Executive Summary
Customer Profile
Verhoff Machine & Welding and Verhoff Warehousing, in northwest Ohio, provide custom metal fabrication and warehousing to many industries. These industries include Automotive, Agricultural, Industrial Manufacturing, and the Military.
The Challenge
Facing a period of rapid growth, Verhoff needed help structuring the company’s management team so that they could focus on solving long‐term problems without compromising the customers’ needs.
The Solution
Six Disciplines helped Verhoff Machine & Welding develop a management team to plan strategically, provide direction, and align short‐term goals to the overall company initiatives.
The Benefits
The Benefits
- Ability to invest in new mills, new paint lines, and new buildings
- Pricing improvements that resulted from quantitative analysis
- Retention of important customers
- Increased communication within the company, leading to production improvements and
- increased sales and profits
- Implementation of internal feedback system and profit sharing
- Local job creation during a major economic recession
The Result
Six Disciplines helped Verhoff Machine & Welding develop a strategic plan that resulted in increased investments, customer retention, a 19% increase in employee satisfaction, production improvements, a 14% increase in sales, a profit increase of 9%, and new job creation during a two‐year period.
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Detailed Customer Profile
The Benefits
Detailed Customer Profile
Verhoff Machine & Welding (VMW) in Continental, Ohio has been in business for 55 years and employs more than one hundred people. VMW operates a metal fabrication job shop, and in 2006 opened Verhoff Warehousing in Ottawa, Ohio. Together, the two entities serve the Agriculture, Industrial Manufacturing, Heavy Equipment, and Military industries. VMW specializes in military fabrication contracts and is ISO 9001:2000 Certified. The company has been using Six Disciplines since July 2008.
The Problem
Verhoff Machine & Welding needed guidance to structure the management team so that they could take their fast growing company to the next level. The company initially lacked direction and focus for solving long‐term problems. In this growth stage of business, VMW needed assistance delegating corporate responsibilities while prioritizing the direction of the company. It was especially important to make these decisions without compromising the customers’ needs.
The Solution
Six Disciplines helped Verhoff Machine & Welding to create a management team that could plan strategically for the future, share responsibilities, and provide direction for the company. Through quarterly and annual meetings, VMW is now able to prioritize and evaluate goals to align the goals to the overall company initiatives.
The Benefits
Verhoff Machine & Welding is realizing the following benefits from using Six Disciplines:
- Financial ‐ VMW has been able to make new investments in mills, paint lines, and new buildings.
- Customer ‐ Actual time studies, documented methods, and software driven quotes have successfully driven an initiative to improve pricing, benefiting the customers. Additionally, VMW has successfully retained the company’s #1 customer, General Dynamics.
- Production – Increased communication between management and production and education on key job characteristics has led to reduced production errors and continues to improve production quality. Additionally, through training and continuing education, VMW has streamlined processes for a better workflow. All these have resulted in a sales increase of 14% and a profit increase of 9%, since July 2008.
- People – Employee surveys helped provide feedback and created shared goals. The company meetings keep employees informed about the state of the company. VMW was able to implement profit sharing that is based on the company’s values, vision, and expectations. Employee satisfaction has increased by an overall 19%. VMW was able to create new jobs in both the Continental and Ottawa locations during a major economic downturn.
What Verhoff Machine & Welding has to say about Six Disciplines
“Setting priorities, timeframes, and goals provided needed direction and team input. It also showed that some of those priorities, timeframes, and goals needed to be postponed or tweaked to be effective.”
“The process used to define, monitor, and measure progress regarding assigned initiatives encourages continual attention. Projects stay at the forefront with a greater success of completion.”
“The key is to know and share the mission, vision, values, long‐ and short‐term goals of VMW with the whole company so everyone is on board with the direction VMW wants. The difficultly – it’s a slow process getting employees involved.”
“Six Disciplines helped us execute our initiatives in real life situations through focus and direction.”
Visit Verhoff Machine & Welding at www.verhoff.com. To learn more about Six Disciplines, visit www.sixdnwo.com. Or, contact Eric Kurjan at ekurjan@sixdnwo.com or (419) 348‐1897.
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