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Unpredictable Forecast Changes

Manufacturing suppliers will typically request an annual forecast from their customers. While this process takes time, suppliers absolutely need this information to ensure they have the capacity and production wherewithal to meet your product manufacturing needs throughout the year. They use the information to determine their materials, equipment and workforce requirements. But what happens when your…

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What’s the Big Idea?

If everything you try works, you are not trying enough ideas. Naturally, we are inclined to talk about our success stories, rather than our failures. But it can be in our failures where we discover the next great idea. Searching for opportunities to make process improvements is at the heart of what we do at…

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Fishing for Success

The best way to get new business is by word of mouth – hook, line and sinker. Recently, a manufacturer’s tool builder told him that it would be impossible to make the plastic-injection mold for his fishing lures to meet the product design’s requirements. After losing an entire season of sales due to the tool…

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Pella Honored Alexandria Industries With Premier Supplier Award

Pella Corporation honored Alexandria Industries with its Premier Supply Partner award. The award recognizes Alexandria Industries for its excellence in lean manufacturing, product cost and quality, on-time delivery and customer service. Pella Corporation representatives conducted an in-depth onsite audit of Alexandria Industries’ processes and services, evaluating our overall risk management, order fulfillment, innovation, and quality. Overall, Alexandria…

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Gear Heads

The Hardest Fun You'll Ever Have Fast growing FIRST Robotics gets students interested in STEM subjects and careers—science, technology, engineering and math—using the excitement of sports combined with the rigors of science and technology. For the 2015-16 school year, approximately 75,000 students and 19,000 mentors made up 3,128 teams. FIRST Robotics competition redefines winning by…

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Fair Trade: It’s Our Duty

When we were young, we learned about fair trade with our childhood friends. We might have traded the neighbor kid our original Marvel® Captain America comic book for a set of Jax®. Today – or any day – this would be considered a questionable trade in terms of dollar value. An Internet search shows a…

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Our Board of Directors’ voice

While it's not required for privately held companies to have a board of directors, we believe it is good business practice to have one. While we are deep in the day-to-day operations, we appreciate the expert counsel of our outside peers to have a voice on how we manage our Alexandria Industries business. We are…

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Why Internal Customers (should) Matter

We all can recognize and appreciate that our external customers are critical to our business success. But we might not realize the level of importance, or lack thereof, we are putting on our internal customers. While our external customers are the reason we are able to earn a salary, and have extra revenue to reinvest…

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All About our Customers

Nothing is more important than hearing from our customers. The relationships we develop are built on the foundation of open communication. In fact, one of our first pieces of communication we send our new customers is our commitment to do everything within our power to bring value to you and your company. It is here…

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The Value of Education

“An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.” Benjamin Franklin We do not measure the value of the education we offer our customers by an increase in sales and gross profit margins. We measure it in terms of if we help them improve their understanding in how to design great products. This is why we…

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