Metalcasting is a Fraternity

The team at Synchro ERP wants to offer our prayers and good thoughts to the team at Noranda Aluminum located in New Madrid Missouri USA over the recent explosion at the facility.

Metalcasting is a fraternity of individuals that have the passion in the heart.  Of course, this goes without saying that metalcasting is also a very dangerous business to be in.  I have a habit that I picked up from the HR manager James Covington and the late great safety manager Danny Melton at Texas Foundries - Citation Lufkin, HAVE A SAFE DAY.  It maybe a "cliche", but safety is no accident.

Details of this on-going story can be found @ 5 injured in explosion at Noranda Aluminum in New Madrid

Updated  information @ OSHA: Molten aluminum touching water preliminary cause of Noranda explosion

See you on down the road until next time and BE SAFE OUT THERE!

Shane Allen
Synchro ERP
Head of North American Operations

You Picked a Fine Time to Leave Me Lucille...

Howdy from Texas,

The minute I walked into the Country Tavern BBQ joint and honky-tonk outside of Kilgore Texas, I was immediately reminded of the Kenny Rogers song of long ago.  I was there to represent Team Synchro ERP at the American Foundry Socity, AFS, Texas Chapter board and planning meeting.  I wish Simon Adlington, our global implementation manager could have joined me, as there was a pool table right inside the door along with some great signs.  Yea, restroom sign shows an outhouse.  Thought of Lee Mahon, Jon Mapp, and Daniel Alcantara when I snapped the picture of the kiddo warning as they all have bambinos.  

 Introducing the AFS Texas Officers present for the year 2015-2016!

Dan Smith, the President for this term did an outstanding job with his first meeting, of course he had a great team behind him!

It was a great meeting and a lot of hard work went into it.  The budget for the new fiscal year was approved as well as the meeting schedule and the new fiscal year as well as committee assignment.

Yours truly has been appointed as the chairman of the membership committe and a member of the publicity and membership committee.  Around August first, be sure to check out the new chapter website at www.afstexas.org

With the depressed oil prices, most foundries are reporting a downturn in business tied to the industry which is not welcome news.  Fortunately, things that go down eventually come back up.

I'll leave you with a few pictures to cogitate over and I will see you on down the road next time in Arlington Texas.

Shane Allen
Synchro ERP
Head of North American Operations

Where Have You Been?

Hello from Texas,

Where have you been, err, better question would be, where have I been.  Yes, I do realize and appreciate it has been two months since the last blog posting.  Apologies all around loyal fans!  All is well in the land of Synchro ERP and the team is hard at work giving the customers outstanding support and introducing new customers and sales leads to the wonders of the metalcasting specific software.

Just a brief catchup for now.  I did get to cross paths with my work mate, good buddy, and someone I call a friend recently in Houston as they were passing through.    Good ole Simon Adlington, our Global Implementation Manager!  Being a global company, with team members on the various continents, we rarely get to cross paths, but we do stay in touch constantly by phone and Skype! 

I grew up playing pool, billiards, but Simon really took me to school this day!  I'll use an excuse that it had been a long time since I had played.  About the only was I could win was when Simon fouled out in American rules 8 ball.  

Other news on the Synchro ERP front, we have rolled out the next phase of the APP for tablets which includes subcontract receipt and purchase order receipt.  Also in the works is a WEBINAR on why metalcasters should consider the APP for tablets.  Get in touch with me at Synchro ERP Contact Me for more details and to arrange for a online demonstration!

Until next time, see you on down the road.

Shane Allen
Head of Synchro ERP North American Operations 

Taking the Longer View

Howdy from Texas,

Does your metalcasting operations take the longer view?  What I mean by the longer view is "doing things right the first time?"  Metalcasting by it's very nature is fraught with opportunities for doing things wrong.  Quality castings with low scrap rates are the result of doing things right.

In my personal life, in business dealings, daily work, and also when I was cutting my teeth at a real foundry, I've always strived to take the longer view and do things right from square one.  I was reminded this today from a posting on LinkedIn regarding time I spent working for H. Ross Perot at EDS - Electronic Data systems.  Ross was a huge mentor and factor in my life.  The entire company worked together as a team to meet the customer demands and make the company money by doing things right the first time.

By taking the longer view, one examines the "end goal" and how to get there and also the ramifications of taking short cuts.  Short cuts might work once or twice, but in the end, the time spent doing it right would have made the short cuts unncessary.

Software, such as Synchro ERP, can make a huge difference in metalcasting operations by allowing the leaders, managers, and workers to "take the longer view" and "do things right - the first time".  Little things like having accurate and updated job instructions can insure a quality casting is delivered to your customer.  Also, scrap control.  Scrap drives me insane!  Scrap is the direct result of either taking short cuts or not doing things right.  Scrap is "lost revenue" that can never be recovered.  I liken scrap to that empty airline seat as the plane pulls away from the gate.  Once the doors are closed, the seat-belts fastened, and the trays in the upright and locked position; that empty seat is lost revenue that can never ever be recovered.

The "WORST" example I can think of in not doing things right was the steel division at the foundry I worked at.  The actual motto - the "Mission Statement" was to "Do Things Right the First Time".  Unfortunately, this was just a "motto" that barely got lip service.  The final pour before the division was shuttered was WRONG.  A medallion was being poured  as a token of the final pour.  Unfortunately, they couldn't even get that right.  The date stamp indicating final pour date was WRONG! 

The Synchro ERP software solution will make a positive difference on your metalcasting operations and ultimately your bottom line.  Write it down, mark it, circle it, high-light it; because it is an absolute truth.  Get in touch with me and let me give you the grand tour of what it is all about.

A few pictures to leave you with from the recent AFS Texas fund raising golf outing.  Synchro ERP supports the Texas AFS and in turn, the Texas AFS supports education.  Supporting education is "taking the longer view" and "doing things right"!

Keep Calm and Hire On and Increase Wages

Howdy from Texas,

While many parts of the global economy remain "uncertain", one thing is for sure, that the USA economy is rebounding and growing stronger every day.  I base this on the exciting news released today, even when you consider the U-6 rate as it is declining as well.

 

Now, what does this mean for the metalcasting sector?  It means more money can be pumped into the economy to buy goods and services as more people being employed, means more money available for disposable income purchases.  Metalcasters can make more parts for durable goods which will be purchased on the open market.

Now, the "not so good news" is that wages remain stagnant of those employed, 

"Wage growth, however, remained sluggish, rising by a mere three pennies an hour, or a 2.0 percent annualized gain. The average work week was 34.6 hours, essentially unchanged."

So, until employers start dolling out raises and increasing work weeks, the downstream impact of increased purchasing power is negated.

Of course, with a higher employed rate, this can be an opportunity for your employees to seek "greener pastures" and "higher paychecks" if you have not been keeping up with pay and benefit increases.  This is something that metalcasters really have to watch out for with their highly skilled staff.

Now, what is really interesting about the decrease in unemployment rate is that the financial markets are responding downward as there are "fears" of a interest rate increase from the US Federal Reserve.  For all intents and purposes, financial institutions have had access to "free money" from the FED at interest rates basically at zero.  They in turn "loan out the money" at higher rates, making a tidy profit in the meantime.  This is of course taking the short view, because over all in the longer view, increased interest rates help deflect inflation, increasing "earning power" by increased rates of return on investments, etc.  

So, bottom line is, before your foundry gets back up to full steam ahead at or near capacity, it's time to get the Synchro ERP software solution in place!

Until next time, see you on down the road.

Shane Allen

Head of Synchro ERP North American Operations

Friday's are Made Easy...

I sleep better at night knowing my data is safe and secure.

Have you backed up your data recently?  Too many people and companies do not back up their data on a regular basis, the same goes for having multiple levels of security with anti-virus and anti-spam/malware software.  Your network access keys on your modems and routers should be long and strong and changed often.    I use two levels of back up of data - every night my data goes to the cloud through a paid backup service while I am sleeping and I also have a local backup drive that is running all the time. 

When it comes to backups and security, I am "paranoid".  Every night, every changed file on  my work server and home computers automatically uploads changed files to the cloud for safe keeping and there are multiple versions to restore from.  I have a continuous backup of data during the day to the backup drive. 

I have had the instance of having a hard disk failure, and fortunately, it was painless and inexpensive to restore from the cloud.  For a small amount of money, the cloud provider sent me a jump drive overnight mail and I was backup and running quickly, without losing a single bit of data.

Just food for thought, I also use a paid service that monitors all of my credit cards, bank accounts, credit reports, etc. for suspicious activity.  This saved me a lot of time and effort as I was one of the millions of people whose identity was stolen.  I was notified immediately that someone using my credentials of SSN, name, address, etc. had opened up an account at a "big box" electronics store.  A squash was put on this immediately.  Unfortunately, the actors were able to open up a number of accounts for high dollar items at furniture stores, jewelry stores, etc.  These stores didn't bother to subscribe to credit reporting agencies, so they had no idea that there were stops on my credit, it was being monitored, etc.  One jewelry store was out over $3,000.  Of course, the culprits were never apprehended.  All I had to do was file a police report and the "service" took over the rest.

 So, before you go to bed at night, lay in bed stare at the ceiling and think about what all you would lose if your computer data vanished over night.  All of those pictures, documents, videos, financial information, open orders, customer information, AR, AP, etc. 

Have a good night.  Sleep well.  No nightmares about data loss!

Until next time, see you on down the road...

Shane Allen
Head of Synchro ERP North American Operations