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.

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.

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.

We have been spending a little time trying to increase our online exposure.  If you participate on LinkedIn or Google+, we encourage you to take a look at our “brand” pages. 

You can find our LinkedIn page here: http://www.linkedin.com/company/paesano-connecting-systems-inc

You can find our Google+ brand page here: https://plus.google.com/110450868811597243721

I stopped in at a local used car dealer (Rogo’s Auto Sales http://www.rogosauto.com/) to talk to the owner (Tim) about a set of keys that he was going to order from me.  A quick conversation with them gave me an idea for a blog post, so I thought I would share it with you.

I bought my first vehicle from this dealer about 6 months ago and I was absolutely amazed by their customer service.  They are small, they know me by name, and they can justify their pricing.  Notice that I didn’t say that they had the lowest price around.  When I had a problem with the new truck, they gave me a loaner and took the truck to the OEM dealership to get it fixed for me.  They didn’t have to do that, but Tim said that was how he wanted to make it right.  That is just one example of the customer service they provided.

I want our customers to feel the same satisfaction after working with PC Systems that I felt after working with Rogo’s.  I have to admit, one of the reasons I stopped in today was to ask about some new vehicles for my wife.  I want to buy from them again.

This morning, I overheard Tim and Kenny talking about how to look up my VIN number.  Kenny told Tim to look under “deals” in their computer database.  I pressed Tim on that a little bit.  I thought it was interesting that they call it “deals” instead of “sales”.  Tim joked and said that he hopes everyone thinks they got a deal there.

I don’t expect that anyone sat down and really thought out what they were going to call “sales” in their database.  Only employees look at it, so there isn’t any incentive or marketing gold to be had by calling it “deals”.  Rather, I feel this is just a reflection of the culture at the dealership, which is what had me excited in the first place.

Using terminology that frames up the customer satisfaction internally will obviously translate into using the same terminology while speaking with the customer.  This is always going to have an effect on the buying experience.  I don’t know if that was intentional at Rogo’s or not, but I thought it was worth writing about.  I’ll have to think about how we do that here at PC Systems (if we do) or how we can start doing it.  How about you?  Can you think of any way you use vocabulary that takes into consideration the customer’s point of view rather than the company’s?

If you check the blog often, you may have realized that we have changed a couple things.  I will try to provide a quick summary of what has changed:

• Name – We have changed from PCS Engineering Blog to The PC Systems Blog.  This is because we have added contributors and hope to round out the content.
• Theme – We changed our blog engine to WordPress so it required a change in theme.
• Categories – We are going to start organizing our posts a little better using categories and tags which should help direct you to the content you want.
• Content Strategy – With the addition of team members willing to contribute, it is our hope that we can develop a schedule and update the blog on a regular basis.  Also, we hope to develop additional content, such as whitepapers.

We appreciate your patience during the transition!

What an exciting time to be part of PC Systems!  Not too long ago, I introduced you to Kevin Genevro, a new Engineer to our team.  I have similar exciting news on the Quality front as Andy Gahr joins our team as Quality Manager.  Andy carries a stellar resume and we consider his addition a big step in our growth as an organization.  Take a look at his LinkedIn profile:

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/andrew-gahr/7/956/7a0

Andy has been certified as a Six Sigma Black Belt, Army Veteran, and is well known locally for his excellent Quality background.  More importantly, he has immediately contributed and had an impact at PCS.

With Andy’s guidance, we have rewritten our Design and Development procedures to provide more value to our customer.  This was a follow-up to some of our Value Stream Map exercises to get rid of Waste in those processes.  Hopefully you get an opportunity to feel the benefits of these improvements on your next RFQ with PCS.

Please help me welcome Andy as we continue to transition our company into a solutions provider for all of your electrical interconnect needs.

An additional note, some of you who have had the pleasure of working with Dave Gillen (former QM) in the past may wonder what his status is.  He is still here and will be working with Andy in the Quality department helping in all the ways he has in the past.