Our 7 Top Priorities for 2015

2015 is here! It’s hard to believe that only last month we were looking back at GIW Industries’ accomplishments of 2014. But our work is not done: 2015 brings new priorities and goals we must all work toward.

Facing these new challenges will require us to use creative thinking and collaboration to overcome obstacles while working within our existing systems: We need to think outside the box while succeeding inside the box. There are seven key areas that we will primarily focus on this year.

1. Developing leadership

To further our success in 2015, we’re focusing on improving our leadership abilities at all levels of our company. That means every one of us must take personal ownership in our roles and find solutions to our on-the-job problems.

For example, we are still learning how to work with our new SAP system and make it more user friendly. Some employees, who have gotten the hang of using SAP quickly, may be temporarily shifted to departments that need more help with SAP. When this happens, managers must be proactive about asking their supervisors for help so their team can meet its goals. Leadership means taking action to get help, rather than making excuses for not meeting your responsibilities. We’ll all need to get used to reaching out to other teams and departments, sharing our talents and resources to solve problems and get our work done.

2. Continuing to improve SAP

To succeed with SAP, it’s critical that we work with the system and not try to work around it. Although our SAP process still has some kinks to work out, for now, we need to make do with what we have. When you run into a problem while using SAP, be creative about finding a solution that lets you work with the system. You can always reach out for help if you need it; by contacting a member of GIW’s core SAP implementation team or your manager; or using SAP online resources, such as the SAP Help Portal in the SAP Community Network.

3. Empowering leaders on the shop floor

A key initiative for GIW this year is to empower our shop floor leaders to organize their work and their teams. To accomplish this, we will offer a supervisor and leadman training program as of April 2015. We will promote our best shop floor performers to team leaders. They’ll receive the necessary training to enable them to lead their teams and improve safety, quality, and productivity on the shop floor.

We want our team leaders to take personal interest in their teams, help them to learn new skills on the job, inspire them to solve problems and accomplish team goals, and lead the team with integrity and credibility. We want our shop floor leadmen to become true supervisors — leaders who take charge of their work processes and help their teams to work smarter and safer.

4. Finishing our foundry expansion

We’ll continue to focus on our in-progress and planned expansion projects this year. We’re making good progress on our foundry expansion and plan to complete it by July. We also intend to start construction of our distribution center in March and finish it by the end of the year.

5. Improving the quality of our outsourcing partners

We will continue our ongoing initiative to find the best outsourcing partners, especially those overseas. We plan to build new supply chains — particularly in Mexico, where we are exploring partnership possibilities. There are many reputable companies in Mexico that have the potential to make excellent partners for GIW.

6. Making our pattern process more efficient

Key to GIW’s success is our ability to provide custom solutions in the short timeframes our customers require. To help improve our delivery times for custom solutions this year, we aim to reduce the time required to create patterns. We are exploring various ways to achieve this goal, such as using automation and alternative materials (for example, Styrofoam or high-density foam instead of wood patterns). Increasing the efficiency of our pattern-making process can help GIW to stay competitive and serve our customers better and faster.

7. Meeting operations goals

As always, we must strive to meet the yearly production and quality goals that our parent company KSB establishes for GIW. Last year we exceeded our goal of reducing our purchasing expenses by 5% — and we must attain the same goal this year. We’ll need to work as a team to get our lead times back in the 95% range once again. SAP has set us back a bit, but I’m confident that we can get back on track.

This year will be chock-full of ambitious, but doable, goals. It is up to each and every team member to do our part in meeting these goals. We can accomplish them only by working together and relying on one another for help. As we enter the new year, let’s focus on making it even better than the last!

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