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by Jeff Moad, MA Editorial Staff Posted on Friday, August 31, 2007 10:24:42 AM   | Abstract: | Facing heavy offshore competition, the hydraulic systems manufacturer uses lean principles to transform its own business and then shares its expertise to help bolster customers. |
Just over three years ago, Clifton Vann III came to a sobering conclusion: Unless his company did something to stop it, many of its customers would soon go out of business or move offshore, taking their business with them. That was at the tail end of an economic slowdown that saw sales growth come to a screeching halt at CEO Vann's company, Livingston & Haven, a $70 million manufacturer and distributor of hydraulic, pneumatic, lubrication, and automation systems used by other manufacturers in metal fabrication, automotive, and other industries. Many of L&H's manufacturing customers were facing intense competition from offshore rivals and were beginning to move production to lower-cost locations in order to stay afloat. So Vann and his management team came up with a plan: L&H would use lean principles to transform itself into a more efficient and market-focused organization. In so doing, the company would serve as an example to its manufacturing customers and gain valuable experience it could share with them, improving the odds that they would survive and continue to manufacture in the United States. "We decided that we would win only if our customers win," says Clifton Vann IV, the company's president. "If they don't, not only will we miss the opportunity to sell them technology today, but tomorrow they will be gone." [Click to continue] |