Thomas™ is another marketplace where buyers can search among 500,000+ different North American suppliers using 193 different filters in 70,000 different categories to quote jobs. Their goal is to help buyers and suppliers get the job done. The President of Thomas™, Shawn Fitzgerald, is an executive and leader with a history of building teams, packaging products, scaling processes, and...
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Crystal Van Vleet is a skilled industrial marketer, technical designer, 3D mechanical animator, people manager, strategic planner, culture builder, and the 8th female CMTSE (Certified Machine Tool Sales Engineer). She is THE Director of Marketing for Advanced Machine & Engineering and the MakingChips Administrative Assistant. Crystal’s job has evolved extensively over her years with AME and...
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Michael Watkins and David Capkovitz are Principals at EBITDA Growth Systems, a consulting firm dedicated to helping organizations transform themselves into profitable companies. David started as a machinist in Indiana, after which he became a toolmaker. Shortly after that he started a business in manufacturing and building surgical implants and instruments. He sold that company in 2010—one of...
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Matt Carr is a manufacturer, inventor, welder, and the President of Storch Products and Aerotrust LLC. He works with talented and dedicated professionals who serve over 1,000 customers annually. Matt’s also had a difficult time replacing retiring team members. And according to the American Welding Society, the welding industry will face a shortage of about 400,000 welders by 2024. Matt found a...
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If you are not a goal-setter — personally or for your business — it’s our hope that this article changes your mind. Many people don’t set goals because it feels like more effort than it’s worth, but the reality is that it’s one of the most important and beneficial things you can do. Goals benefit you in eight specific ways.
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Back on episode 292, we featured Jeff Taylor, President and CEO of Craft Technologies. When Jeff came into the role as CEO, his first and highest goal was to make the company world-class in everything it did. His leadership was instrumental in making that happen, but it wasn’t through his charisma and smarts, it was through utilizing approaches to employee empowerment that he’d long wanted to see...
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There likely isn’t a single business that hasn’t been impacted by the supply chain crisis. The impact trickles down to customers, which creates further problems. In a recent episode of Making Chips, we talked about some of the causes of the chaos as well as three things you can do to mitigate the impact on your business.
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The very technical definition of an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) is that it is an employee benefit plan that gives workers ownership interest in the company; this interest takes the form of shares of stock. ESOPs give the sponsoring company—the selling shareholder—and participants various tax benefits, making them qualified plans. Employers often use ESOPs as a corporate-finance...
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What does your hiring process look like? We have a great three-step process in place at ZENGERS that helps us hire the right people. What does it look like?
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In a recent episode of Making Chips, we talked about preparing your family and your business for the potential of a recession. But how do you forecast future growth? What questions should you ask to determine goals and next steps?
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Manufacturers who are AS9100 certified demonstrate to their customers that they are serious about creating and delivering high-quality systems through tested processes. The AS9100 standard works in conjunction with the ISO 9001 standard and is the quality management system (QMS) standard for aviation, aerospace, and defense. As important as this certification can be, it is no surprise that the...
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I’ve been in business for 41 years and I’ve never seen anything like this. Business is better than it’s ever been. But I haven’t been able to sleep at night. Why? I think about why we’ve been so busy. The majority of the reasons are positive: We’ve done a great job of identifying industries that are a good fit for what we do. We’ve been focusing on creating a dynamic and authentic culture ...
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