T-Mobile: Customer Service Champs!

BusinessWeek magazine recently published its top 25 ranking of customer service champs, companies where the “consumer is king.” T-mobile ranked 23rd! They were the only wireless provider to make the list.

Also, J.D. Power and Associates just announced T-Mobile swept its 2007 regional wireless customer satisfaction study. For the fifth straight time, T-mobile is the only wireless carrier to rank highest in overall customer satisfaction among wireless customers surveyed in all six regions.

The Mission, TX T-Mobile Call Center is repeatedly recognized as the highest performing call center in the Nation.

RAPID RESPONSE MANUFACTURING

New R&D arm specs out “one-stop infrastructure” for 30-day design & production cycle

The North American Advanced Manufacturing Research and Education Initiative's (NAAMREI) name is long, but its vision is longer.

NAAMREI wants to transform the economy of the South Texas/Rio Grande Valley region into "a third coast" by building an infrastructure to support "Rapid Response Manufacturing."

The concept compelled the Department of Labor (DOL) to award a $5-million grant as part of its Employment and Training Administration's Workforce Innovation in Regional Economic Development—or WIRED—program.

The Texas Workforce Commission added $3 million to the initiative to be consolidated around a consortium of educational institutions and a large industrial R&D park to foster manufacturing partnerships. The purpose is enabling manufacturers to rapidly scale production from idea to finished goods by providing the design, engineering, and production expertise—as well as workforce recruitment and training, in a one-stop package.

The South Texas/Rio Grande Valley centers around the city of McAllen, Texas, which is close to both the U.S.-Mexico border and the Gulf of Mexico.

US DOL Assistant Secretary Emily Stover de Rocco calls this program the "innovation of moving from mind to market."

"Our goal is to seed funding to bring private and public resources together for action on the ground," she says, adding that WIRED supports talent development "because it's the single most important pillar of prosperity of any regional economy.

"The South Texas/Rio Grande Valley, historically reliant on agriculture and textile production, was forced to transform when poor harvests impacted agriculture, and globalization devastated local textile manufacturing."The region had to diversify," says Diane Roth, head of the Texas Workforce Commission. "It had a large manufacturing presence, but it was based on very unskilled labor. Our challenge was to ensure workers had the skills to perform highly technical work to compete globally in manufacturing."

The recipient of the WIRED grant is South Texas College, which partners with the Rio Grande Valley College Alliance, the University of Texas, Texas A&M, and McAllen Economic Development Corp.—among nearly 70 other public and private parties in all.

"A key part of the strategy is to position ourselves as a 'third coast' and major distribution hub worldwide by expanding our base through rapid response manufacturing," says Wanda Garza, executive officer for workforce development, South Texas College Technology Center. "WIRED fits in with what we were already doing regionally. If you're developing new products that quickly, there's no way you can do it without people being trained on the technology required to do that."

The goal is to establish the infrastructure to take a product from initial concept to finished good in 30 days. "You have to push the envelope in design and training to be able to do that," says Garza.

"We started recognizing the need for this about five years ago when China was coming online and people were trying to figure out how to compete by offering custom products in a shorter time frame," says Keith Patridge, president of McAllen Economic Development.

Patridge says the initiative is attracting manufacturers from around the world that are looking to shorten supply chains by locating production in the U.S. Local representatives are working with agents from more than 450 Chinese companies alone that have heard of the project.

"At least 20 companies from around the world come here to talk with us every month," claims Patridge.

For more information on this article, please visit: http://www.mbtmag.com/current_issues/2007/may/busperf7.asp

Marian Opens a Division in McAllen

Marian Inc. Opens a New Sales Division in the McAllen Area to Serve Both Sides of the Border: Brownsville/Matamoros, McAllen/Reynosa to Laredo/Nuevo Laredo.

McAllen—Marian Inc. headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana has decided to locate a sales office in the McAllen area in order to support their growing list of customers and serve the Maquila industry on both sides of the Border. Marian is in an excellent position to help their customers in processes such as Prototypes from CAD file cut by laser. Blade plotters or water jet, Kiss-cutting, Score-Cutting, Die Cutting (steel rule, male-female, rotary, progressive, compound), Laminating, Zone Coating, Extended Liners, Tabbing, Specialized slitting, Thermal Forming, Heat Sealing, Sonic Welding, Sewing, Clean Room Facilities for Medical/Electronic part Fabrication when required & Part Placement Equipment. They have over a half-century of experience converting a wide range of soft materials into applications such as: Gaskets and Seals, Shields, Thermal Management, Electrical Conductors and Insulators Filters Cushions, Bumpers and Feet Fasteners Masks, Covers and many others, such as Grommets, O-rings, Suction Cups, Molded Vinyl & Plastic, Extruded Rubber and more. Marian also specializes in industrial and commercial screen printing and produce an extensive cross section of custom screen printed items such as: pressure sensitive decals, labels, overlays, nameplates, fleet markings, posters, magnets, four color process work and narrow web hot-stamp-roll labels.

They serve both national and international markets and the close proximity to the Mexican border enables them to work with many Fortune 500 companies operating assembly plants in Mexico. Being the main reason why they chose to locate in the McAllen area.

Many of their label and marking systems are UL recognized and certified. They operate state-of-the-art sheet fed screen printing equipment capable of printing on many different substrates. Their die cutters use both steel rule dies and also the latest in die cutting technology, the new chemically milled dies for more intricate and complex parts. Completely computerized pre-press and powerful graphics programs enable them to handle almost any type of graphics file you wish to provide for the production of your printed job.

Marian has located in the Sharyland Business Park at 4403 W. Military Hwy., Ste. 705, McAllen, TX. They will be hosting their Grand Opening Ceremony on Thursday, June 7, 2007 at their facility. They encourage you to come by and see first hand what they have to offer.

For more information or if you are interested in attending the event please contact the Sales Representative, Isidro “Sid” Marquez at smarquez@marianinc.com.

Design 2 Part Show

On May 16th & 17th the Design 2 Part Show was held at the Schaumburg, IL Convention Center. For the last 19 years, this greater Chicago show has brought you the top contract manufacturers both locally and nationally without the hassles of traffic. This is the region's largest and longest running manufacturing event that is dedicated to bringing you contract design, parts, components and services.

OEM engineers and buyers from throughout Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana and beyond scheduled to attend the region’s sourcing event of the year. We found hundreds of processes under one roof. From the point of inception (design and prototypes), to the complete outsourcing of the parts, components and assemblies, it's all here. One day at this show helped us research advanced technologies, vendors, and processes.

If you are concerned about finding better manufacturing partners, delivery or price, this show is really worth the drive! The focus is on outsourcing and manufacturing technologies in forming, fabricating, finishing, shaping assembly, design, prototyping and engineering. If you want to know more about this show, please visit www.d2p.com.

This year MEDC made their presence to identify possible prospects for relocation or expansion to the area. This was also an attempt to determine whether our local suppliers should attend and participate with a booth. MEDC is beginning their "Northbound Marketing Campaign" to assist the local suppliers by targeting possible clients.

The next tradeshow MEDC will attend is the AmCon show in Houston Texas on October 15-17th.

Supplier awards

R.R. Donnelley & Sons was recently given the Gold Supplier Award from LG Electronics for its production of LGE plasma and flat screen user guides and other in-box printed materials. Steve D. Choi, purchasing director at LG Electronics' Reynosa, Mexico plant said, "As a first year supplier, R.R. Donnelley has immediately provided cost and cycle time savings in addition to on-time deliveries. We are confident that they will continue to provide efficiencies and solutions to help us achieve optimal supply chain performance."
Samsung has named flash memory provider Spansion as its Best Supplier for 2006.
Automotive supplier BorgWarner's TorqTransfer Systems Beijing unit recently won the 2006 Excellent Supplier Award from Chinese OEM Naveco, which recognizes product quality, customer service, and on-time delivery.


Purchasing
By Staff Apr 5, 2007 139 words, 0 images
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