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You are driving along in your two-seater car on a dark and stormy night. You pass a bus stop and you see three people waiting for the bus:

A) An old lady who looks as if she is about to die.
B) An old friend who once saved your life.
C) The perfect man or woman you have longed to meet.

Knowing that there is room for only one passenger in your car, what would you do?

This moral dilemma, Paul Sloane of Destination Innovation, writes was used in a job interview setting. Many answers were given but only one candidate out of one hundred gave what was judged the best answer. “I would give the car keys to my old friend and let him take the lady to the hospital while I would wait for the bus with the woman of my dreams.”

By doing some lateral thinking he made ideal use of the resources in the problem. If we were to look at problems the same way we might gain a new perspective and find a creative solution.

“Genius is seeing what everyone else sees and thinking what no one else has thought.” A quote from Albert Nagyrapolt, the physiologist who discovered vitamin C hits the nail on the head. By recognizing the obvious and then looking at the problem from a different view point you might gain a new insight.

Pryer Technology Group and Beckwood Press have teamed up to bring the Triform line of hydroforming machines to the industry. From their own experience and research, it was found that existing hydroform presses were too expensive, too heavy and physically impractical for many users. Additionally, quality used hydroform presses are rare and often antiquated with questionable control and hydraulic systems.

The use of advanced engineering allowed for the design of a unique pressure containment
system that significantly reduced the press size without sacrificing integrity or durability.
Triform Hydroform Presses are available with CNC Deep Draw or bladder only capabilities in a variety of sizes.

By looking at the current problems facing those in the industry, a new perspective on old technology was formed. Today those problems have been solved by the innovative possibilities that the Triform line brings to the industry.

In sports there are always going to bad calls made by the officiating crews. It’s just part of the game, however, when an officiating crew is from the same town as one of the teams playing it becomes difficult for them to see the game from an un-bias view point.

My son plays center on his 5th grade football team. They were in the 2nd round of the playoffs and both teams were playing very hard. Our team had just drew a 15 yard penalty for face masking, and rightly so. However, on our next possession as the running back made his way to the red zone he was brought down via his facemask directly in front of the official. This should have been a 15 yard penalty just like what had been given on the previous possession and the ball place half the distance to the goal line. But instead he gave no penalty, and just warned the player and the coach.

The very next play one of our players gets called for a penalty, effectively killing the drive. So the game ends in a tie and goes to overtime. In this league they set the teams up on the 10 yard line and give each team four downs to score. Whoever scores first wins and whoever wins the coin toss gets the ball first. We won the toss and on our last down the running back plows through the tacklers and fights his way into the end zone. We win! Game over, right? Not exactly! The official claimed his knee was down at the one yard line.

At this point the entire crowd had made their way down to the end zone to watch up close. Everyone saw the same thing, even an opposing coach from a different age division was there watching and agreed, he scored a touchdown! In no way was his knee on the ground! So the ball was given to the other team and as you may have guessed they scored and won the game!

Its heart breaking but it does teach character to those kids that in life not everything is fair. People will cheat and manipulate things to get the outcome they selfishly desire. All you can do is your best and then have the satisfaction knowing when you go to bed at night that you did everything you could and gave your best effort.

The same is true in today’s business environment. There are companies out there that will tell you anything to get a sale. They will skimp on lead time knowing full well they can’t deliver. Some will claim they build everything in house but in reality purchase components overseas to make a bigger profit. Some will cut corners and rush things through just to keep their cost down and pass the burden off to the customer when those short comings present themselves at the most critical time.

Be mindful when you are shopping for a hydraulic press or any large purchase for that matter. Do your homework and if something just doesn’t seem right, it probably isn’t.

Everyone knows lead time is an estimate and no one has a crystal ball, however a company should have a pretty good idea how long it will take to build their products. Most will be very close to the time frame given but when it seems too good to be true you might want to use caution and not plan everything around it. Give yourself some room for delays because chances are they will occur.

Secondly, there is nothing wrong with using outsourced components. However, this should be something that is agreed upon upfront and the savings shared with you. Companies that take advantage of low cost sources but claim they are doing all the work may be able to beat domestic suppliers that are really using domestic resources, but what else are they being dishonest about. The cheapest price isn’t always the best thing to ultimately decide your equipment buying decisions on.

Finally, quality is everything! Its one thing to be late on your lead time but everything works perfectly and is exactly what your process needed. You’ll likely forget all about the late delivery if you are satisfied with the product. It’s great to think you got a deal on a lower cost piece of equipment but if it doesn’t work correctly, the customer support is lacking or it takes 15 weeks to get a replacement part, you have a serious problem. Check to make sure quality components are being used and readily available. Check into their customer service and make sure you are getting what you paid for.

Companies that have integrity and strive to partner with the customer by being honest and realistic may not always seem to have the best deal upfront. But it’s those companies that continuously do their best to satisfy the customer and can go to bed at night knowing they gave their best effort to delivery the solutions the customer is really looking for in the first place.

by Josh Schroeder
Manufacturing Manager
Certified Six Sigma Black Belt

What’s in a name?  I’m always fascinated how a company, a team or a band gets their name. Sometimes it’s as simple as the last name of the founder or the initials of two partners but often there is a story behind what’s in a name.

The Company 3M got its start in 1902 as the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company making sand paper. Later as they continued to grow they shortened the name to 3M and introduced other products like Scotch tape and the famous Post-It notes.

Apple Computers was born out of inspiration while Steve Jobs worked on an Oregon apple farm in 1976. He was also a Beatles fan and admired their record label Apple Records. Later the “computers” portion of their name was dropped as they successfully ventured into the world of consumer electronics.

In baseball the Dodger were originally called the Brooklyn Trolley Dodgers in reference to 19th century Brooklyn where the streets were filled with trolleys and the pedestrians scurried out of their way. It was later shortened to just the Brooklyn Dodgers.

When the Cincinnati Reds were formed in 1869, they were the Red Stockings, later shortened to the Reds until the early 50’s when McCarthyism was rampant and no one wanted to be called a “Red”. They made another official name change to the Redlegs and when the patriotic panic died down they quietly switched back to being the Reds.

The New York Yankees were originally called the Highlanders and the Hill-Toppers (because their park was located at the highest point in the city). Sportswriters complained about the difficulty of squeezing the long team name into headlines. In 1909, a newsman arbitrarily called them Yankees, patriotic slang for “Americans” around World War I and the name stuck ever since.

Here at Beckwood there is also a story about how we got our name. Most people understand that the “Beck” is short for “Becker”, after our late founder Charlie Becker. But many are puzzled by the “wood” part of our name when our primary customers are in the metal forming business.

In 1976 Beckwood was formed as a fireplace insert and door manufacturer. The “wood” portion of the name was in reference to the “wood” burning fireplaces.

One part of the manufacturing process required the use of hydraulic presses. Charlie, being the entrepreneur and frugal minded business man that he was decided to build his own presses for internal use. This would prove to be a wise decision because in 1996, the opportunity to sell hydraulic presses commercially presented itself. Then as the fireplace business dwindled due to low cost offshore mass production, those lines were phased out and full attention was paid to hydraulic press manufacturing in 2001.

The Beckwood name while known to the wood burning fireplace industry as a strong, quality driven manufacturer has become just as prevalent in the hydraulic press industry today. What’s in a name? Well for Beckwood, while the name and logo maybe a little strange in the metals industry, the name pays homage to our beginnings and our founder whom without, we would not exist.