Related Posts

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  Finding Talent with Build My Future

  This blog is written by Thomas Little, Sales Development Representative, speaking on his experience at the Build My Future trade show.  Finding quality employees is a pain point that most companies currently struggle with. Therefore, new ways of finding talent are essential to remaining competitive in the current job market. The Build My Future trade show is one great way to engage with potential future employees.  The Build My Future trade show started in Springfield, Missouri but now pans many states, including Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wisconsin. For the first time the trade show occurred in St. Charles, Missouri as well. This trade show consists of local organizations inviting high schoolers to spend a day learning about potential career paths. In addition, employers set up booths where they will have a hands-on activity that shows what individuals may be doing if they go into that field of work.  The first Build My Future trade show was in Springfield, Missouri at the fairgrounds on 4/13. Approximately 2,700 high schoolers attended this event. I was blown away by the ...

• What's Love Got To Do With It? EVERYTHING!

  At Cambridge, we speak of having love for our fellow employees often. This isn’t the romantic love, though today is Valentine’s Day, but rather, the sort of love that is built upon mutual respect, admiration, and encouragement to learn and grow personally. Our playbook even includes the phrase “We express unconditional love and high expectations while behaving with care, courage, integrity and respect.” It might not be instinctive to recognize love in the workplace, but when you are aware of it, we’d bet that it is, in fact, surrounding you. We are going to share some examples of how love manifests itself into everyday life in our workplace, so that anyone reading this blog may start to recognize and appreciate simple acts around them, or simply start to institute the simple acts themselves. Colleagues clappingto show appreciation for each lean video– the 2 second improvements and the ones that took much, much longer. The men and women on the activities committee getting here 2-3 hours early on the days they cook breakfast to welcome new hires and celebrate birthdays. The ...

• Growth Starts With Humility

  Our organization has embarked on an employee engagement path that has literally caught fire throughout the company. Several Cambridge Engineering, Inc. production managers embraced the LEAN philosophy espoused by Paul Akers in his book, 2 Second Lean: How to grow people and build a lean culture. Our production team’s focus from the beginning has been on training people how to think differently. Many sophisticated books have been written on the LEAN topic. Paul’s book is not one of them. Paul details a path towards employee engagement that everyone can understand. As leader of the sales team, I have watched the trans-formative power of a LEAN mindset with our Ops team and have been inspired to apply this thinking to my life. While our operations team has a head start in embracing these teachings and this thinking, there is a powerful message at the very beginning of the book that applies to all leaders that are considering the necessary strategies and tactics to grow their business, grow their market share, increase pipelines, improve closing ratios or improve processes and flow ...

• Choosing the Right Heating System for your Facility

  Is the heating bill for your plant or warehouse too high? What about cold dock door areas and unbalanced temperatures? Is negative building pressure a problem? Do your employees complain about it being too cold making it harder for them to do their job? Do you have high maintenance costs from existing heating equipment? These are just a few common problems that result from selecting the wrong heating system, misplacing your heaters so they can’t reach their full potential or using obsolete technology. What factors determine the best space heating system? Everyone wants a heating & ventilating system that meets their unique requirements at the lowest total cost. Before selecting a heater, define the heating/ventilating requirements and understand all the cost factors that determine the true lowest total cost solution for a specific facility. BOILER SYSTEMS One of the oldest forms of heating, boilers have been in existence since about the 1800’s and are still a preferred system of heating in large industrial facilities where remote plants deliver steam and hot water to satellite locations to circulate through heat exchangers. These exchangers ...
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  Delivering Excellence: Transforming Production with the Model Line Approach

  In the fast-paced world of manufacturing, delivering top-quality products efficiently is essential. At our Wentzville location, we've embarked on a transformative journey to optimize the production line for our Spec Air Series. Let's explore how adopting a model line approach has not only boosted efficiency but also enhanced the quality of our offerings for our valued customers. Motivation for Standardization: Our decision to implement a model line approach was fueled by a shared commitment to eliminate uncertainties in our production process. Inspired by the success of the Toyota method, we aimed to establish complete standard work, leaving no room for ambiguity. Past challenges during new product rollouts underscored the need for a structured approach to ensure success. The Four Cells Approach: We divided the Spec Air Series production line into four specialized cells, each dedicated to a specific stage of manufacturing. This one-piece flow model streamlined transitions and increased efficiency, with a notable improvement being the integration of crate assembly into the testing phase. Small Teams and New Product Line Advantage: Introducing small teams into each cell facilitated smoother navigation of the challenges associated with ...
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  Diversifying Your Team Starts with Culture

  Tugboat Institute – an organization we’re a part of that unites other purpose-driven leaders – just shared an article showcasing our very own CEO, John Kramer. In the article, John delves into our journey of fostering a more balanced workforce. He sheds light on the shifts we observed in our applicant demographic during the challenging times of COVID-19. Interestingly, we noticed an increase in female applicants, and when we dug into it, they shared insights about feeling genuinely welcomed, supported, and more! Here is a quick snip from the original article: In the world of manufacturing, achieving or even approaching gender balance has historically been challenging. The physical work that it requires was once considered more appropriate for men, and though we now know that is not the case, it’s been a hard stereotype to dismantle. However, in recent years, here at Cambridge Air Solutions, we have managed to defy the odds and create a more balanced workforce. It happened partially on purpose and partially by accident, but as we look back and study the changes we’ve seen in recent years, we ...