Welcome to Short Run Short Takes, keeping you up to date on Donnelly Custom Manufacturing’s latest achievements for and with our customers. In this issue, we’ll share some insight with you related to training, continous improvement and lowering your overall costs for the life of your product.
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Short Run Molding. Long Term Success.
The road to lower costs and better efficiency begins at the design level.
By: Ron Kirscht, Donnelly Custom Manufacturing Company
Molding is a critical process in the manufacture of medical devices. However, long molding runs are not always the ideal option for the fabrication of components for a device. Short run molding provides numerous advantages to medical device designers that would not be otherwise realized. Combined with up-front engineer, this method can lead to a tremendous success for the product design and manufacturing team.
Click here to view Donnelly’s Medical Design Technology cover story
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Enterprise Minnesota
Through Enterprise Minnesota, we learned of a Lean technique called Training Within Industry (TWI), which helped our supervisors to develop critical leadership and analytical skills so they could rapidly and consistently train employee teams and recommend process improvements.
Getting people to challenge conventions and take initiative is the key to that success for us with TWI. Most importantly, it helps keep quality high and U.S. manufacturing competitive.
Read full Enterprise Minnesota story here
Donnelly training the industry on Training Within Industry
One of the cornerstones to Training Within Industry is the sharing of knowledge and passing it on to others. Donnelly’s Sam Wagner has done just that through a series of presentations he’s given around the country in the last couple months. Click here for a glimpse into Sam’s appearance in Nashville on Mistake-Proofing in the Custom, Short-Run Environment.
His recent appearances are listed below. Stay tuned to Short Run Short Takes for future presentation dates where you can see Sam Wagner share his experiences with TWI.
- Mistake-Proofing in the Custom, Short-Run Environment. Presented at Productivity Inc.’s Lean Management Conference; October 6-10, Nashville, Ten
- Donnelly’s TWI Journey presented at the Manufacturers Alliance’s Great Ideas from your Workforce Conference; November 13, Twin Cities, Min
- Donnelly’s TWI Journey also presented at Enterprise Minnesota’s Creating Profit Through a Lean Journey Conference; November 19, Twin Cities, Min
Short Run Molding = High Results
A customization alternative for door and window manufacturers
Door & Window Magazine
The current economic downturn, which is slowing both new housing starts and home renovation projects, presents a challenge to door and window manufacturers.
While some companies are responding by either downsizing or limiting production, others are seizing the opportunity to streamline processes and reduce costs, positioning themselves to meet the needs of customers looking for highly customized doors and windows.
Read full Door & Window Magazine Story here
IndustryWeek ’09 Best Plants Conference
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| Donnelly’s Ron Kirscht selected as speaker for Advanced Continuous Improvement Track at IndustryWeek’s ‘09 Best Plants Conference in Nashville, Ten. April 27-29, 2009. |
Donnelly’s Ron Kirscht selected as speaker for Advanced Continuous Improvement Track at IndustryWeek’s ‘09 Best Plants Conference in Nashville, Ten. April 27-29, 2009.
Ron will speak on the topic of Managing Manufacturing Complexity through Innovative Processes.
Click here for presentation abstract
Trust is the key to successful supplier relationships
Purchasing Magazine
At Scotsman Ice Systems, Engineering Vice President Matt Allison says purchasing is a key part of all the company’s cross-functional project teams… Recently, purchasing facilitated collaboration between Scotsman engineers and engineers from supplier Donnelly Custom Manufacturing for the former’s Prodigy ice machine.
To earn the trust needed for successful collaboration, you have to understand the cost behind suppliers’ prices, have a sense of what makes a good product design, and be able to assess risks of designs or processes that limit supply options. Work on gaining that knowledge and trust will come automatically.
Read full Purchasing story here
Congratulations to Marvin Windows & Doors for winning the ASTD “BEST Award”
Donnelly customer MWD recently received the ASTD BEST Award from the American Society for Training & Development in recognition of their organizational commitment to employee learning.
Donnelly was recently named a Silver Supplier Award winner by MWD for the second year in a row. Donnelly introduced Training Within Industry to the employees at Marvin two years ago and they have been implementing it ever since. We are happy to share our knowledge in this field and are committed to finding the ways to help our customers best succeed.
Read more about Marvin’s award winning training program in the October issue of T&D magazine.
Donnelly recognized for support of manufacturing education
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| Donnelly employees receive award from Alexandria Technical College. From left to right: Kevin Kopischke, president of Alexandria Technical College; Shawn Dusing, Manufacturing Engineering Manager at Donnelly and Charlie Clausen, Manufacturing Launch Engineer at Donnelly. |
Donnelly was recently recognized by the Alexandria Technical College for it’s support of, and participation in, the high school industry tour program.
Students who are part of an industrial arts or industrial tech class at local high schools are given opportunities to tour plants such as Donnelly’s to learn about career opportunities in manufacturing. Students are exposed to the possibilities of careers in design engineering, maintenance, automation, tool & die, machining, manufacturing supervision, accounting, etc.
Learn more about Alexandria Tech College programs here.
EVENTS CALENDAR
Developing Leaders at All Levels
Twin Cities, MN
Dec. 10
Lean Experience
Novi, MI
Dec. 15
Molding 2009
New Orleans, LA
Jan 26-28
Global Plastics Environmental Conference
(GPEC 2009) Orlando, FL
Feb 25-27
Supply Chain World 2009
Houston, TX
March 16
Innovative Product Marketing
Twin Cities, MN
March 18
On demand web casts
from IndustryWeek available any time
View full 08-09 schedule of Manufacturers Alliance Lean workshops here
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