtesy of the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund”.

We’re closing in on the end of our fiscal year. This year was about the same as last year from a sales volume standpoint. However, the level of activity and optimism we’re seeing indicates that we should be off to a good start for fiscal year 2011. Here’s a snapshot of views from our sales reps around the country:

“Business is good now. Economy is good and seeing a lot of projects to bid.
I know already that I’m losing some business, so I need to replace that with new business.”

“The pipeline for next year is getting filled with five new die castings, three permanent mold jobs, six new sand castings, and three new powdered metal parts all so far this year. All this work should get me back to fiscal 2008 level. It’s been a roller coaster couple of years but it looks like a nice upswing right now.”

“Customers seem to have a more positive outlook than in the past year and we are seeing orders from customers that have been quiet for some time. It appears that they are willing to consider new ideas and ways to manufacture parts but we are also seeing orders for parts that have been basically stagnant for a long time.”

So there you have it. Real news from real people. I hope the rest of you are seeing similar optimism.

“Geoff Forester photograph, courtesy of the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund”.

Graphicast began its social media journey almost one year ago. My personal journey began about a year earlier, but I was a passive participant in the process, looking in and observing from the outside. Although I was somewhat skeptical when I attended a business oriented social media overview given by Kelley-Sue LeBlanc of Aleuromedia, I was very excited by the end of the hour long session, as I saw a great opportunity for Graphicast to expand its message and its influence in our markets via social media. A few weeks later, we hired Kelley-Sue to help us on our journey.

To me, the key to success in using social media is making the leap of faith that sharing information increases your influence and the interest in buying from you. It also, as some fear, reveals information about you to your competitors.  So what? They can get this if they want to anyhow, and this downside is a small price to pay for the upside. This is a variation on the same message I have been telling people who work for me. Many of them think that  hoarding the knowledge they possess is their key to job security. If they keep it to themselves, their indispensability is preserved. I have tried, with varying degrees of success, to convince them that their indispensability is preserved by sharing their information with the rest of the company. By sharing, they become the “go to” people, the people of influence and the people with the highest value to the company. The others, the hoarders, usually don’t last.

Sharing within the company is one thing. Sharing with the entire world can be a scary thought. However, through the analysis and preparation we did for our social media programs, I recognized that there was much more to gain than to lose. The only way to create influence and become more than the four walls of the building is to try to become a “go to” company to the world. We’re trying. From the activity and comments we’re seeing, I think it’s beginning to happen.