Graphel Carbon Products’ Blog Nationwide

Your organization spends hours working with suppliers to find the optimal balance of price and material grade. You negotiated, compromised, sent RFQ’s and placed PO’s. In the past, many companies didn’t communicate with their suppliers until the next order or delivery was needed.

Not anymore. Surveys tell us that the attitude toward supplier relationships has changed over the past decade. Companies are now realizing the importance of leveraging strategic relationships with their suppliers. In a poll taken in 2016, 63% of procurement professionals had improving collaboration with suppliers as one of their top KPIs for the year.

In today’s competitive market place, I would argue that on some occasions your supplier choice is as important, if not more important than your material choice.

Knowledge is Key

You may want to think of your suppliers as sources of information as well as sources of product. Most suppliers have knowledge of their competitor’s product as well as their own. Suppliers typically receive extensive product training and can be a great resource of new innovations in your industry. They are likely to be open to providing their own alternative solutions or products that could decrease your costs, increase your quality, or could provide new product innovations.

Compete with Innovation

Your suppliers are consistently innovating with both materials and processes. While some of these innovations may have reached your company, you don’t know what you don’t know. Take some time to ask questions about other processes or techniques that could save your company the headache of figuring it out on your own. Leveraging your supplier as a center of influence will provide you with information you may not have received as a transactional buyer.

As a center of influence, your suppliers will be able to keep you up to date on innovations that have occurred with other customers. This will allow you to leverage other organizations learning opportunities.

Strategic Relationships Create Value

Strategic relationships have the potential to create value for you in many ways. With a customer/supplier relationship the benefits can be both financial and strategic. In its most basic form, a strategic supplier could provide your company with volume discounts, ensure your deliveries arrive on time, and work with you to lower inventory costs.

It is important to realize that as your company grows, you become a larger part of your supplier’s revenue, and in doing so, the success of both companies become intertwined. This is the point where strategic value is jointly created. This value is created by sharing innovation or by jointly creating new ideas. In some cases, one party may financially assist a big growth move that could jointly impact both companies. Regardless of the way the value is created, a synergy is helpful to organic growth and can be fueled by factors outside of your company.

These are just three of the many reasons to reevaluate the relationship you have with your suppliers. Your supplier choice should be as important as your material choice. More and more companies are leveraging their supplier relationships to enhance competitiveness in an ever-growing marketplace

Robert Fothergill, EDM Applications Specialist with Poco Graphite, recently published an article in Mold Making Technology discussing that understanding all the electrode parameters can improve EDM efficiency. I can’t agree more.

As discussed, sinker EDM machining technology has improved significantly over the years. These changes effect the processes and decisions an EDM machinist will face when running the machine. But, some performance factors remain the same even with the advanced technology:

• Machinability – a balance between easy to machine and resilient enough to withstand the machining process

• Metal Removal Rate – achieving the proper electrode material/work metal/application combination rate so the MRR can be maximized

• Wear Resistance – maximizing the electrode to produce and maintain detail related to its wear and machinability

• Surface Finish – surface finish is obtained with a combination of the proper electrode material, good conditions and appropriate power supply. The final surface will be a mirror image of the electrodes surface

• Material Cost – fabrication time, cutting time, labor and electrode wear are all factors that depend on the electrode material

By far, the electrode material used in the EDM process has a direct correlation to the performance and efficiency of the EDM burn. So, the electrode material must be matched to the application to guarantee success at the highest rate of productivity. Graphite grades, particle size, tensile strength, isotropy and uniform structure all are important considerations in material selection.

Unlike the other performance factors, material choice is a performance process you can directly control. You can chose to work only with quality materials that offer consistent profiles. While quality materials cost more, they eliminate the costs associated with inconsistency and machine wear.

I would also add that your relationship with your material provider should also be considered a performance factor. A relationship with a supplier can enhance your overall EDM efficiency. Consistent quality, reliable supply, reasonable price and proper advice are all tangible parts of your overall results.

Regardless of the machine that is being used, each of these performance factors will be impacted by the electrode material. Whether the job calls for a specific surface finish, electrode wear or MRR, a consistent effective electrode material is critical to achieving the desired result.

This past October 7^th was National Manufacturing Day, 2016.   A day set aside as a celebration of modern manufacturing, meant to inspire the next generation of manufacturers.  Although Manufacturing Day officially occurs on the first Friday of October, I think that every day should be National Manufacturing Day.

Do you remember when you had shop class in Jr. High or High school?  It was a chance to work with your hands and create something.  And, it was a break from abstract book study and allowed you to work with materials and think outside the box.  It also showed kids how an idea could become a commodity they could sell, and showed them that their ideas could become reality.

With US Manufacturing being the cornerstone of our economy…and around the globe for that matter, I think the time has come for us in the manufacturing business to start lobbying for the re-emergence of vocational training in our high school systems.

Today:

• Manufacturing supports more than 17.4 million jobs
• For every $1.00 spent in manufacturing, $1.48 is put into the economy
• Nearly 12% of the nation’s GDP is from manufacturing

Viewing vocational programs as second rate is one of the most corrosive problems in education today.  In the real world, our communities and economies depend on an enormous diversity of talents, roles and occupations.  The work of electricians, carpenters, mechanics, engineers and even hair stylists is vital to the quality of all of our lives.

Due to standardized testing, our school’s priorities have shifted to focus on college readiness, and vocational programs have taken a back seat.  I think this is doing a tremendous disservice to our kids and our economy.

Not everyone needs to go to college.   In fact, almost 40% of the students who begin a 4 year college program don’t finish. With the mounting college debt crisis, and increasing skills gap in placing qualified people for manufacturing, I think it’s time for our society to change its views on college. And it is up to us in manufacturing to lead the charge.  We need to encourage kids to make balanced career choices.

I think every day should be Manufacturing Day.

Modern manufacturing has come a long way in employing rigorous quality initiatives, but when a defective part slips past the quality initiatives, customer perception can make the situation go from bad to worse very quickly.

It isn’t always easy to get quality right given the current manufacturing environment. Shorter delivery times, increasing competition and elevated customer expectations; it is no wonder that quality is once again front and center.

Customer expectations matter, more so than ever. The new view of quality has expanded. Quality has always had two sides one could argue: actual quality and perceived quality. Often the latter takes longer to detect and is harder to change, so manufacturers concentrate on real quality. Actual or “real” quality is what most manufacturers have focused on using a parade of alphabet soup approaches like TQM, SPC and Lean Six Sigma.

Perceptual quality analyzes customer sentiment with customer “listening posts” to gather and evaluate perceptions of the brand, product or service. It then allows the manufacturer to analyze and define potential drivers of the perceptions and suggest alternatives to address the problem and the perceptions.

The equalizer of these two measures is managing customer expectations. A company can integrate these measures by communicating in advance the expectation of the quality at the beginning of the process. Where does this tolerance really need to be? What is the real delivery date? How many parts do you really need on a specific date?

Perceived quality comes into play when all expectations are not met. Often a product that is not delivered as expected lacks quality in the customers mind.

What will take organizations into higher elevations of customer satisfaction and perceived quality? A comprehensive approach to customer-driven quality for both real and perceived quality, all of which can be implemented with readily available information technology:
• An up-to-the-minute, unified view of all relevant data.
• Tools for collaborative, proactive analysis and action.
• Availability of knowledge to all stakeholders.

Today’s organizations need a single, integrated version of the truth that spans the organization’s processes – from inputs to outputs, ideally from upstream suppliers to downstream customers. They need a way to not only assess what was, but predict what will be. And they need a way to share these insights across organizational and functional boundaries. Companies must realize that quality is not just a necessary manufacturing program but is, in the end, all about the customer.

In today’s social media environment, an organization needs to include in their mission statement that all who work for the company are a part of their customer service team. Every department and every person should understand how they are serving the customer, or servicing someone who is serving customers.

We are all aware of the critical nature of customer service. Customer service is important for all departments, and should not be limited to one department. In our business, our core customer service department often needs the help of other departments. Unless other departments realize the significance of customer service, it would be tough for them to provide the world class service required to keep our customers happy. No company can survive without customer service, so it makes sense that every person in the company has a customer service responsibility. In fact, customer service is mentioned in every person’s job description within our company.

After all, departments like engineering and quality are in fact doing internal customer service every day when they support the customer service team and others within the organization. Much of their work is designed for customer use, which means they have a huge impact on the overall customer experience as well.

A company that embraces an overall culture and focus of customer service is able to consistently provide high levels of service, which in turn will ensure repeat business from customers, high praise through social media and referrals as well. Making customer service key to every department will always have its benefits and pay rich dividends over time and for long term growth.

Customer service is not an easy job – in fact is it perhaps one of the most challenging and stressful jobs within an organization. Managing orders, needs, personalities and problems is never easy. All departments must appreciate the demands of customer service to ensure the customer receives all the support they need. Keeping the customer happy is everyone’s job.

In today’s workplace, there is more demand on us than ever before. We have to accomplish more in less time, with fewer resources. This puts a lot of pressure on us to be able to manage our time more efficiently so we can get more done, be less stressed and have a feeling of accomplishment. If we aren’t doing a great job of managing our time, then we probably aren’t able to deliver projects on time. In order to help us better manage your time, here are six valuable tips below:

1. Start with a list of easy tasks that can be completed quickly. By organizing a list of easier tasks first, you can get the smaller projects out of the way and give more of your attention and effort to the bigger projects. Also by doing this, you won’t have to worry about those smaller tasks that could end up getting in the way of the ones that really matter to you and your organization.

2. Break a large task into smaller tasks. Sometimes it’s hard to know where to start when you have a major project to complete. To confront this, you should take that project and break it down into a few smaller tasks that you can do without much stress.

3. Start creating your to-do list for tomorrow, today. Before you go home from work, the last thing you should do is to create a list of things you need to do for tomorrow. This way, when you head into work tomorrow, you are ready to go!

4. Use a calendar to keep track of everything. I use my calendar to run my life, I put everything in there. If there’s someone I know I should call in two months, I’ll mark down the call. This makes life much easier and you end up not forgetting anything, making you more efficient.

5. Ignore distractions as best as you can. There are so many things that can get you off-track. You get phone calls or instant messages, or emails to distract you. Try to ignore as many distractions as possible and stay focused on completing your to-do list. Consider blocking off a half hour each day to focus on the distractions.

6. Try not to multitask if you can. We all try to do multiple projects at once and end up not getting anything done at all. Research shows that multi-tasking actually decreases productivity. If you focus on each individual task separately, you will be more effective in all that you do.

In today’s challenging business climate, time management is essential. There is more demand on us than ever before.