24 MiMfg Magazine November 2017
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Sponsler
Culture trumps strategy all day long . And you can ’ t buy reputation . We hired about a dozen people this past year , and we asked them what they had heard about our company . They said they heard Orbitform was a great place to work . That ’ s what we are after .
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’ s story continued from page 22 .
check — when they were making really good overtime pay ,” he said . “ We think that that helped them to make a course correction .”
Orbitform has a strong tradition of “ bench strengthening ,” where it prepares employees to take on new tasks through cross training and succession planning . The company applies that same principle to the community at large by exposing students in grade school through college to manufacturing .
The company sponsors and supports the Jackson Area College and Career Connection program , the Shop Rat foundation , the “ I Challenge U ” team of high school students , several area FIRST Robotics teams and programs though the Jackson Area Manufacturing Association .
Bench strengthening is tremendously important for every manufacturer to practice , Sponsler said .
“ When we first started to analyze the situation , we observed that we had a lot of very skilled people and there was nobody behind them — we had a lot of exposure to losing skill sets ,” he said .
Orbitform instituted a plan to correct the situation at added operating expense but it created opportunities for employees and staved off issues due to losing key personnel .
“ I hear horror stories all the time where I lost this person or that person and it is affecting our operation ,” Sponsler said . “ And I think to myself : ‘ That ’ s due to bad decisions made three years ago . There ’ s no magic bullet now other than spending a tremendous amount of money to get back up to speed . On top of it , how about all those people in the plant that would have liked to have those opportunities that weren ’ t available ?” 6
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