It’s helpful for a CEO to have someone outside the company as a sounding board to share current events and new ideas. It’s beneficial if that person has also run a die casting company. It’s icing on the cake if that person is also your father. I always walk away with a few bits of wisdom from our discussions.
Recently we discussed how he led General Die Casters from a struggling shop in the early 90’s to a very capable die caster with world-class quality by the turn of the century. He said it was very simple, (at least conceptually). He built a culture where everyone’s decisions were focused on two concepts: Quality and Customer Service. Once that happened everything fell into place and the organization transformed.
If we accidentally ran production with a water line leak overnight and made marginal castings, the product was scrapped. The customer should only receive the best castings we can make.
If a dimension is slightly out of specification but the customer may not even notice on incoming inspection, we would notify the customer to make an informed decision.
If the customer is having a problem in assembly but you recognize the problem isn’t your casting, you get in the car and visit them anyway.
Quality and Customer Service became our guiding light, and we began gaining new customers and growing our business. Another interesting by-product is that our new customers happen to be companies that share these same values and are the quality leaders in their respective industries. These are the types of customers that you can grow strong relationships with over time versus those constantly chasing the lowest possible price. We are still working with many of them today.
We continue to live by this creed and take our responsibility to our customers seriously. We are adopting this philosophy with our young, talented team at Dart Casting and we’re already seeing results. If you need a die casting partner committed to your success, look no further. Call the General Die Casters and Dart Casting team today.
