The PC Systems Blog

As part of a preparation for a local High School Open House (Kane Area), I put together profiles of all of our employees under 30 years of age.  I never expected how much I would learn about the employees who represent the future of PC Systems!  I couldn’t resist sharing these profiles on our blog, so our customers can get an idea who is actually building their product.

In no certain order, I’ll put a profile up of all the employees.  This post will focus on Chuck, who is a 1st shift “Jack of all trades” for us.  After speaking with our General Manager, we cannot seem to come up with a concrete title for Chuck.  We can count on him to be a Production Setup on Monday, run the Rectifier department on Tuesday, build Production Harnesses on Wednesday then finish the week with some Engineering Samples and Wire Cutting.  He is a very talented employee with a special gift for understanding mechanical systems, so he is very valued.

Chuck has been working at PC Systems for over 6 years and has held many different “jobs” within the plant.  He understands all of our processes while also maintaining a keen sense for cost and manufacturability.  I often find myself bouncing ideas off of him while I am out on the floor and I trust his intuition as much as I do my own.

Chuck is famous (maybe infamous?) in the plant for having a dry sense of humor and carrying a facade that he doesn’t care much for the work that he does.  If you look a little closer though, it is obvious he has a lot of pride in the work he does.  He makes sure that he understands the customer requirements and application, closely watches his control limits, and is a hawk when it comes to wasted resources and capital.  You would be hard pressed to find a more dedicated employee, although he would laugh at you if you told him that.

When we asked Chuck what his future goals were, he said he would like to own and operate his own gun shop.  He is an avid outdoorsman and has the mechanical/business skills, which would make him an excellent candidate to do just that.  He currently has various side jobs, including backyard mechanic, which I can personally vouch for.  Working at PC Systems provides a unique opportunity since we are still a private company and Chuck is exposed to some of the pros and cons of owning your own business.

All of the profiled employees were asked to give some advice to future high school graduates.  Chuck said simply “College is not for everyone.”  This is coming from someone who I personally know has the intelligence to succeed at any university, so I think it is clear that you need to define your expectations before you take the plunge on a four year degree.  Chuck’s success without attending college provides evidence of that.

Somewhere around the turn from 2011 to 2012, I had a slight epiphany.  Kevin and I had decided that we had too many ties in our closet to only wear them when we were wearing suits.  He had a good excuse, he went to a Catholic High School requiring ties.  I guess I am just hard to buy for when Christmas comes around.  What started as a little bit of a joke and we called it Tuesday/Thursday Tie Day turned into a daily routine for me.  That wasn’t because I had too many ties (I had to go buy some more), rather, I realized that I was sending the wrong message.

You don’t see people in the office wearing ties anymore, especially in Manufacturing.  I realized that I would often throw a jacket and tie on when I was meeting with external customers, but you could find me in a polo or open collar shirt any other time.  What kind of message was I sending to all of my internal customers?  They weren’t good enough me to put a little more effort into how I looked?  I figured it was about time to rectify that and decided I would wear a tie everyday (almost).

There are some problems with my methodology, which I will admit.  First, I don’t have the discretionary funds to buy a bunch of sport coats and suits, so I often look like the kid at Blockbuster selling videos in his baggy shirt and tie.  I hope it isn’t so much the “look”, rather the “effort” that is recognized.  Also, it is a safety risk.  I am around moving machinery often when I am out on the floor.  Most times, I will temporarily take the tie off if I am out there.  Finally, it serves absolutely no purpose other than decorative, which really drives me nuts.  If I could define “waste” in clothing, the necktie would be it.  To combat this and make myself feel better, I occasionally wipe smudges off of my safety glasses with the back of my tie, which I find is a great solution.

So there you have it, that is why you’ll find me in a tie most days when you walk into the office.  It is really about sending a clear message to both internal and external customers that they are worth dressing up for.  I am keenly aware that how I am perceived is directly linked to how I can motivate and lead, so I try not to make it an afterthought.  What kind of non-verbal messages are you sending?

As part of a preparation for a local High School Open House (Kane Area), I put together profiles of all of our employees under 30 years of age.  I never expected how much I would learn about the employees who represent the future of PC Systems!  I couldn’t resist sharing these profiles on our blog, so our customers can get an idea who is actually building their product.

In no certain order, I’ll put a profile up of all the employees.  This post will focus on Charlie, who is currently our 2nd shift supervisor.  I would list Charlie’s responsibilities, but they are endless, and he does a pretty good job of doing them all well.

Charlie has been working at PC Systems for 5 years and has steadily increased his level of responsibility.  It didn’t take us long to realize after he started that he was very efficient with his hands, but also had great problem solving skills.  I am starting to get used to coming into work in the mornings with a note from Charlie detailing his latest idea to “do it better”.  For you LEAN folks, he is close to the Gemba and he often comes up with some of the best ideas.

It would do Charlie a great disservice though to speak only about his ability to produce parts and ideas, because his true talents are his ability to lead and motivate others.  He has a “servant” leadership style that is very difficult to teach.  He deals with issues with honesty and fairness, regardless if it is bad or good news.  You would be hard pressed to find an operator that had a cross word for his leadership style.

When we asked Charlie what his future goals were, he said he would like to receive some more education with regards to Automotive Customization.  We recognize that we have opportunity to help him with that here at PC Systems and will make an effort to improve that skill set for him.  At PC Systems, we also recognize how much potential Charlie has and are very grateful that he has chosen to work here.

All of the profiled employees were asked to give some advice to future high school graduates.  Charlie said “Research every school thoroughly.  Find one that meets your need and apply for as much financial aid as you can.”

As part of a preparation for a local High School Open House (Kane Area), I put together profiles of all of our employees under 30 years of age.  I never expected how much I would learn about the employees who represent the future of PC Systems!  I couldn’t resist sharing these profiles on our blog, so our customers can get an idea who is actually building their product.

In no certain order, I’ll put a profile up of all the employees.  This post will focus on Allyson, who is currently working in the office, taking care of administrative duties such as Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable, among many other tasks.

Allyson is a really neat story for us.  While she was getting her Accounting/Business Administration degree, she worked for us in the Harness department.  Although she has only been working in her Administrative role for a little over 4 months, she is definitely not a stranger to PC Systems.

When we asked Allyson what her future goals were, she said she hopes to continue working within her degree that she now has.  I am not sure if she dislikes entering timesheets into our ERP enough to go back to building harnesses, although it isn’t one of her favorite jobs.  She is doing a great job for us and we hope that PC Systems remains part of her future.

All of the profiled employees were asked to give some advice to future high school graduates.  Allyson said “Definitely get an education – High School and College.  When choosing what to study in college, make sure it is something you enjoy and it is something that interests you.”

If you call into PC Systems, you most likely will get to hear Allyson’s voice before she redirects your call.  Don’t be afraid to quiz her some on the product, she knows it!

Over the past year or so, I have had the opportunity sit in on our local Workforce Investment Board. What started as a selfish attempt at obtaining training funds for some LEAN programs has uncovered a passion for making sure there is not a disconnect between industry and our future workforce.

In our local area, there has been a push to connect Industry with Education professionals, specifically at the grade school and high school level.  A Summit was held in late March of 2012, which I had the pleasure to attend.  Somewhere around 125 people attended the Summit including industry representatives, teachers, school administrators, etc.  I was surprised how many folks under the Education umbrella that haven’t stepped foot into a manufacturing industry in our area, and equally surprised to hear of some of the challenges that educators face.   Here is a link to a local newspaper that covered the event:

http://smdailypress.com/content/summit-focuses-training-retaining-youth-workforce

An action item following that Summit was to host Educators in our plants so they could see what skill sets we look for specifically as employers.

We were lucky enough to host the following teachers for a couple of hours here at PC Systems:

Steven Bauer – Secondary Physics Teacher

Barbara Wilhelm – 2nd Grade Elementary Teacher

Ann Woelfel – 3rd Grade Elementary Teacher

It was truly an enlightening experience for all of us I think.  They spoke of many of the hurdles they face as teachers, from standardized testing to short attention spans.  I think they were also surprised to hear of some of the elementary level skills that we sometimes find employees missing, such as the ability to follow a flow chart.  Here are a couple quotes from Barbara and Ann:

“Thank you for sharing your time and talent.  As a second grade teacher for the St. Mary’s Catholic Elementary School, I observed enthusiasm, pride, and teamwork. Throughout your facility, there were easy to follow diagrams, picture diagrams, flow charts, color-coded and step by step directions. I also noted each employees responsibility for attention to detail, cleanliness, and a job well done. ” – Barbara Wilhelm

“Thank you for your insight into PC Systems. WOW, what a comfortable setting for employees to achieve their finest work product ! The conversations between you and the machine operators showed genuine teamwork. In 3rd grade, I touch on career opportunities in our area and how they enhance our global theme of togetherness. With the tour of your facility, I can now bring that experience( following directions, the flow chart, color coding) in my discussions with the children.” – Ann Woelfel

Next up is an Open House at the Kane Area High School, which we were invited to attend by the Guidance Counselor.  We are looking forward to it and are very excited about the progress that is being made in the area locally.  I’ll finish up with telling a story that boggled my mind at the Summit, which I think displays the disconnect we are trying to eliminate.

This conversation occurred between myself and a HR Manager of a major employer in our area.  He was complaining that he can’t find enough competent applicants to fill his general labor positions.  They all seem to pass the interview process just fine, but when it comes to a general math and reading test, a significant majority fail, therefore cannot be hired.  

I was surprised and asked what specifically was on the test.  He replied that it was basic reading and math, but most applicants fail because they don’t have a clue how to divide a fraction.  If I didn’t have a dumbfounded look on my face, I should have.  Here I am, Engineering Manager of PC Systems, and it took me about 3 minutes to jog my memory on how to complete this simple task on paper.  He was facing a certain reality and I was living proof, the new generation of employees will require calculators to complete mathematical tasks (or be allowed to use their phones on the job).  

I think he was there to convince the educational folks that more time needed to be spent on being able to do math without a calculator, but he reinforced my thoughts that we need to adapt to our workforce, rather than force the workforce adapt to the employer.  Unfortunately for that HR Manager, he likely was dismissing many great employees that could have provided tremendous value to his workforce.  Hopefully by working with Educators, we will be able to anticipate the changing of the workforce while also offering suggestions on training, so that we can be more successful in the future and not make the same mistakes.

Wow!  That went really fast.  It seems like we were just setting our 2012 Goals and writing our Performance Plan Appraisals, and now we are at the 6 month review mark.  This is the first year that we have documented goals for all departments (not just Engineering), so I am excited to see where the teams are at.  In the Engineering department, we will be reviewing our PPA’s as a group and I am happy to say we are making steady progress.  There is a lot to be said about putting your goals on paper.

Things are feeling a lot more normal now at PCS.  Our Harness department is as busy as ever and we were able to double capacity with some LEAN improvements (without needing to increase footprint).  Our customers gobbled up that capacity before we were even finished, so we are continuing to look for improvements in efficiency.  We are still waiting on some approvals for our Lead Free product for the Automotive customers, but are confident that we have found a cost effective solution.  Fortunately,  it seems our customers are back in full swing as well, so unfortunately Engineering time comes at a premium.  Finally, we have had a couple new product launches in our Molding department, with a really cool R&D project underway which we hope will greatly reduce low volume tooling costs.

I am very adamant here in the office that if you want something back in one piece, whether it is a sample, finished part or your son’s new toy, don’t leave it on my desk.  My curiosity often gets the best of me and my reassembly skills are often not as good as my destructive abilities.  I have just about everyone trained, but I still manage to get myself into some trouble occasionally.  Last Friday was one example.

Here at PCS, we continue to look for Lead free connectors for Automotive glass that will stand up to the SAE/USCAR-40 testing requirements.  We are confident that we have found a braided solution, but we are now focusing on finding a solder alloy that can be used on a solid Copper footprint and be robust enough to withstand the CTE (Coefficient of Thermal Expansion) mismatch between the Copper and glass.

Kevin and I completed some testing on Friday using an alloy that we thought held promise.  We were attempting to test a couple different application techniques.  We found that the bond between the solder and the glass proved to be a little better than expected which resulted in some excitement.

The glass shattered on the third pull and the peak tensile force was measured at 80.5 lbf.  This is rather impressive considering the specification is 10.0 lbf.  Unfortunately, the other clips on the panel could not be pull tested due to the fracturing of the glass.  On the other hand,   some days we need reminded that work can be fun, and this was one of those times.  We are working on soldering clips to a new panel this week, with a slightly different testing technique which should help us preserve the panel.

Waiting for us upon our arrival back from the Christmas holiday, was the audit report from our registrar’s (SAI Global) 12 month surveillance audit.  The report was a well-earned Christmas gift as PC Systems successfully passed surveillance audit with only one opportunity for improvement identified.

Over the past few months, the PC Systems’ management team has been working very diligently to streamline our design and development process.  We documented the design and development process with a process flow diagram to show the critical steps and interactions of the engineering, product management, quality, sourcing and customer service department throughout the process.  We also development new design review forms to easily identify and record the design inputs, design outputs, design changes, validation and verification during the design and development phases.  This hard work paid off as in the auditor’s report, he highlighted the improvements to the design and development process.  Other areas of PC Systems’ quality management system which was highlighted in the auditor’s report were the 63 closed continuous improvements and preventive actions complete in 2011, the training matrix and the internal audit program.

As we look forward to 2012, we will continually improve the quality management system at PC Systems.  Our focus will be on improving the corrective action process, improving process yields and better understanding our process capabilities.  PC Systems will continue to use the ISO 9001:2008 standard to better our quality management system and not just to be certified.

Copy of the PC Systems, Inc. ISO 9001:2008 Certificate found here.

This last week of the year is a time that most companies will look at the past year and acknowledge what went well and what didn’t go so well.  We will do the same thing at PC Systems and I thought it would make sense for me to share some of those discussions with you.  Overall, 2011 was a very good year for us.  We expect that we have done the right things to make sure we continue that pace and 2012 will be just as good.  Here is what went well in 2011:

New Design and Development Procedure – We threw out the book (literally) with the Design and Development procedures from our Quality system and started new.  We developed a much more robust system using many APQP principles and most importantly, multi-stage Design Reviews.  This will definitely benefit our customers in the future.

Improved Engineering and Quality Staff – We added Kevin Genevro to the Engineering team and Andy Gahr as the new Quality Manager.  They both made significant contributions to the business in 2011.

http://blog.pcsridgway.com/2011/04/addition-of-kevin-genevro-to-the-team/

http://blog.pcsridgway.com/2011/10/addition-of-andy-gahr-to-the-team/

Executed Continuous Improvement Plan – 2011 was the first year that we developed and executed a Continuous Improvement Plan.  It included multiple Kaizen events, including Value Stream Maps, 5S Events, and SMED.  The structure kept us on schedule and made improvements across our plant.

Harness Production Improved – Our largest harness cell produced over 1000 harnesses per month multiple times in 2011.  Before 2011, we never produced more than 600 harnesses out of that cell, although the demand was higher.  The team was able to do this while maintaining their productivity and 5S KPIs.  We look for even greater throughput and demand in 2012.

Lead Free Solution for Automotive Glass Electrical Leads – Working with a couple different customers, we were able to identify a Lead Free solution for Automotive Glass leads as the RoHS exemption 8b expires at the end of the year.  We will continue to work on this through 2012 and if you need more information, please contact us.

Continued Growth – We continue to grow at a brisk pace and meet our Sales goals.  We were able to do this primarily with the growth of our current diversified customer base, which leaves a lot of room for growth with new customers.  We continue to monitor capacity from both a production and support staff perspective, to make sure we grow at a pace that will not put our customers at risk.

These are some of the highlights, but there were many small successes that added up to significant achievements for our entire team for 2011.  I am proud of how our team performed in 2011 and expect similar results in 2012.  To get there, we will develop strategic company goals for 2012 with cascading personal goals for our staff (ala Hoshin Planning).  We are excited for the prospects and will share some of these goals through the early part of next year. 

Until then, we wish you a happy and successful New Year.  If there is anything we can do to assist you, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Here is some connector news that has been flying under the radar, but may have significant implications with regards to harsh environment connectors in the future.  TE Connectivity has acquired Deutsch from Wendel.  I am not a financial analyst by any means, but I expect the uncertainty in the European markets made this an attractive acquisition.  It is important to note here that the acquisition includes Ladd, which is the single source distribution partner for Deutsch.

http://investors.tycoelectronics.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=209396&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1634437&highlight=

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2105afbc-1b4c-11e1-8b11-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1fl52pmdV

If you are unfamiliar with Deutsch, they hold a large marketshare when it comes to connection systems on heavy equipment, from construction (backhoes, dozers, graders, etc.) to more industrial (man lifts, telehandlers, truck bodies, etc.).  TE Connectivity has had some success breaking into that market with their AmpSeal line, but Deutsch is still the king.

This will be interesting to see how this all plays out.

• What will happen with Amphenol and their recent introduction of the Amphenol Sine AT Series (which is a direct replacement to Deutsch DT Series)?
• Will there still only be one place to purchase Deutsch components?
• Will TE Connectivity use their leverage to increase pricing, or will they use their breadth to reduce pricing?
• Will there be consolidation and how will that affect Quality and Reliability?

All questions that you can be sure we are asking of our contacts within the industry.

By the way, has TE Connectivity gained a firm footing in anyone’s lexicon yet?  It still feels awkward to say it, and every time I typed it in this post, I typed Tyco, backspace, backspace, backspace, backspace, TE Connectivity…