Published 11/4/2015

Top Shops Questions: Prepare Your Data

As you get ready to take part in the Products Finishing Top Shops Benchmarking Survey for 2016, here are some of the questions you will be asked. I

Top Shops

Edited by: PF Editorial Team

5S workplace organization
Agile manufacturing
Benchmarking
Cellular manufacturing
ConƟnuous improvement program
Customer Surveys
Just‐in‐time movement of material
Kaizen events/blitzes
Kanban and pull systems
Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE)
Poka yoke (error prevention)
Quality certs (i.e. ISO, NADCAP, etc.)
Six Sigma
Theory of constraints
Total productive maintenance
Total quality management
Value‐stream mapping

2. Please provide the following measures for your business for 2015:

Order lead time (receipt of order to delivery to customer in days)
On-time delivery rate (% of goods delivered on time)
Finished product first-pass quality yield (% of product that passes final inspection)
Scrap/rework percentage (cost of scrap and rework as a % of shop sales)
Scrap/rework percentage (scrapped/reworked parts as a % of total parts finished)
Finishing usage (average hours finishing equipment is in production per 24-hour day)

3. Does your shop have formal, written procedures or documented workplace rules covering each of the following areas?

Plating/Finishing procedures
Bath quality/performance
Preventative maintenance
Waste treatment equipment operation/maintenance
Wastewater sampling
Hazardous waste management
Hazardous material handling/spill response

4. Do you keep records for each of the following?

Bath chemistry (analytical)
Bath chemical additions
Bath temperature
Rectifier use
Preventative maintenance logs
Customer returns
City water chemistry (e.g., hardness)
Units of production (number of parts, pounds, square feet, etc)
Electricity use
Treatment sludge generation
Waste treatment chemical reagent use
Water use

5. Estimate the number of labor-hours your shop spends each week for each of the following tasks:

Environmental management
Wastewater treatment operation
Monitoring
Inspection
Maint. of pollution control systems
Analytical testing
Hazardous waste management
Reporting/recordkeeping
Waste reduction
Training
Local emergency planning

BUSINESS STRATEGY

6. Which of the following supply chain practices does your business use?

Access to customer forecasts
Certification of major suppliers
Collaborative design with customers
Collaborative design with suppliers
Customer satisfaction surveys
Just-in-time deliveries from suppliers
Just-in-time deliveries to customers
Sharing forecasts with suppliers
Vendor-managed or -owned inventories
Vendor-managed or -owned inventories for customers

7. Which of the following are effective sales/marketing tools for your business?

Blogs
Brochures/catalogs
Customer tours of your shop
Email promotions
Online – advertising
Online – company website
Print advertising (i.e. magazines)
Sales personnel
Social media (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn)
Trade shows/events
Trade associations
YouTube

8. For independent shops, how many active customers (paid for work) did your business have in 2015?

9. For independent shops, what percent of customers account for 80% of your sales in 2015?

10. For independent shops, what was the customer retention rate in 2015? (% of customers retained from the previous year)

11. What was your quote-to-book ratio? (business booked as a % of business quoted)

12. What were the following investments directly involved in finishing for your business in 2015?

Capital equipment (directly related to finishing)
Chemicals
Materials and components
Racking Equipment

13. Please provide the following financial measures for your business in 2015. By calculating these measures, it will not be necessary to provide specific values for figures such as gross sales, net income, etc. This information will be kept strictly confidential.

Gross sales/number of finishing lines
Gross sales/number of employees
Net income/gross sales
Annual sales growth rate [(gross sales 2015 - gross sales 2014) / gross sales 2014] x 100]
Capital equipment expenditure/gross sales

14. What coatings or services would you like to add to your shop?

PROFILE QUESTIONS

15. What category best describes your business’ relation to its customer base?