MFG.com

A Job Shop Snapshot
Recently, a survey came across my desk that I think you’ll be interested in.

Amateurs Talk Tactics; Professionals Talk Logistics
We need a comprehensive overhaul of the U.S. corporate tax code and the regulatory burdens on businesses . . .

Supply Chain Risk, Volatility Offer Opportunity
Use your Web site and other marketing channels to promote your value to companies and prospects in the context of stability and reliability.  

Be a Product Inventor
If you manufacture things, be sure that it is a product that is "meaningfully unique" and differentiates/distances you from your competition. 

What if the Work Came Back?
What would you do if all the work your company lost to low-cost countries came back overnight? Besides making a few quick "I told you so" calls, I mean… 

The Value of Lean
Last month, I wrote of the value of manufacturing and business communities taking active roles in supporting the shops and plants that make up their local ecosystems. I gave examples of how some communities and groups have been successful at helping their communities thrive through those efforts.

How Success Happens
Manufacturing can survive and remain a vital cog in our economy, but it takes hard work… 

Are You Charging or Recharging
It goes without saying that shops and plants around the U. S. are facing intense economic and business pressures.

Now is the Time to Assert Yourself
The key is to think ahead--beyond current market and economic conditions. 

It's About The People
… the single best way to ensure long-term success in business is to enable your people to be successful themselves. 

Will You Be Competitive?
Knowing who your customers are is an important and complex issue that deserves more than a single bullet-point in a column, because how you approach this one issue can determine your company’s competitiveness, growth and profitability—well into the future. To navigate the long-range waters to a healthy future, consider these issues:

SEO Will Change The Way Business Is Done
By maximizing your search engine optimization (SEO) capabilities, you are helping to improve the volume and quality of the leads that you generate from the Web via search engines such as Google and Yahoo!.

Online Tool Enables Company To Refocus
Perma-Brass, Inc. (Plymouth, Michigan) has had to make strategic changes in its manufacturing in order to survive. These changes included implementing new technologies, such as MFG.com (Atlanta, Georgia), to find new customers.

Web Site Leads Shop To Nearby Customers
Nebraska Machine Products (Omaha, Nebraska), established in 1966, has grown to be one of the largest screw machine shops in the state. Yet, it’s still very much a family business. Like any other job shop, the company has faced dwindling orders from a declining customer base and increased competition for the domestic work that remains. Therefore, it is preoccupied with finding new customers and has discovered that the solution is often to use nontraditional approaches to locate more markets.

Buyer-Supplier Matching
For buyers and engineers, MfgQuote is an efficient way to find sources or have projects quoted, and for suppliers of manufacturing services, it acts as a sales tool. This literature explains how the online service works and its benefits.