Recent Interactions with Youth
One result of Manufacturing Month was to spend time with students talking about and showing them manufacturing careers.
Local 6th Graders invited me to take a picture with them
Reflecting on that fun event, I considered it with other opportunities to build a framework. Like the time we spend working with college interns and another event I attended at the local high school honoring a very successful businessman/ past graduate. Topping all that off was receiving and sending off hundreds of children visiting our door for Halloween treats.
In each of those cases, these young people, from elementary age to college, were respectful, attentive, pleasant, engaging and generally pleasant to be around.
In a recent business conversation with a person from a different community (much larger than the one here where PlastiCert is located), their story was quite different. In events where they were before those students the interaction was almost the complete opposite.
It just illustrated for me how important the relationship between community and business is, and how it affects a successful outcome.
The vast majority of PlastiCert’s coworkers are from town right here. As I have blogged about before, a great deal of our success is due to the people we have here, which are a byproduct of the local community.
In my early career days, I was a Supplier Quality Engineer. When visiting new suppliers and assessing their abilities to work with us, I looked at the big picture. Certainly technology, equipment, systems, and processing KPIs were on the checklist. But so were the people I encountered. Not just the management, sales, or engineering people, but the people I met on the floor along the way. Even the notes, reminders, and pictures they hung in their work areas told me a good deal about how they pictured themselves and their role in supplying the goods or services I was assessing.
What is the make-up of your current injection molder? Do you know who you are working with and the type of company they have? Are they a solid organization or are you maybe living on borrowed time until a major supply incident occurs?
If you are unsure, I would take the time to find out. We welcome visitors, of any age, to come and see not just what we do, but who we are. We’d love to see you too! Give us a call.