MFGx Blog

RE: The Role of the Internet in Developing Your Business

no1toolmkr — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 16:09:09 GMT

thats brilliant. I'm going to look into something Similar. I've allready replaced all of my employee's but I find jobs that it would be nice to have running that require more attention.

RE: The Role of the Internet in Developing Your Business

info — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 21:35:07 GMT

Re project workers: We bring in skilled temps as the project demands, rather than hiring employees who may or may not be able to handle what comes into the shop. We are in an area that doesn't support a lot of skilled machine workers and those who are here are at CAT or some other giant concern. We are fortunate in that a lot of retired, skilled machinists and builders do live in the area and are in our (and Manpower's etc) database. Having fulltime employees would shoot our costs into the stratosphere. We are, in many ways, the manual version of your shop, Eric. We only hire as needed which means the customer is actually only paying for his/her project, not the 3 projects that came before! It allows us to be very competitive in the marketplace and the workers we get are suited to the project at hand.

RE: The Role of the Internet in Developing Your Business

aj — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 21:31:20 GMT

And we're blessed that you do, Anita.

RE: The Role of the Internet in Developing Your Business

info — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 21:28:43 GMT

I mentioned on your other post that I don't think folks are afraid of blogs (I'm certainly not) but I do think it's imperative that people keep in mind that blogs are PUBLIC, which is great but is a double-edged sword - therefore, when you are talking about projects, make sure you are not violating any customer privacy agreements/nondisclose, etc. Other than that, I think blogs are excellent ways to communicate with past, current and potential customers. If only we had time! I can barely scrape up the minutes to respond to posts on this blog!LOL!

Anita

www.bearboring.com

RE: Make Your Web Site The Center Of Your Universe

aj — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 18:43:51 GMT

Outposts - that's a new one on me. Thanks for the post, Dan. And welcome to the site.

RE: The Role of the Internet in Developing Your Business

dpritchett — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 18:06:35 GMT

Let's not be too scared of blogs. Michael Dell sees social media as a must for customer relations:

“The first step was to add blogs and message boards in the hope that irate customers will talk to the company rather than gripe to the whole Internet. “If we don’t do that at Dell.com, it’s going to be on CNET or somewhere,” Michael Dell says. “I’d rather have that conversation in my living room than in somebody else’s.”

RE: Make Your Web Site The Center Of Your Universe

dpritchett — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 18:01:50 GMT

Good read! I also like Chris Brogan's writeup on using outposts in your media strategy.

I get a lot of mileage out of FriendFeed and Twitter for networking but I haven't gotten my company interested in them yet. I'll keep at it!

RE: The Role of the Internet in Developing Your Business

no1toolmkr — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 13:22:58 GMT

I don't think they are out to break your heart. I'm not to sure what you mean by project workers?
CNC machines are just the way of the time. I have 7 of them and I bought 4 of them off of e-bay LOL I think thats just funny. I too used to think CNCs were not for the tool room and could not be practical on one'sy two'sies or in your words parts you have to tweak in. I would encourage you to buy an older CNC of some sort you can find them everywhere pretty reasonable too. get bobcad its the cheapest and simplest CAM software and start playing, you soon will be having a lot of fun with it.
We're getting off beat here though the discussion is the internet and marketing on it. I'm so close to being able to control a CNC machine remotely from the internet It makes me wonder. How far in the future till you call up a robot factory on the internet send a digital file of the part. receive your special product by a robot UPS man and it not have been handled by human hands. Now that would be cool and it doesn't seem like it so far off in the future either.
I truly believe we are in the midst of an industrial revolution, and certainly its the internet doing alot of the motivation because if one shop can do it with less manpower and cheaper than you, that shop can still compete even though he is around the globe. The day when the shop that wins the work will be the one with the most advanced technology not the cheapest manpower is here now though and it is totally because of the internet.

RE: The Role of the Internet in Developing Your Business

info — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 04:17:15 GMT

NASA sounds like a lot of fun to work with and it's that sort of thing that really jazzes Bear, to be able to deconstruct parts or work with engineers or project/process managers on parts that are either problematic or could just benefit from some practical 'tweaking' - we are always looking for those kinds of projects. NASA seems to be a bit different from working for the military, which has rules and regs to break your heart:-) I liken them to our alternative energy customers - they, too, enjoy having their home-grown accomplishments touted.

Someday soon we will probably start making the move to CNC on some machines - right now we are all manual but we keep our costs down by only using project workers, v. employees. Keeps the costs down for us, specific to the job and allows us to pass those savings on to our customers.

RE: The Role of the Internet in Developing Your Business

no1toolmkr — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 06:42:49 GMT

Anita This is one of the biggest reasons I work on NASA jobs. They love the attention. every other customer I have doesnt like everyone knowing who does their work for obvious reasons, however gvmt entities kinda like the attention. They like it when people know they are spending money domestically and are sometimes pretty excited to see it in print or published on a site. Not to mention they are a very good and apreciative customer.
most gvmt agencies are pretty well known and usually a good reference of your businesses accomplishments. They will even send you pictures of A finnished project that you may have contributed too. I have some pretty cool pic's of lunar rovers, ground support equip., engines in testing all of which I have played a part in their development. I currently do stuff for 3 different NASA locations houston, Tx. White sands, NM. and Cleveland, Oh.
It's been a HUGE help in getting the attention of other aerospace customers for me.
www.ericstoolroom.com