Crum in the News
Crum Grows Through Rededication
Written by Duane Ramsey | news@toledofreepress.com
Toledo Free Press
February 17, 2011
Crum Manufacturing in Waterville has found ways to increase revenues by 70 percent from 2009 to 2010 and expects a 40 percent increase in revenues in 2011 with new customers, patents and products.
The company adopted a goal of adding market share to its revenue stream, balancing it with automotive and non-automotive products while focusing on business development and marketing in a team effort, according to Douglas Waldie, vice president and chief operating officer.
Waldie joined the family-owned business in March 2009 when it had reached its lowest revenues and gone from 37 to 15 employees. Today, the company is increasing revenues with a work force of 26 by keeping it lean and productive, he said.
“It was a good time to rebuild or re-create the business with diversification of customer service, quality, cost reductions and operations, all achieved in a team environment,” Waldie said.
For 26 years, Crum Manufacturing has supplied metalworking and machining to a variety of industrial and manufacturing customers. It specialized in manufacturing customized tooling, mandrels and quality check fixtures as a Tier 2 supplier for the formed rubber hose industry.
The firm was founded by the father and son team of Ernest Crum Sr.
and Ernest Crum Jr. Ernest Jr. serves as president and CEO but has
given daily operations of the company to his son-in-law Doug and
daughter Deborah Waldie, who serves as vice president and chief financial
officer.
“I’m extremely proud of the job Doug and Deb are doing with the company.
Doug is an excellent manager of the team there,” said Ernest Jr.
Deborah joined the family business in 1994 and now is responsible for the
financial areas and assists Doug in human resources. She said they needed
to be creative to make sure the cash flow is working and the company is stable
financially, by conducting cost analyses of custom work and reducing the time
it takes to receive payments for completed orders.
The quick turnaround of the business resulted in Crum Manufacturing being
named “2010 Business of the Year” by the Waterville Chamber of Commerce.
The rebuild started when the company lost business with a large customer and adopted a goal to regain that business which it has started to do, Waldie said.
Through its business development and marketing efforts, Crum is finding new customers in California, Brazil, India and Mexico. The company is also seeking local business, such as Tier 1 suppliers for Whirlpool in Ohio and La-Z-Boy in Michigan.
Those efforts include researching new leads, participating in trade shows and establishing relationships with new companies and industries, said Kelley Rowe, who joined Crum last year as business development and marketing manager.
With a bachelor’s degree in business management and master’s in information technology, Rowe recently developed a new website for the company.
The Crum team aggressively positioned the firm in other markets that resulted in additional business. It is developing quality check fixtures for use by La-Z-Boy.
With several new patents in the works, Crum plans to introduce a new C-Roto Cutter Fixture in the second quarter of 2011 for customers waiting to use it. The product is designed to reduce scrap hose by 70 percent which is significant for that industry, Waldie said.
The company also plans to introduce automation and robotics into its production by mid-year to meet demands from its customers, he said.
“We’re working on new projects to push us to the forefront with our competitors in the business,” Waldie said.
Customer service and quality were critical in the company’s turnaround. Crum had only one late order out of 1,700 shipments in 2010, according to Customer Service and Quality Manager Jim Pelland.
Pelland has worked at Crum for 15 years, starting in the shop and learning all aspects of manufacturing. He currently quotes jobs turning them into orders while building strong relationships with customers who trust Crum to meet their requirements, Waldie said.
Pelland works closely with Operations Manager Chad Graham to make sure every order goes out in a timely manner. Graham manages the firm’s “just-in-time” operations for production where almost every job is custom work.
Waldie credited Graham and the 18 employees involved in design and production for reducing the average overtime to get jobs done from 12 to 15 percent to 4 percent.
“We react quickly to customer changes,” Waldie said, citing turnaround time of three weeks or less “for customers who can’t find it with other suppliers.”
In an emergency, Crum achieved 24-hour turnaround for one customer, Graham said.
In another move, Crum will offer a profit-sharing plan for employees in the nonunion shop for 2011 in addition to a 401(K) matching plan. Waldie said Crum has an excellent benefit program, with the company paying for 100 percent of benefits that include health insurance.
From left, Douglas and Deborah Waldie, Chad Graham, Jim Pelland and Kelley Rowe.
Crum Manufacturing Named
Waterville’s 2010 Business of The Year
Written By Karen Berger
Maumee Mirror
January 27th, 2011
With new customer revenues up 65 percent, Crum Manufacturing added jobs, profit-sharing and equipment in 2010 – and 2011 looks just as promising.
“Our goal is to knock out the back wall and expand in the next three to five years,” said Douglas Waldie, vice president and chief operating officer.
Last week, Waldie took Waterville Chamber of Commerce president Sam Ansara and executive director Corina Pfleghaar on a tour of the Wa-terville-Monclova Road business – and accepted the chamber’s 2010 Business of the Year award.
Founded in 1984 in a Waterville garage by Ernest W. Crum Jr. and his father, the company provides the rubber hose industry with precision stainless steel and aluminum bent mandrel tooling of all sizes – in a shorter than industry standard lead time. In 1999 Crum became ISO 9001 certified and expanded to include design, fabrication and certification services of precision mandrels, wire fixtures and a variety of quality check fixtures and gauges.
“Mandrels are our bread and butter,” Waldie said. “We feel we have a pretty nice niche from which to build momentum.”
With a large percentage of its customer base automotive-related,
Crum began feeling the recession a few years before the general
public and had shrunk from 37 employees to 15.
When his father-in-law asked him to join the company in 2009,
Waldie had 20 years of management experience with UPS and a
master’s degree in organizational leader-ship from Lourdes College.
Pointing to a shelf with the book Good to Great, Waldie explained that
Crum has since incorporated many of author Jim Collins’ perspectives.
Kelley Rowe was hired as business development/marketing manager
to go out and find business – something Crum hadn’t done before.
That included working with the U.S. Department of Commerce to find
international customers. Crum now has clients in Mexico, Brazil and India
and may partner with a Brazilian company to open up a joint location in
Waterville. Customers have expanded to include not just the automotive
industry but companies such as John Deere, Polaris and Whirlpool.
Working as a team, employees focused more on quality and
winning back customers who previously weren’t satisfied, Waldie said.
The focus resulted in only one late shipment out of 1,730 jobs last
year – and more return customers.
Cultivating in employees a team focus has helped boost performance, and employees received profit-sharing and bonuses last year. The company has also been injury-free for 1,200 days. Even with fewer employees than before the recession, Crum is handling more business, Waldie said.
“A lot of manufacturing companies didn’t do well last year, and some went out of business or are barely hanging in there. Last year, 10 of our 12 months were very profitable. This year even our slower months of January and February are busy – we’ll surpass what we did last year,” Waldie said, predicting a 56 to 60 percent increase in new customer revenues.
Crum’s success was the reason behind the Waterville chamber’s executive committee choosing the manufacturer for the annual award, Pfleghaar said. For more information, visit www.crummfg.com.
Douglas Waldie accepts the Business of the Year award from Waterville chamber president Sam Ansara. Pictured are (from left) Deborah Waldie, vice president/chief financial officer; Corina Pfleghaar, Waterville chamber executive director; Kelley Rowe, business development/marketing manager; Ansara; Doug Waldie; Chad Graham, operations manager; and Jim Pelland, customer service/quality manager.
Copyright 2011 Crum Manufacturing, Inc.. All Rights Reserved.
Certificate of Registration: ISO 9000:2008 Certified
