Well Done, GIW Team! Our 12 Key Achievements of 2014

We’re fast approaching the end of another year. For GIW Industries, 2014 has been a year of extraordinary accomplishments as well as challenges. What have we accomplished as a team over the last 12 months?

1. The Grovetown foundry expansion is moving forward.

We’ve made great progress on the foundry expansion at GIW’s Grovetown, Georgia, facility. Construction on the building is finished, and we’re now installing the essential equipment. With the guidance of our parent company, KSB, we’ve kept the project on time and within budget — without disrupting our existing operations.

2. SAP is up and running.

Everyone knew that switching from GIW’s old ERP system to SAP would be a huge undertaking. But with the hard work of our SAP transition team and employees across many departments, SAP went live on November 11 and is running better than anticipated. Although we’ve had some snags in a few areas, such as shipping and invoicing, we know we will overcome these issues.

3. Our production scheduling system is integrated with SAP.

GIW’s production scheduling system has worked well for us, and we wanted to find a way to interface it with the SAP system. With help from our vendor, we essentially “bolted on” the scheduling system to SAP, so it works with our SAP purchasing, finance, and production modules. This is a tremendous accomplishment for GIW — we’re the first among KSB’s subsidiaries to succeed in integrating this scheduling system with SAP.

4. Our parent company, KSB, has demonstrated its confidence in GIW by investing significant amounts in the company.

KSB has invested a total of $48 million to support GIW’s major projects: $8 million in the SAP system and $40 million for the Grovetown foundry. We are very fortunate to be part of a company willing to invest in our future growth. Of course, this investment puts a lot of pressure on GIW to live up to our parent company’s expectations — and I’m fully confident we will do so.

5. Plant leadership is transitioning smoothly.

Keith Milburn, former foundry manager at GIW’s Thomson plant, served as our SAP integration manager and will soon take over management of both the Grovetown and Thomson plants. Mark Bean moved into the role of Thomson foundry manager with an almost seamless transition; Thomson is running very well.

6. We’re making some positive workforce changes.

As long-term GIW employees retire, we need to make sure we retain the valuable knowledge those veteran team members possess. To do this, departments will cross-train employees and document work procedures. Another important change we’ll be making next year is to give supervisors leadership training so that they can transition from their traditional “working supervisor” roles into true department leaders.

7. We took market share from a major competitor.

GIW has made a key inroad into an account that had previously been held exclusively by another pump vendor — a major competitor of GIW. Our Alberta, Canada, office secured an order for eight large test pumps to replace pumps supplied by this competitor. This is an important win for GIW, and we fully expect increased and continued business with this customer.

8. GIW’s oil sands “super pump” attains over 6,000 hours continuous operation.

GIW fulfilled a tough customer request: Build a pump with a 6,000-hour service life, for use in Canada’s oil sands. We took a risk and built the biggest pump in the oil sands, which ended up exceeding 6,000 hours! Our risk was rewarded — from the financial bonuses the customer paid us but also because, with the new foundry, GIW will be able to better meet the growing worldwide demand for super-sized, long-running pumps.

9. We’ve enjoyed some success with outsourcing.

We continue to explore outsourcing as an option to reduce costs and improve our capacity. This year, one large outsourcing project proved very successful for GIW: Our outsourcing partner did an excellent job of supplying parts that met our quality standards, saving GIW a lot of money. Outsourcing is still a work in progress, as we continue to seek suppliers who can deliver parts that meet our quality, timeliness, and cost specifications.

10. We’ve greatly reduced costs and improved our maintenance process.

We’re especially proud of the accomplishments of our purchasing and maintenance departments this year. Purchasing rose to the task of cutting costs this year; as a company, GIW reduced spending by 5% year over year, meeting the goal set by KSB.

Our maintenance department is geared toward proactive maintenance, which helps us avoid expensive equipment breakdowns by following a careful preventive maintenance approach. This strategy has paid off: GIW saved 26% of its maintenance budget this year. And there’s more good news: Fewer than 25% of our maintenance jobs are reactive — the rest are proactive.

11. We’re replenishing the GIW team with new hires.

Like many industries, GIW is facing the challenge of replacing a large pool of skilled employees as they retire. Five long-time employees retired this year, and we’re working on filling those vacant positions. We’ve also brought a number of new employees on board, who are enriching GIW with their energy, skills, and ideas.

12. Our hard work was recognized.
At the Columbia County Development Authority Business Appreciation Luncheon, GIW was honored with an award. Our company was one of two Company of the Year recipients, an accomplishment that reflects the hard work and dedication of all of our employees in 2014. The award also acknowledges that our contributions to the community have not gone unnoticed.

Our next challenges

Any review of the year must take an honest look at areas for improvement. For GIW, safety is one such area. Safety is an ongoing journey for our company, and will be a focus for us all in 2015.

In regard to SAP, although most departments have made the transition relatively smoothly, we aren’t over the hump yet. In particular, contending with process bottlenecks and reporting issues that we are determined to resolve.

GIW has made the most of a relatively slow period that challenged our company, by taking on two historic projects — the foundry expansion and our SAP ERP implementation. Despite the slow market and large outlays for SAP and the foundry, our financials are still healthy because of our loyal customer base, excellent customer service and quality; as well as the major cost savings, process efficiencies, and reductions in waste we achieved in 2014. We end the year in very good shape!

Happy holidays to our valued team members and their families. Here’s to a prosperous 2015!

Thomas H. Mueller, P.E., Vice President of Operations