In Parts 1-3, we talked about Goal Setting, Building a Plan, Setting your KPI’s. The fourth part of building a great business is creating your company culture and building your team. First, start with your culture. It is important to understand the current culture of your organization, your shortfalls and what behaviors you want to encourage in the workplace. At ETTER, we created the ETTER Way. It is a set of 4 behaviors that we want all of our team members to model on a daily basis. 1. Make it bETTER – This speaks to continuous improvement and striving to be part of the positive environment, not the negative. We are looking for Victors, not Victims. Victors make it better, victims make it worse. In…
Archives
ETTER – An American Business Growth Story Part #3
Earlier, we talked about setting a goal and building a plan. Part #3 deals with measuring success. At ETTER, we have created our Key Performance Indicators or KPI’s. KPI’s are measurements that we track against every month – we set a goal and track our progress towards the goal. One person owns the goal and is responsible for the achievement, which leads to accountability and success. Our KPI’s for 2015 are; Sales Revenue – Kind of a no-brainer, but we track our sales revenue by client and against our budget and last year. On-Time Delivery – Because of how we process jobs, our on-time delivery metric cuts across our Sales, Project Management, Engineering, Purchasing, Production, Testing, Quality Assurance, Shipping and Accounting areas. We have a…
ETTER – An American Business Growth Story – Part 2
In Part 1, we talked about the importance of having a goal. A goal without a plan is just a wish. You need to have a solid plan behind the goal to ensure that you are doing the right things necessary to achieve the goal. We have the following plans; 5 year plan 1 year plan 90 day plan 30 day plan We look at the business in the following categories; Grow the Business – These are our Sales and Marketing Strategies Drive the Economics – These are our Cost Containment and Expense Management Strategies Build a High Performing Team – These are our People Strategies Make it bETTER – These are our Operational Improvement Strategies Create Raving Fans – These are our Customer Strategies…
ETTER – An American Business Growth Story – Part 1
In 2015, ETTER Engineering celebrates our 75th anniversary. Founded in 1940, we have endured a World War, survived 13 Presidents of the United States and made it through 13 recessions. In 2013, ETTER was named to the INC 500|5000 fastest growing private companies in the United States. We think it’s pretty cool…. So, how does a 75 year old manufacturing business, headquartered in the worst ranked state for business, make the INC 500|5000 list in 2013, 2014 and we are pretty sure we are going to be on the list for 2015? This is the first of a five (5) part story of how ETTER accomplished this feat….. Part #1. It all started with a goal. In 2007, Tom Etter and Jon Moore, owners of…
Looking Back On 75 Years
ETTER Engineering President Tom Etter’s remarks from our 75th Anniversary Celebration on February 27th Contact Us
ETTER Engineering Celebrates 75 Years!
75 years – It’s a lifetime. 75 years is a long existence for just about anything, but especially a small, family-owned business. As ETTER Engineering celebrates our 75th Anniversary, we proudly look back to 1940, the year that our company began. Life was different back then, but one thing that has remained the same through the years is our customers’ need for support with the application and control of gas-fired process heating equipment. 1940 saw World War II continue to rage in Europe. Future star athletes Fran Tarkenton and Joe Torre were born, along with stalwarts of the American Media like Tom Brokaw and Al Pacino. Manufacturing in America was booming, both from wartime production as well as standard economic output. With that as a…
A Visit by Heather Somers
The Republican candidate for Lieutenant Governor, Heather Somers, paid a visit to ETTER Engineering today. Along with the Mayor of the city of Bristol, Ken Cockayne, Jim Albert, CEO of the Central Connecticut Chamber and Justin Malley, Director of the Bristol Development Authority, Somers spent some time on the production floor learning about the world of combustion and manufacturing. After taking a tour of our manufacturing facility, she briefly yet graciously outlined her administration’s plans to support small business in Connecticut. As a 75-year old manufacturing company with a strong, proud tradition in Connecticut, it was nice to have a pro-business leader visit us! Contact Us
ETTER Helps Out Make-A-Wish
ETTER Engineering’s Service Department puts some serious miles on our vehicles. After years of pounding the pavement, our trusty purple Dodge Caravan had seen better days. Rather than simply junk it, we decided to donate it to the Make-A-Wish Foundation in the hopes they will benefit from its eventual sale at auction. While we’re all sad to see the “Eggplant On Wheels” go, it’s nice knowing its demise will benefit a great cause! Contact Us
ETTER Engineering Partners with Lifecycle Renewables
ETTER Engineering is excited to announce our partnership with Lifecycle Renewables, makers of renewable fuels using waste cooking oil and fats. This exciting partnership will give us an alternative when we have an existing client or future client that wants to convert from #2, #4, or #6 heating oil and we can’t convert them to natural gas. Read more… Contact Us
Connecticut Manufacturing Shows Dynamic Growth and Destruction
A recent piece from WNPR.org highlights the creative destruction of the manufacturing industry within Connecticut. As the article by Harriet Jones notes, manufacturing has had it tough in the last three years. Since 2010, the sector has seen a net decline in employment of about 4,000 jobs in Connecticut. But that number masks the fact that there’s been tremendous turnover in the industry — about 40,000 jobs have been created in that time, and just as many lost. Patrick Flaherty is an economist with the state Department of Labor. “The economy is very dynamic,” he said, “and there are companies that are going out of business all the time, unfortunately, but new companies are starting all the time, which is great.” The article goes on to…