Quips of recent posts save you time; enlarge your head
Want to feel industrious? Here’s fresh insight for your business. Summaries of our last four posts optimized for faster reading. You decide if you need more. There’s a link after each one that will take you to the original story.
1. EPA gives way to EMS
Born in the wake of elevated concern about environmental pollution, the EPA was established on December 2, 1970. Now 42 years later, confusion around the benefit and fairness still exist. A systematic approach could make all the difference for your business.
Supply chains struggle with environmental regulations because they are often conflicting, redundant or just plain burdensome. It has always been a slippery slope. There’s the debate whether the federal government should push the program’s regulation down to the states and; naturally, there’s concern about compliance and the increased cost of doing earth-friendly business.
EMS is a different approach
Enacting an Environmental Management System (EMS) can result in marketplace, business and environmental benefits. It helps a company address regulatory demands in a systematic and cost-effective manner. It’s proactive and it can help reduce the risk of non-compliance while it helps to improve health and safety practices for employees and the public.
In the original post I listed 10 different ways an EMS could help your company. Here are three:
- Enhance compliance
- Reduce/mitigate risks
- Increase efficiency/reduced costs
TAKEAWAY: Besides helping you cope, wouldn’t the adoption of a broad EMS help your company differentiate from its competition?
See— “EPA. More or Less” May 22, 2012
2. I see industrial adhesives in your future
The world is now calling for new standards of performance. The supply chain will have to respond with smart answers and new adhesive technologies could provide the solution. Demand for expertise with new bonding technologies using super-thin and super light materials could easily skyrocket.
Advances in materials and design aimed at cutting cost, reducing weight and eliminating reliance on natural resources is here. While nothing new, increased use of adhesives has been trending for over a decade because the advantages are mounting. Leading the way are the automotive and aerospace industries where the trend will likely sharpen in the next five to ten years.
One example, simply called “joining technology,” is an adhesion plus spot-welding process. In production, a moment before welding steel, a special high-performance adhesive is applied to one of the surfaces. The resulting joined assembly of two thinner plates produces a stronger bond that is better sealed. And, adhesives offer a noise-dampening bonus helpful to both automotive and aerospace industries.
Granted, most of the experimentation is currently focused on final assembly processes but adhesive bonding, as a joining technology, has an enormous potential for sub-assemblies and parts. I believe these techniques will drive demand for new informed supply chains.
TAKEAWAY: Obviously, changes like these will challenge the status quo.
See— “Adhesives answer the call” September 12, 2012
3. Email offers marketing advantage
Industry loves the ROI of email marketing. It’s a cost-effective way to stay in touch with customers and cultivate new leads. Email allows you the leverage to communicate with your existing clients, prospects, employees, vendors or resellers on a consistent basis with specific and timely messages.
Three factors are trending
- Lead Generation is the number one biz-dev metric for B2B marketers
- Online remains the preferred channel
- Mobile expansion facilitates greater reach and frequency
Three compelling qualities
Email marketing is:
- Scalable—messages can be sent to 3 or three hundred recipients with virtually the same effort and the same cost
- Measurable—you know if your message has been received and you can count the conversions just to name a few of the metrics possible
- Affordable—with email there’s nothing to print, store or ship
TAKEAWAY: Never forget the strategic advantages email affords for increasing awareness and feeding the sales funnel.
See— “3 Trends support funding email marketing” October 3, 2012
4. Effort is money. Work it smart
If your business is cutting, milling, turning, grinding or drilling metals you know the devil is in the details—often at a microscopic level. Yet to remain competitive, your business must run the gamut from maintaining your tools’ edge to honing your competitive edge. You know just how easily hard-earned profit can slip away in a single misstep. You must work it smart.
Functional parts require a supply chain designed for cost-efficiency. Your overarching responsibility is to help someone else improve overall capital return on investment. If you can’t, you’re not the right supply chain fit in the first place. You’re not integral to the solution.
Here are 3 mantras for metalworkers that will help you work it smarter:
- Better parts—perhaps the best parts are the parts that can be counted. Sharing of real-time demand and inventory data ranks higher than cost containment for some supply chain chiefs
- More productivity—keep the machines running. Consider machine downtime cost. Use the right coolant for the type of cutting you’re doing (they often vary) just to name a few
- Longer tool life—tools are expensive. Removing material as fast as possible with the least amount of time, effort and waste is dependent upon maintaining tool edge. Yet finish requirements, speed and feed time can increase wear, reduce productivity and lower quality of output
TAKEAWAY: Effort is money. Working smart means focusing on the basics to profit from every effort.
See— “Three ways to profit by working it smart” November 12, 2012
HIT Solutions believes the more your business keeps up with important trends, the more you will improve your product, and improve your bottom line.
Leave me your comments below; share your thoughts.