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Montana Manufacturers on Parade

The number and diversity of manufacturers across the state of Montana is a wonderful secret. The breadth of their ingenuity, the skills reflected, their quality and the degree to which many Montana manufacturers export to international markets was evidenced by an amazing exhibit at the Montana Manufacturing Extension Center’s recent meeting in Missoula.

Posted by: The Big Sky Business Journal

It’s doubtful that when Montanans think about manufacturing that they fully understand the dynamics of the industry, given how low-key most of these businesses are. With manufacturing being termed as Montana’s best "revival tool," by Jerry McConnell, President of Jore Corporation, it’s exciting to see these firms, not only because they are part of our current economic base, but also for the potential they hold for the future. Following are the companies who were represented at the conference, a brief description of what they do and the markets they serve.

Cherry Tree Design — a Bozeman shoji-maker that "works with wood, the old-fashioned way, by hand." Partitions, doors, cabinets, lamps — meticulous tension-fitted joints to oiled, hand-rubbed and lacquered finishes, using a minimum of screws and nails, and paper facing, using the finest of hardwood and unique papers. Sold throughout U.S. and Canada.

BeeSilk, Ltd. — from St. Ignatius, the company makes a wide variety of products from beeswax — candles, hand cream, lip

balm, lotions, soaps, and of course honey.

Darcova, Inc. — a Billings company that manufactures "the Original Composition Valve cup" which they developed in 1912 and is "the industry leader." For use in the oil field, offering a full line of AI, Lip Type and Wood Type valve cups that are used in the oil industry. They are marketed in the U.S., Southeast Asia, and the Middle East.

The Enell Sports Bra — manufactured in Havre for the past 12 years, this specially designed bra is for any woman who is serious about support. Renelle Braaten designed the bra when she could find nothing on the market to meet the needs of larger breasted women. She tried to get the industry interested in it, but failing that she started her own business. Sales have increased 75 to 150 percent each year in what is a fast growing market. They employee eight people and market through retailers in the US, the UK, Canada and Germany, but mail order sales are world-wide.

West Paw Design — A Bozeman-based company that makes all kinds of accessories for pets. More than 125 "fun and innovative products guaranteed to make tails wag and cash registers purr." Beds, toys, gourmet catnip, etc. Products are sold internationally.

Rosie’s All Natural Rewards — produced in Pray Montana south of Livingston, the three-year old company produces pet food made from 100% beef, derived from range cattle, raised without preservatives. Employing seven people the company utilizes about 2500 pounds of beef a month from Ranchland in Butte. Products are sold throughout the US and Canada.

Grit-Gitter — produced in Bozeman, this unique device that helps clean hot tubs and pools. A long-reaching vacuum tube its fun and easy to use. Sold throughout the US and Canada, with a few sales in other countries.

Bequet Confections — a company making delicious candy in Bozeman. Owned by Robin A. Bequet, the company sells candy throughout the U.S. and other countries.

Wookey Backpacks — based in Bozeman the company produces a wide variety lightweight backpacks utilizing only domestic raw materials. The product is sold throughout the US, Hong Kong and Japan.

Wapiti Wear — based in Bozeman this company has been making quality outdoor blankets since 1990. Started as a parent-inspired, all-weather blanket to protect the owners baby from wind, precipitation and cod, the company has expanded to include outdoor blankets for people of all ages, featuring the same qualities. A water-repellent shell to block wind an moisture, and a soft, insulating fleece lining for comfort and warmth.

Northern Specialty — a Missoula-based company produces high density polyethylene pipe (HDPE) that is commonly used by utilities, mining contractors, engineers and suppliers. Their product is sold throughout the U.S., Mexico, Canada, Australia and France.

Showcase Carvers — is a company in Whitehall that produces quality furniture, lamps, and decorative pieces that feature wildlife carvings.

Phillips Environmental Products, Inc. — a Belgrade company whose primary product is a portable, environmentally-conscious toilet. The product, developed in 1998 by Leonard Phillips, Bozeman, an inventor who at 95 wanted to find one "last great idea." His family dedicated themselves to bringing it to market. It’s been used by families, firefighters, truckers, disaster relief, the military, construction companies, farmers, campers and boaters. It’s been sold in the US, Japan, Australia, Israel, Canada and South America.

Wood’s Powr-Grip, Co. Inc. — a leading-edge international company located in Laurel that manufactures vacuum lifters primarily used in the glass handling business. Very much a family business owned by Keith and Faye Woods, they manufacture tools of every size and variation, based upon a basic design invented by Keith’s father. It is an industry standard world-wide.

American Eagle — in Missoula, this company is also a leading edge manufacture of quality dental instruments. Employee-owned, they are a model manufacturing plant, with sales internationally.

Timeless Seeds — in Conrad, was created in 1987 by four organic farmers to develop cropping and market opportunities for their own farms. Today the company contracts and sources organic grains from dozens of
organic farmers throughout Montana as well as numerous states and Canadian provinces. Product list includes cereal grains, legumes, flax, etc. Products are all grown on certified organic farms by family farmers in Montana and the Northern Great Plains.

Montola Growers Inc. — a Culbertson-based oilseed processing facility that produces high quality,
healthy vegetable oils (notably safflower oil) for the food industry and provide a market for the superior oilseeds produced in this region. (other seeds Canola, Linola, Flax, Sunflower, Soybean, Crambe)

Quake Industries — Belgrade. A Montana-based corporation, offering over 32 years experience in the field of injection-molded thermoplastic technology, and using the technology in the production of long-gun accessories. Products are sold throughout the US and 22 other countries.
Gibson Guitar — an internationally recognized manufacturer of a famous acoustical guitar, based in Bozeman. Some Gibson Acoustic lines have been inspired by the artists who owned them, including Elvis, John Lennon, Emmy Jour Harris. No two instruments are alike and all are valued as works of art.

Jore Corporation — based in Ronan this company is a manufacturer of power tool accessories and hand tools under retailers’ private labels and for power tool makers. Products include a quick-change drilling and driving system, a reversible drill and drivers, an hand tools such as its torque driver. Sears Roebuck is a major customer and Jore has a license to sell power tool accessories under the Stanley trademark. The company was founded in 1987.

Wheat Montana — a family-owned business at Three Forks that is recognized state-wide for its quality bread and flour products. From field to shelf the company is fully vertically integrated in producing and processing their own wheat.

Counter Assault — A Kalispell company that has been producing bear pepper spray for 15 years. Widely used by law enforcement and military. Sold throughout the US, Canada and Japan.

A & S Tribal Industries — Poplar. Owned by the Ft. Peck Assiniboine and Sioux tribes operated through a conventional corporate structure and is located on the Ft. Peck Indian Reservation. The company manufacturers products for both the government and commercial sectors, including metal fabrication, aluminum products, and protective netting.

Diversified Plastics, Inc. — A Missoula manufacturer of high-quality injection-molded and machined plastic parts to industry for both replacement and original manufacturer use. Also is a distributor for all forms of plastics in sheet, rod and tube profiles. Equipped to handle the smallest high-tech part to large industrial and mill parts, with personnel ranging from machinists and engineers to consultants and technical sales people. Founded in 1976 by company president Rod Reid.

Ironwood Manufacturing — a Missoula company that produces tables and functional furniture for schools.

Mountain Woods — East Glacier adjacent to the Blackfoot Reservation. Makes high quality wooden kitchen accessories — Fiddle Bow Knife and fiddle bow cutting board.

Golden Ratio Woodworks — Emigrant. Producing portable massage tables and chairs, salon furnishings and treatment tables for the past 20 years. Markets in US, England, Australia, Hong Kong, etc.

Big Sky Brewing — A Missoula brewery where all the employees are brewers. Moose Drool, Summer Honey, Scape Goat, Powder Hound and Slow Elk, are some of their noted brews.

Northwinds Publishing and Printing — Great Falls. A producer of fine catalogues and books. Sales throughout US Canada and India.

Montana Natural Beef — Billings. A company established in 1999 by a group of beef producers who raise beef using environmentally and economically sound techniques to insure ranches will be in production for future generations. Focusing on top genetic Angus breeding programs. The company sells primarily to restaurants.

ITI Inc.– Missoula. A contract manufacturer of medial and safety devices, since 1991. Distributed world-wide.

Sunburst Sensors — Missoula. The company produces the Sami-CO2, a novel automated instrument that measures carbon dioxide in sea or fresh water and air, developed for oceanographic applications. Sold in US, Canada, New Zealand, Japan, Norway, Germany, Iceland and Spain.

Montana Manufacturing, Inc. — A wood manufacturing company in Choteau that produces equipment used in producing quality precision dowels, fence rails, deck railing and log furniture components. Products are sold internationally.

R. L. Winston Rod, Co. — A Twin Bridges company that produces the best multiple piece fishing rod ever made. Exclusive and world-renowned. The company was launched in California in 1929 and moved to Montana from San Francisco to Montana in 1976. Their eleven models are sold in North and South America, Europe, Asia, New Zealand and Australia.

McDantim Gas Blending Technologies — based in Helena, this company produces technology for the welding industry that blends two or three gases at a very consistent mix ratio. The product is sold in the US, Mexico, Canada, North, South and Central America, and Japan.

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High-energy Teams Score

Posted by: The Journal

"Manufacturing is becoming more like Junk Yard Wars everyday, and there is a lot more at stake than a crankshaft trophy," Greg Long told attendees of the Montana Manufacturing Extension Center’s biennial statewide conference in Missoula.

Junk Yard Wars is a popular television program on the Discovery Channel of a game show that pits teams against each other in competition to build usable things from anything they find in a junk yard. Long and his team have proven to be consistent winners.

Long likened Junk Yard Wars to the business of manufacturing with the need for both endeavors to create "high energy results oriented teams."

The theme of his talk was "From Junk Yard Wars… to Factory Floors." Asked if they had learned anything in Junk Yard Wars that was useful in manufacturing, Long said, "No. It’s what we learned in manufacturing that made us successful in Junk Yard Wars."

During the course of competition his team built a road racer, dune buggy, hover craft, rocket (for finals they had to launch an ostrich egg and it had to come back in one piece) — and a car wrecker, one that had to flatten a car to ten inches in height in 30 minutes.

The challenge was much the same as those faced by manufacturers, he said: they had to build an increasing complex product, they had to build it better than the competition, with limited resources and in ever shorter periods of time.

In real life, Long’s manufacturing company is one that produces unfinished wood furniture. They produce primarily case goods — 200 different models of furniture, that are delivered by truck in less than two weeks after the order. His business is in a market that has been in decline, which has imposed it’s own unique challenge. They have responded by filling a niche market of modifying the furniture they make to meet the needs of customer’s who want a "one of a kind" piece. "As long as they can describe it on the phone to us we build it," he said, "if they have to draw it, then it’s too complicated for us." In the course of a ten-hour period his plant produces 300-400 pieces of furniture.

To keep pace with that kind of demand, "You have to know technical aspects of what you are doing. If you don’t understand your product 200 percent you aren’t going to win the war in the manufacturing environment," said Long, adding, "You must have very dedicated employees comfortable working in a team."

They rely on High Energy results-oriented teams. According to Long, such teams have to have common, well-defined goals, good communication, and a trust in each others skills — "get the best people doing the job and then let them do the job."

He offers advice: "Don’t dwell on problems that don’t exist. Time after time, teams will try to prepare for every possible contingency. They are so focused on not making a mistake that they put off for an entire year making a decision that even the worst case scenario would have cost them only a day-and-a-half in production time. The time they lost during that year was considerably more."

Finally and most importantly, Long said, "Do not have failure as an option."

Long explained that the idea for Junkyard Wars came for the segment of the movie of Apollo 13 when the engineers were given a box of materials and told they had to solve a problem the astronauts were having on the space ship using only the materials in the box — because that was all the materials that the astronauts had at their disposal. And, they were told "failure is not an option."

"It is the same in industry," said Long, "There is nothing like an ‘out’ to decrease productivity. Don’t give yourself that option."

Long interrupted his comments to conduct a game with the audience. Two teams, of nine each, were formed and each was given three tennis balls in a cylindrical container. The teams were challenged to put the three balls in the container, with the process having to be that each of the nine team members had to touch each of the three balls before going into the container. Team One did it in nine seconds. Team Two in did it in 4.38 seconds. Then the first did it in 3.8 second. They were then bested by Team Two with 2.93 seconds. In another round of tries the first team did it in 1.97 seconds, and then 1.22 seconds. Then both teams were told that Sentinel High School students had done it in 1.09 seconds. So they tried it once more. Team One did it in .9 seconds.

Long said that he would bet that no one in the room would have predicted it was possible to put the balls in the container in less than a second. "That shows what happens when you get a team working together. One team got ideas from the other, he pointed out , "you need to have teams talking to each other."

To develop teams you need strong upper management leadership, Long went on to explain. "Teams don’t always know what teams need," he said. They also need coordination. "If you have seven teams and they each set their own goals they may wind up with seven different goals, with only two aligned with the company mission statement."

They also need honesty. "If there is only a 50 percent chance of being able to implement whatever they come up with, they need to know that up front. Because they are going to figure out how to make that 50 percent chance into a 90 percent chance."

The goal needs to mean more to the team than anything they can do individually, continued Long. "A high level of team buy-in is needed. If you sense they have reservations you have to get them on board."

Sounds easy? Why isn’t everyone doing it? It’s just as important to examine why teams don’t work as why they will, said Long. The answer is, "It is hard work; extremely hard work to do it right."

When they do buy-in, "you have an employee base that is pushing expectations; they are pushing management."

"It requires that tough decisions get made. It pushes most managers out of their comfort zone. Most people are uncomfortable with the unknown and managers are no different," explained Long.

Company culture has to be taken into consideration, too. "I wouldn’t suggest that all the company is organized into high energy teams. Most company cultures won’t support it. After all, the high energy team members are most likely to be the rebels and they will create stresses."

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