At the dawn of the 21st century, manufacturing firms are facing a shifting business landscape on many levels. Everything from employment trends to raw material costs seems to be in flux, and energy usage is no exception. How companies consume, waste, conserve, and pay for their energy resources is now a hot topic and a strong determinant of success for both business-to-business and business-to-consumer manufacturing enterprises.

What should you be doing to make sure your business is eco-conscious? And why should you invest in clean, green energy decisions even if they seem to promise low short-term ROI?

The Value of Environmental Consciousness

Consider Diamond Wipes International, a manufacturing facility located in Chino, California. The company, a mid-sized producer of disposable wipes for the hotel and restaurant industry, recently invested in a giant 3,360 panel solar power installation at its Chino plant. The installation produces enough to offset the company’s energy needs, and even collects energy in excess of those needs on sunny days. But at 1.6 million dollars, or eight percent of the company’s yearly earnings, the panels came at no small cost.

And even while they supply clean, cost-free energy and much of their investment will be returned in the form of government rebates, the panels are not expected to pay for themselves for at least seven or eight years. So where is the financial value of the panels expected to lie? And why has the company made this decision? Diamond’s answer is simple: It’s just good business.

A Green Reputation

Many manufacturing firms, especially business-to-business enterprises like Diamond, are seeing trends in the market landscape that show a strong and rising consumer demand for products developed by green companies, using green materials in green facilities. Everything matters, from energy sources to packaging, to the origin of raw materials. And since Diamond’s business clients are facing a high expectation of sustainability from their consumers, that demand shapes and influences their supply chains.

While Diamond may have poured a heavy upfront investment into its green energy installation, the company is already seeing the benefits in increased business-to-business client interest. In an age of increasing concern for sustainable business practices, manufacturers are advised to think “clearly, but quickly” as they consider adopting cleaner standards. And most experts agree that those who ignore green energy and production trends do so at great financial risk.

Are you facing important green energy decisions and trying to calculate optimal levels of investment? The Seattle small business and staffing experts at Pace can help. Contact us for us for a consultation today.

Workplace injury rates are a fairly easy thing to measure; in any given workplace, between the beginning of the year and the end, workers either experience injuries or they don’t. Company efforts to reduce injury and illness receive varying levels of managerial support, though we can all agree (or at least give lip service to the belief, as some companies do) that reduced injury rates are a positive, both for worker job satisfaction and company bottom lines.

But “workplace safety” is a slightly different metric, one with more ambiguity and broader shades of meaning. Some studies actually suggest that workers who feel safer or believe they’re working in a safe environment experience 32 percent fewer injuries, even if no specific safety measures have been implemented. But if these suggestions are true, isn’t it likely that whatever generates this feeling contributes to a genuinely safer workplace? Most important, how can managerial decisions raise both subjective and objective safety levels in an office, field site, or warehouse?

Steps to Creating a Safety Culture

The first step toward a safe workplace is the cultivation of a “safety culture,” a shared organizational respect for safety that improves the behavior of the company, even when public opinion and government regulators aren’t watching. Take these steps to elevate your cultural approach to health and safety, even in the abstract.

1. Make sure health and safety are included in your organization’s mission statement and reflected in the words of your president and CEO. Values start at the top.

2. Allocate sufficient resources to follow through on safety initiatives. These resources may be dedicated to equipment maintenance, training, or staffing strategies.

3. Make sure that safety policies and procedures are written down and adequately distributed. They should also be regularly and consistently enforced.

4.  Perform inspections, audits and walk-throughs on a regular basis. The CEO and president should participate in these walk-throughs and be confronted directly with all breaches and oversights.

5. Include a strong safety component in the orientation process for new hires. Studies consistently show that new employees are at greater risk of injury than their more experienced counterparts.

6.  Managers and supervisors should be held to the same safety rules and standards as lower-level employees. Make sure your supervisors act as role models and are held accountable for safety violations.

7.  Carefully and formally investigate every accident and near-miss. Don’t brush off any workplace incident with safety implications. Instead, analyze the details and generate a report that documents lessons learned and outlines a plan to prevent repeat episodes.

Could your workplace benefit from improved safety training or a stronger cultural approach to injury prevention? Contact the Seattle staffing and employment experts at Pace for workplace safety information and training resources.

According to a June 2012, Workforce Management survey involving close to 1200 participants, employers ranked their reasons for using temporary and contract employees as follows…

• Access to Specialized Skills 39.8%
• To retain flexibility amidst economic uncertainty 38.5%
• Save labor costs 27.5%
• Evaluate candidates before hiring 20.4%
• Quick shifts in business strategy 15.4%
• Other 18.1%

While historically, employers used temporary workers, contractors and independent contractors to lower costs, this data shows a shift in “business drivers” towards an increased focus on issues related to worker quality.  There is greater interest in using and temporary and contract workers as a way to obtain workforce flexibility, get quick access to specialized skills, and to ensure better internal hires – all shining a light on the continued upgrade in the quality of temporary and contract workers available in the marketplace.

The same 2012 Workforce Management survey also signaled a shift in the employer’s concerns about their use of contingent staffing strategies.  When asked to identify concerns about their current temporary workforce, the quality of work performed is a primary concern – 42.5% indicating again, that worker quality has to be a key focus of workforce strategists.  Of special note is that 90.0% of survey participants reported that their temporary or contract workers were either equal to or perceived to be of better quality than their own core workers.

According to the Institute for Supply Management, manufacturing activity in July barely inched up from an index number of 49.8 from June’s reading of 49.7, and represents the first “real” contraction in the factory sector since July 2009 which supposedly signaled the beginning of the economic recovery. Index readings under 50 indicate activity is shrinking instead of growing, and July marks the second month in a row where the index stayed below 50.    

According to industry observers, the details of the ISM report suggest even more sluggishness ahead. While order backlogs fell, inventories surged.  New orders—always an indicator of what lies ahead—rose at very minimal levels, suggesting firms are dispatching old orders but not getting many new ones.  Exports dropped in July for the second consecutive month.

Manufacturing employment, which up until now has been one of the few bright spots in  overall job growth, fell sharply.  While companies, our clients included, are still hiring, they aren’t doing so with a whole lot of confidence that current manufacturing levels can be sustained.

Are you engaged in an ongoing, seemingly endless staffing search for a CNC programmer? Are you having trouble finding and retaining specific types of mechanical and electrical technicians? Where do you turn when you need machinists and skill-specific craftspeople, and are these resources providing the talent you’re looking for? If you’re like 65 percent of survey respondents in the manufacturing industry, you’re struggling to find qualified candidates for skilled manufacturing positions. And while your search goes on, these positions stand empty or are occupied by untrained and under-qualified help.

Staffing Skilled Manufacturing Positions

We live in a curious age. While the job market struggles, millions of talented employees stand in line for work. But their specific skills don’t necessarily match company need in local areas. As companies grow, they cut costs by shipping positions to less expensive candidate pools overseas. And meanwhile, our education system labors to keep up with the increasingly diverse and specialized skills sets generated by sophisticated, programmable manufacturing equipment. Educational programs are often too general to be of value to employers, or too specific, long, and expensive to interest potential students. Matching the right candidate to the right job has now become a search for a needle in a haystack the size of the entire nation, if not the world.

The internet has arrived just in time to help partially resolve this problem, but online job boards aren’t quite enough to keep up with shifting trends and fluctuations in candidate availability. In terms of human capital and HR sourcing, both the obstacles and advantages to business growth are increasing at similar rates.

Manufacturing Industry Staffing: Training Programs

The answer may lie in on-the-job and manufacturer-sponsored training programs. Consider programs like Right Skills Now, launched as a pilot at the Dunwoody College of Technology and South Central Community College in Minnesota. This is a 24-week program broken down into 18 weeks of classes and labs, followed by a six-week paid internship as a CNC operator. The program works in partnership with several manufacturing training institutions in order to provide the curriculum and generate the skills that manufacturers need.

Will programs like this succeed? The answer will depend on two primary factors: Students must find long-term value in the training they receive, enough value for them to keep lining up, showing interest, and justifying both student and industry investments. And the program must be replicable across the entire industry, covering more than just the regional area and offering more than just CNC skills.  If these things materialize during the next few years, this form of industry training may expand opportunities for employees and also help manufacturers staff much-needed positions and follow through on company growth goals.

For more information about Right Skills Now and other pilot manufacturing training initiatives, contact the Washington employment experts at the Pace Staffing Network. We provide the resources you need to match the right applicant with the right job, every time.

The holiday season may seem like the most critical make-or-break moment of the year for retailers and consumer electronics manufacturers, but industry insiders recognize that this assessment is off by a week or two. True financial success or failure is actually measured during January and February, when companies deal with an avalanche of returns.

Returns are serious business. The high cost of transportation, handling, product disposal, lost sales revenue, and the complex logistical details involved in the returns process can knock the foundations out from under a business already faced with tight competition and very narrow margins. And these challenges are notorious aspects of the consumer electronics manufacturing industry. So when it comes to returns management, what’s exactly at stake? And where can companies target potential improvements?

The High Cost of Returns

As of 2012, retailers and manufacturers in the U.S. are now spending approximately 100 billion dollars each year on returns management alone. 17 billion of these dollars are spent by the consumer electronics sector, which has experienced a 21 percent increase in returns expenses since 2007. According to survey results, most electronics manufacturers see these numbers trending steadily upward, not downward, in coming years.

Returns Management: Identifying the Source of the Problem

Surprisingly, the most common reason behind consumer electronics returns isn’t related to product flaws or customer dissatisfaction. Only about five percent of returns are cited as defect-related. Instead, customers tend to return electronics due to buyer’s remorse. Customers also demonstrate a very light commitment to an electronics purchase if they experience frustration or a lack of support as they attempt to install the product, start it up, or use it for the first time.

Providing more aftermarket support may reduce these “no fault found” returns, but this represents just one of many possible solutions. Others include focusing on the design stage, improving operability, and making products more user-friendly.

Returns Management: Handling Customer Complaints

A strong customer service strategy can also cut into the losses generated by annual returns. Educate your CRM team and develop a service call avoidance program. This will reduce your total number of complaint and service calls and increase your overall rate of first call completion, or issues resolved after just one call.

The key to exceptional customer service may lie in your hiring strategy. Carefully screen (and train) every member of your call center staff. Your customer service staff should be able to understand all relevant consumer electronics issues and communicate assistance clearly and effectively.

Returns Management: Reverse Logistics

Are you outsourcing the services of a company that specializes in return logistics? If so, you’re not alone. But if possible, consider partnering with or directly acquiring companies that specialize in return services and asset disposal. Remarketing, refurbishment, and IT recycling are becoming increasingly specialized industries and you may generate greater efficiency by fully incorporating the services of established firms.

For general business news and guidance with HR strategy and human capital management, contact the experts at Pace Staffing Network. Put our experience to work for you.