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 invest our time and money to travel around the country to help educate our customers on using aluminum extrusion, precision machining, plastic injection and foam molding, and cost reduction strategies, to name a few.
At our Education Seminars, we teach attendees about aluminum alloys and which alloys work best for specific products and applications. We help them understand and take advantage of different aluminum finishing techniques, such as anodizing, hardcoat and ExtremEtch™. We also educate them on different features they can incorporate into their aluminum extrusion designs to reduce costs, as well as how to bend aluminum components properly without compromising the structural integrity, and design for manufacturability.
In 2013 and 2014, we hosted 22 seminars for 152 attendees from some of the world’s leading OEMs. On average, the attendees ranked the seminar 4.5 on a 5-point scale, where 1 is unsatisfactory, and 5 is excellent.
Participants have told us that our education seminars are “….very informative without being a sales-pitch.” “The show and tell explanations with actual die tools and sample parts, was awesome.” And to be fair, one common concern we hear from participants is, “the seminar is too long.” But when we ask if we should remove any of the information provided in the seminar, the answer is always, “no.”
We also host our Customer Leadership Conference, where we bring in experts to present on industry trends, and innovative manufacturing strategies and solutions. Some favorite topics of attendees include aluminum metal pricing, raw material supplies, the U.S. and global economic outlook, cost reduction strategies, the cost of inventory, and Quick Response Manufacturing.
We have designed these free educational events to address the everyday challenges that affect our customers with the goal of helping them succeed at making the best products at the lowest possible cost.