Hidetsugu Masuda revels as a tour guide.
The president of KantoSeiko Co., Ltd. Group, in Fuji-Gun, Shizuoka Prefecture, isn"t your typical Japanese shop manager. The shop"s main meeting room is lined with photos of customers and other shop managers from Japan and, indeed, around the world who have toured his facility. Each tour is usually a learning experience both for Masuda and his guests.
Last week I was lucky enough to be one of those guests.
I don"t know much, but I do know this: If metal fabricators had my plumber"s customer service record, they wouldn"t be in business for long.
Forgive my venting, but I"m sure many can relate. We had an oh-so-delightful problem with our plumbing1946 vintage. The trouble really began when we bought the house. We had what I like to call Old Home Delusional Disorder. (I"m stealing the term from humoristand my hero, in a wayDave Barry.) The house was, and is, absolutely charming: crown moldings, original kitchen fixtures, and, as it turned out, very original clay drain pipes that, as of January, had evolved into half dirt, half tree roots, and no substantial clay to speak of.
To make a long story short, we signed the plumbing contract, which specified a date when they would start and finish. Of course, I failed to read the small print: These times are estimates and may change due to circumstances out of our control.
You can guess what happened.
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The word global and all its derivations are everywhere. Saying a business is a global company may make a good marketing sound bite, but think about it: If your community is home to a company that calls itself a "global enterprise," would you really care?
Everyone who works at Tampa Sheet Metal Co. has a riverboat to thank. Yes, a riverboat.
During the early 1900s, Augusta Jiretz, looking out the window of her room in a waterfront hotel, saw a riverboat that reminded her of home, Hamburg, Germany. That was enough for Augusta and her husband, John, a journeyman sheet metal mechanic who shortly thereafter set up a two-man sheet metal shop in 1920, the Tampa Sheet Metal Co. In 1938 the company's 12 workers built a facility on what is today Kennedy Blvd., then the outskirts of town; today it's virtually downtown.
"When I first came to work here [in 1956], we did most things by hand," said John L. Jiretz, company president and the founder's grandson. "To set up a punch press took a half hour, and to change a hole size took another 20 minutes."
My how times have changed.
Last week Chew Choon Seng hosted a symbolic event in aviation history. The CEO of Singapore Airlines threw a party more than 30,000 feet in the air, where he strolled the aisles in his company"s new crown jewel: the Airbus A380. After years of delays, the thing is finally airborne.
From Singapore"s Changi Airport direct to Sydney, Australia, the inaugural voyage lasted seven and a half hours. The flying behemoth has a wingspan of more than 260 feet, about 50 ft. wider than Boeing"s 747-400. Technologically, it"s an engineering marvel.
Yesterday was a beautiful day in North-metro Atlanta. Not a cloud in the sky. Pleasant temperatures. A perfect day for a road trip to visit a company that will be profiled in an upcoming article on thefabricator.com.
I printed out directions from Google Maps, climbed in my Jeep (the one that metal thieves had better keep their hands off), and drove up I-85 to visit Sargent Metal Fabricators in Anderson, S.C.—finally.
Sargent Metal's President Tim Hayden and I had been corresponding for a couple of months, scheduling and rescheduling the visit. As excited as Hayden was about having his company profiled, something else took priority—a nine-letter, three-syllable word that is at the top of every fabricator"s priority and wish lists. Can you guess it? Here's a hint: Without this, no business survives.
