After trimming the fat and forcing your employees to turn in the stubs before getting new pencils, what do you do next?

TAKE CONTROL!

When the current slow-down started, we saw changes take place with our vendors. We were spending more time replacing defective components or standing around waiting for overdue deliveries.

At the same time we saw changes take place with our customers. They wanted faster delivery, tighter pricing, and stronger guarantees.

I'm sure you can see that we were caught in the middle. So we took control. We invested in equipment to take control over the quality and availability of crucial components. While we had great relations with our bank, we didn't want to shrink our line of credit. Borrowing $85,000 for the new equipment was easily justifiable but leasing made the decision a no-brainer. Monthly lease payments of around $1,200 gave us the ability to take control over more of our production. And, we easily saved more than that in improved productivity.

A couple of months ago, we designed a new line for a new customer. It was to replace a 30 year old, mostly manual line that had an employee loading bottles and shuttling totes of product on one end, another capping the bottles, a third applying labels, and a fourth putting the finished product in cartons and loading pallets. It was a simple line. They had been doing it that way for all 30 years. His goal was to increase production with a little faster line based on a more efficient filling machine.

We suggested adding more automation to the line. Moving up to an automatic capper and labeler would increase the price of the line by less than $50,000 but eliminates the need for 2 employees.

The customer responded the way many of us would. “I don't pay $50,000 to those 2 employees, but let me think about it.”

The next afternoon he called back. “I'll take it with the capper and labeler.”

He had met with his accountant who pointed out that the equipment is going to be financed over 5 years. The monthly cost of increased automation is less than $1,000 per month. Our customer realized that he paid more than that for each employee. He added, “My accountant reminded me that machines don't take smoke breaks, vacations or call in sick. I should have done this years ago.”

When we installed the new line, he was looking for other ways to take control over his business.

When you are ready to take more control over your production, call us and take advantage of our experience and expertise. If there is a way to make your life easier, and your accountant happier, we are ready to help you find it.