As an engineer, it is more common than not, that at some point in your day someone will come to you with a problem to solve. It is our responsibility as engineers to help people with these problems and come up with an answer, but sometimes that is not the right mentality. Engineers have been trained that every problem has a solution – only one solution. This can create a huge injustice to our company and our customers.
In the interest of our customers and Birk, sometimes it is better to have the mindset that we need to create solutions rather than just solve problems. By creating a solution you can have a broader view of what the issue is and possibly think of everything on a larger scale. By altering our mindset from problem solver to that of being a solution creator, we can provide solutions that are more efficient, easier to manufacture and even more cost effective.
What solutions can Birk create for you today?
Mark O’Connell
Engineering Manager
Birk Manufacturing business is thermal circuits and subassemblies. This requires us to be nimble and cost effective at the same time, although, these two demands make for a challenging relationship. Most of the time being expedient is associated with substantially higher costs, due in part by the necessity to carry more inventory and having materials shipped overnight, which can be avoided by working together and partnering. Combine all that and you have custom manufacturing. We have accepted orders with turnaround of as little as one day and our standard lead time from receipt of order to shipping is two weeks, obviously we prefer a bit more time but have the ability, resources and willingness to work with the customer.
How are we able to respond so quickly? We have most of the required resources under one roof. Customers can directly contact our application engineers; we have an onsite etching facility for foil heating elements, a dark room with an image setter, screening room, standard resistance wires, a multitude of lead wires and sensors. We are a company large enough to handle prototypes, large production runs and still accept those small orders of high end units, knowing that they may be the seeds of the future.
Some customers know exactly what they want and have chosen the best cost-effective design, others are not quite so sure and sometimes that works out well. The ability to build with universal parts, or the reduction of manufacturing processes, is a huge factor in cost and is usually only completely understood by a specialized company. The sooner you get our engineers involved with a project and design, the more you benefit with application performance and pricing. We also have a large sales force, many are engineers that will make visits and assist in any way possible. The best way to survive in today’s business climate is to cultivate great supply chains and partnerships where both parties prosper and profit.
Howard Birk
Vice President
The beginning of a new year ushers in the opportunity to plan for the future and set new goals and objectives which everyone will work towards achieving over the next twelve months. Our team at Birk is well known for having high aspirations and expectations and we’re constantly seeking a new challenge to conquer. That being said, this is always an exciting time of year at Birk Manufacturing and one that is full of much anticipation and enthusiasm.
This year Birk has selected to target our company wide quality objectives as the main event for our twelve month heavy weight battle. We have increased our weekly on time fill rate (OTFR) goal from above 90% to above 95%. For this objective we track how well we respond to our customer demand, not how well we perform against what we determined as our target ship date based on current workload and inventory supplies. If a customer calls Birk and requests to have their order in three days when our current lead time is two to three weeks, we use the three day request when calculating our metric. We feel this calculation better portrays how well we serve our valued customers. Furthermore, we also track the how well we fulfill customer demand without shipping any defective or non-conforming product. We track this using our monthly defect-free OTFR which takes the average OTFR for the past month and calculates it against our returns percentage for that same month. This year our goal for monthly defect-free OTFR has been increased from above 85% to above 93%. Other quality objectives include reduction of scrap, reduction of orders returned, zero full orders returned, and zero lost-time due to safety. Now that we have our new goals and objectives for 2012…let the battle begin!
Happy New Year!
Carleton Birk
Quality Assurance Manager
Here at Birk Manufacturing we have the pleasure of developing products for a vast array of applications. We have designed heaters and thermal solutions for toys and in the same month have developed heaters for space stations. In our industry we are able to provide a thermal solution anywhere an end customer may need heat. Our top industries cover the following areas:
1. Medical
2. Semiconductor
3. Defense
4. Industrial
5. Commercial
Just because these are our top industries does not mean we are only limited to these industries as we have provided solutions to other industries and applications. One day we could be designing a heater for a blood analyzer and the next we could be designing a sub-assembly for railway threshold.
If you need to provide, control or localize a thermal solution, we can help you with your design. We may not have designed a solution for your application but we have surely done something similar. New industries and applications (no matter how big or small) are always welcomed at Birk Manufacturing!
Mark O’Connell
Engineering Manager
This week we are planning our Physical Inventory and Christmas parties, the two apparently do not mix well. This is the time of year we rejoice and reflect on the past year, and then set a course for the New Year. Our company, as a whole, has a lot to be very thankful for, made possible by the combined efforts of many individuals. Through out the year there have been some growing pains to be sure, but with the understanding that is essential for the company to move forward. All the employees have been challenged to continue to grow by learning new subjects or gain a deeper understanding resulting in leaving their comfort zone. We do not go by the status quo; we know that will not work. We have an opportunity to control our own destiny, an opportunity that many other companies don’t have, and we all share in the rewards.
This year we are starting an annual Physical Inventory where we actually close down production. It will start December 27th at 7:00am. We do have a well briefed team that is amply prepared for the event. For the first time ever we will shut down for the short week to focus on this, having already focused these past few weeks on getting jobs out early that would have been planned to ship out next week. We will leave early today, Friday, December 23, 2011 to enjoy our Christmas party, knowing that we have a plan and a future!
Howie
Vice President
As I sit and enjoy my lunch and the brief calm moment at my desk, I can hear the cheers and jeers of the employees playing and watching badminton in the building, a brief smile appears. By nature I am a product type guy, usually trying to build a better mouse trap or thinking about cost efficiencies, so the idea of having a bad mitten court in the building was a bit foreign! Reflecting further, I recognize the success our company has achieved and the effort that everyone is contributing, this is a great group and that I am very fortunate to be part of building a first class company, so play on.
Thanksgiving is my favorite time of year for many reasons, most of which are outdoor activities, cool crisp air, a little football and that home cooked Thanksgiving meal with the family. It is this time that the collection boxes for the local food drive is set in place. I do briefly pause, look up and around and give thanks. Perhaps I should do it more often, enjoy the people and the success before moving on to the next challenge or goal. Taking care of business is nice but appreciating the people and those we can help will make you much happier, as I am finally finding out.
In closing I would like to say thanks to all the people that I have the pleasure to work with, and that I am working on my people skills, still. Now that I have lightly stepped out of my comfort zone, my next correspondence will be more product and business oriented. Thanks again and Happy Thanksgiving to all!
Howie Birk
Vice President
This is a continuation of my blog titled Customer Service and the 5 Rules of Birk.
The 5 Rules of Birk convey basic principles we feel are fundamental to doing good business. They are:
1 – Customer First
2 – Help Each Other
3 – Learn New Skills
4 – Communicate
5 – Have Fun
BIRK RULE #2 – Help Each Other
A challenge for many businesses is getting employees to pull together and function as a team instead of going in separate directions. At Birk, we have created a workplace where people are encouraged to collaborate and help each other succeed. Our employees are our greatest resource, and on any given day, a commitment to teamwork is evident throughout our building.
We understand employees (and organizations) are more productive and experience better morale if we build highly functional teams. Through LEAN manufacturing, we’ve built a unique culture of teambuilding by giving people the opportunity to work together effectively, supporting them and encouraging collaboration. Teams were created to study areas in which processes could be improved to become more efficient. When employees were allowed to collaborate positively, they performed better and with fewer problems.
Buy-in from all employees was extremely important to effectively implement LEAN principles and remains imperative to its continued success. A consistent message of shared purpose helps everyone to feel we are all part of the same team. After all, we are all working towards the same goal: to produce a quality product that meets our customers’ needs.
Stacey Stevens
Customer Service Manager
Birk Manufacturing, Inc.
Quality of our products and processes along with an added emphasis on continuous improvement are the way of life here at Birk. Among co-workers the term “quality” is all encompassing and means delivering a degree of excellence at every step of the way. Key performance indicators play an integral part in ensuring our quality is not only acceptable but is also being constantly updated to reflect a higher gradation of superiority. Each department within Birk is responsible for generating, tracking, maintaining and reporting departmental goals which are appropriately aligned with the overall organizational strategy of providing quality products on time at a great value.
During scheduled management reviews and quality audits the performance of each department is discussed and reviewed in great detail. If metrics show that the objective is not being met corrective action and opportunities for improvement are debated by all of management until a solid resolution is determined. When the goal is found to be easily achieved time in and time out a new goal is established that has a higher degree of excellence. Furthermore, when an issue arises that is detriment to our success the manager of the affected department will not wait until a periodic review or audit takes place and will take immediate action to resolve the issue and institute controls for future prevention.
Unlike many organizations, quality at Birk is not just about a final inspection process solely based on acceptance and rejection. Rather, it’s built into our DNA, ingrained into our organizational culture, and a pivotal cornerstone to our strategy for success.
Carleton Birk
Quality Assurance Manager
In 2006, when Birk opened up its news 18,000 square foot addition to its existing building, it was decided that Engineering would move its offices from the front of the building to the new extension. We had chosen the middle office at the rear of the new building because it was one of the larger rooms and we needed to house between five to seven people. We were approached as to how we wanted the room arranged with regards to placement of desks, filing cabinets and shelving units, and then were asked how many cubicle walls we would need in order to separate the room. We said none.
When working with the Birk Engineering Department, you are assigned to an engineer who will oversee your application and design engineering needs in order to deliver your final product. Even though you are assigned to a particular engineer and may have only direct contact with one of us, in essence you are working with the whole team. We have an open office floor plan because we believe the only way to provide you with the optimal design for your end need is to have an open forum. In this way we can all share our ideas with each other. We always have open discussions about current projects and encourage this practice so that everyone can share their ideas and bring in past design experiences in order to solve our easiest and most difficult applications.
If we were to have cubicles and close ourselves off from each other, we would be doing ourselves an injustice. We would have to schedule meetings in order to discuss design ideas and the free flow of thoughts would be stifled. The worst result that would come from this is that we would not be providing the best possible solutions to our customers and that would violate rule #1 around here. Since we do not want to be the perpetrators of that, we choose to live in a cubicle-free environment.
Mark O’Connell
Engineering Manager
Most companies have the desire to grow their customer base and revenues, but how you go about this venture must be very different for each and every company. Our company’s story is a smaller version of the Bill Gates one, who started in a garage much like the owner Norman did. Every day was a challenge then, every order was celebrated and every bill was paid somehow.
Now Birk Manufacturing employs about 75 full time employees that work in a new 33,000 square foot high tech facility, have health benefits, a 401K plan and profit sharing. It may seem cliche to say, call here and you will always speak to a real person, and have direct access to the engineering department, but you will! We remember the owner’s commitment and sacrifice, and realize our existence depends on the approval of our customer; we have to earn your business by delivery quality, on time and cost effectively. Birk Manufacturing company remains humble and very well prepared to deliver now and in the future. We have managed to maintain the small company atmosphere and compete in a world market.
Howard Birk
Vice President
