April 12, 2013

Goal of the Exchange Process 1. Help each Member professional to expand their business networks in order for you to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of how you tackle you job functions. 2. Provide Members with a dynamic and reliable resource to help you solve problems and find new implementable ideas

Rules of Engagement 1. Do not use your HOLD button on your telephone – hearing elevator music in the next 60 minutes is not good! 2. No body language signs – please be aggressive and speak your mind and thoughts. 3. Please identify yourself with name and company before speaking. 4. Take Notes about who is saying what… 5. Warning: My goal is to facilitate aggressively so we can cover as many topics as possible. 6. Last but not least, I need your feedback on how to make this process better for you and the participants.

Question: Do customers require you to comply with more than one set of audit requirements? If so, how do you handle the multiple sets? (Dan Cunningham)  Dave J. – Dan Cunningham… (Monday)  Provide materials to food processors in the food service industry. One customer wants us to run a new safety and sanitation audit system…another has their own system…how do you handle customer requirements in this area???  Jim K. – we serve automotive and encounter similar situations in quality. We end up just doing it in order to comply with the customer.  Do the customers require different auditors? Jim K…customer usually sends in their own auditors.  Vern M.- same situation… State of CA requires a medical molding license and several customers wills end in their own auditors.  Dave J. – UL / SM / ISO – there have been markets we have simply turned down. These are all combined into one System

Question: Manufacturers Reps vs. Company Sales Personnel? (Vern Meurer)  Currently have a mfg rep and we don’t have a contract. He wants to add new business to his portfolio. Doesn’t want to sign a contract; we don’t want extra liability.  Dave J: We do a lot with mfg reps. We have an internal sales professional that keeps the sales reps in line. We make them sign a contract which expires in a year. A contract is key due to non-performance issues. We make the attempt to hold them to a goal. We than support them with Technical Support. Type of Contract? It is more of a template contract.  Provide Vern with Dave’s address.  Dan C.- We have moved to a combination of internal versus external.  Dan C. will share a template with Vern. The agreement can be adjusted to products or territory.  Charlie B. – The issue is more of getting him to sign. Develop a strategy on WHY he should sign the contract…Option: Convince him to become an employee….may take on additional insurance risk, but you have some protection.  Jim K – concurs…usually the outside rep wants the contract to protect themselves. Maybe that is the strategy to be used in Vern’s case. To educated the Sales professional on the benefits of having the contract in place!!!

Question/Issue: Company/Growth expansion – how do we control our growth and not become overwhelmed by it? (Brendan Cahill)  We have a couple of very large programs taking up most of our capacity. It is about how we manage it from a personal side, equipment side…  Charlie B. – We great last year and had similar problems. Be careful on throwing the labor at it…make sure your customers are happy…bottom line may suffer in the first year, but don’t give up hope. We, in advance of the growth, expanded our financing available with the bank and doubled our line of credit. Advice is not to delay this!  Dan C.- We can meet and talk as we are experiencing the same issues. We did get into a more favorable situation with our banker. We meet at least on a monthly basis to review where we are and where we are going so…  Vern: We handled this differently. We have friendly competitors and swap molds when we run into capacity related issues. (Possible to create a relationship with a similar business?)  Dave: We increased our shifts to provide new capacity.  Tim J: - Got big into sales and operations planning. We have worked to get good numbers and working to improve our forecasting tools so we can prepare downstream. From a plant perspective, we put together a rough cut capacity model. This is working out very well. Sales / Operations planning: Anything by Oliver White…the father of S&OP.  Sales Contracts….how do you make sure that when you invest that the customer stays with you… Dan C. - In out markets contracts are almost nonexistent. Charlie B…ditto with an exception

Question/Issue: What types of wellness programs are successful and where do you find details? (Lisa Lewandowski)  Just getting started in putting together a wellness program. What resources are out there to create a good wellness program? Dan C. – Dekalb Molded Plastics (Kassy Davis) & Tasus Organization (Mark Anderson) Charlie B.- Can offer discounts for those that do this. Waste line, blood pressure, ect… Thinking about acquiring moving bands so record motion.

Issue: Sales/Marketing/Business Development strategies using Social Media. (Tom Duffey)  Dave J – just starting to put videos on website and on YouTube. (our belief is that if people can see the product, than they have a much better understanding of how to use it…increasing sales…)

Issue: Hiring the right person for Business Development. (Dave Jentzsch)  We are getting to the point where we have good sales and good marketing but we have a gap. We have some product lines that are declining rapidly. Do I find a tech person that knows the product well, or one that knows how to sell??? Do I go technical or not??? Jim K – From out experience as we’ve asked this question before, we’ve slanted to orienting on the technical side and teaching them how to sell. Dan C. – The method that has worked the best was not familiar with product line but had a tremendous sale’s / marketing skills. Jenny T. – Consensus from the Sales and marketing group….easier to train the person with the marketing and sales background on the technical side of the business rather than the other direction.

Question: We currently use IQMS to track employee training but it is difficult to use. What are other ways to track this? (Ted Duggan)

Question/Issue: Creating and exporting plan; Employee training (Teri Woodward)

Question: Communication re: daily emergencies – Can’t figure out how to do this efficiently w/o drowning people in meetings? (Charlie Braun) Day to day issues that everyone needs to know about and getting them resolved… ○ Dan C…I’ve been having a management team meeting twice per week for the last 18 months. (These meetings last no more than 1-hour…an agenda is published in advance for input…Then I hold an admin meeting with HR, accounting and operations coordinator which is where we pool information and act accordingly. ○ Tim J. – We use G-walks, we look at our visual boards and examine our KPIs…and will locate problems and develop plans to knock out. ○ Dave J. – If they call Dave, then you have failed in your job. I try to take myself out of meetings and enable my people to solve the problems. In many cases, I realized I didn’t have the skill set, so I hired people to fill the gap. Best times of holding production based meetings? ○ Charlie B. Morning ○ Dave J. PM>

Question: Direct labor hiring practices? (Norm Forest) 

Question: Is the economy turning around or is it in further decline? (Robert Loranger)

Issue – Organizational Structure, Compare structure for similar-sized organizations. (Jeff Applegate)

Issue: Terms and Conditions Review. (James Krause)

Additional Questions?

Thank you!