Critical, but sometimes overlooked steps, including really listening to customer expectations, having a plan that fits your own vision, and knowing how to market your expertise to each customer.
As sourcing becomes more competitive – and complex- fabricators are using new ways to stay competitive, and doing what it takes to create customer loyalty.
Read “Five Simple Strategies to Do More for Your Customers” from Metal Forming magazine here.
In a brand new Industry Week report, Milwaukee and San Francisco saw the highest percentage growth in manufacturing jobs over last year, according to a new analysis by the statistics firm Wanted Analytics. Wanted compared hiring data, including job ads, from April to June 2015 for 350 U.S. metropolitan areas.
The Milwaukee-Waukesha-West Allis, Wisconsin area saw a 33.5% increase in manufacturing jobs over the same time period last year. Among the hirings: General Plastics and Milwaukee Tool recently expanded in the Milwaukee area.
We can now process sheets up to 78" x 158" (2 meters x 4 meters) and, in addition to cutting carbon steel up to 7/8”, we can cut aluminum and stainless, plus highly reflective materials like brass, copper and titanium. Our goal is to help meet your growing needs and lead times.
In metal fabrication—especially at small, privately held shops—money quite often isn’t front and center, which makes sense. People can make a lot of money in this business, enough to be very comfortable, especially if they’re in the right place at the right time. But if all they care about is making a lot of money, metal fabrication isn’t the easiest way to do it.
Here’s a terrific article from Tom Heston, senior editor of The Fabricator, on what drives job shop entrepreneurs.
The clichéd image of a manufacturing job is of dirty, backbreaking, low-paying labor. And women need not apply—it's an industry dominated by men. But separating fact from fiction about the actual people behind the welder's mask and on the assembly line can be tricky.
But wait a minute….a recent CNBC report looked at facts that debunked those, and other, myths about manufacturing.
Courtesy of the Wisconsin Manufacturing Extension Partnership, here’s a short video from innovation expert Warren Berger on the process of innovation. Berger finds that nearly all innovation begins with a question….”why isn't someone doing this or what if someone tried to do that?” Translated to your business or shop floor, it’s a demonstration of unlocking change by getting people to ask “why not?”
After years of decline, new engineering graduates are making an impact on the Midwest’s economy. And, according to Tom Still, Director of the Wisconsin Technology Council, the best is yet to come.
A recent report by Georgetown University noted that, by 2020, demand in Wisconsin’s professional, scientific and technical services sectors will increase by 14,890. Similar increases are seen in surrounding, manufacturing-based states.
Credit goes to economic growth, increasing opportunities for new engineers, and to STEM…the program that increases student interest in science, technology, engineering and math.