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We Can Do That
When a customer recently inquired about installing a Duplex version of ETTER Engineering’s popular E101-P natural gas booster package into a very tight space, our engineering and design team jumped into action. Whereas a traditional Duplex package would have the gas booster pumps mounted side-by-side, this installation called for a vertical design to be developed, stacking the two gas booster pumps on top of each other, with the enclosure containing the touch-screen controls mounted atop the pumps. Despite the extra engineering work, the project was still completed within our standard lead-time, leading to a very happy customer! Nice work, team! Contact Us
ETTER – An American Growth Story – Part #5
In Parts 1-4, we talked about Goal Setting, Building a Plan, Setting your KPI’s and Creating Culture and Building your Team. The fifth part of building a great business is building a system of accountability to ensure that you stay on track and keep focused on the plan. Building an accountability system is key to your success. In my experience, this is where most planning efforts fail. You go off to a strategic planning session, make great progress, develop a plan and then fail to put the accountability and discipline in place to ensure the plan is achieved. At ETTER, we hold Leadership meetings twice a month and they are built around accountability to the plan. In addition, we hold quarterly company meetings where the strategic…
ETTER – An American Business Growth Story Part #4
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…
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 Then and Now…..
Each quarter we hold a company meeting to review our progress for the previous quarter and talk about our plans for the upcoming quarter. We also review the ETTER Way – our points of culture that we want our team to model. One of our points of culture is Drive and Embrace Change. In thinking about this point, it became clear to me that the more we change here at ETTER, the more things stay the same. Let me explain. In the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s, we built gas boosters, we sold and built custom manufactured solutions, we sold regulators, meters, burners and combustion related parts, built and sold control panels and had a field service team. In 2015, we basically do the same things. What has…
We Never Stop Learning!
At ETTER Engineering, we know knowledge is power, which is why we have pledged to never stop learning! That adage extends to our own products, which is why we gathered our Sales Team this morning for an update on each of ETTER’s product lines. The opportunity to ask questions, see product demos, and go over sales and marketing materials is invaluable, and will certainly help our sales team assist our customers to the best of their abilities! 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
Make it bETTER
We have an initiative called Make it bETTER – it is our drive to continually improve our operations and to work together to, well, make things better! Brenda, our Purchasing Agent, brought to me a work tool that Jeremy, one of our Electrical and Mechanical Shop team members, created for James, our Shipping and Receiving Clerk. The idea is to make it easier and better for James to receive the different sizes of pipe in a more efficient manner. Picture is below. Brenda says that this will save James a lot of time in trying to figure out the size of pipe. Jeremy created this tool for James to Make it bETTER. Well done Jeremy! Contact Us