Continuous improvement requires change, something many companies seek to avoid. That’s part of what makes Z-AXIS different from other electronic manufacturers. Learn how our culture of continuous improvement is helping us to improve quality, add capacity, and master complexity.
Interviewer: We’re here at Z-AXIS in Phelps, New York, where they provide electronic design and manufacturing services in their ISO certified facility. We’re going to sit down with Michael Allen to talk a little bit about how Z-AXIS has evolved over its many years in business.
Michael Allen: Part of being an ISO 90001 company is your requirement for constant improvement. That is absolutely true here. This year we’ll be in business 35 years and it’s amazing the changes that we’ve made in just the last year or two of those 35 years. My staff has done nothing but gotten better over the years, just by hiring good people.
Processes. There isn’t a work week that goes when a work instruction isn’t updated to improve it. With in-process QC or outgoing QC, every year we sit down and look at it and say, “OK. How do we get better?” Our defect rate going out to customers has gone down every single year – a continuous improvement.
Equipment. We have continued to invest in the company. Three years ago, I spent a million dollars on equipment. For the last few months, I spent a $1.5 million on equipment. We have 19 different pieces of equipment that are going online over the last month and a half.
Our customers, each of them, have certain needs – certain special things. We’re very willing to do those special things for our customers.
Interviewer: You guys have a whole department of engineering and design, right?
Michael Allen: In addition to our eight-person manufacturing engineering department, we have 12 people working in our design engineering department. We have four degreed electrical engineers where all they do is design. We have an engineer that runs the department.
Having that design capability really adds a lot. We’re virtually the only one in Upstate New York that has this design and manufacturing capability.
Interviewer: Looking back at it all, what can you say makes you most proud of what Z-AXIS has become and where it’s going?
Michael Allen: Today we’re a very successful company. I’ve never had so many customers that were making happy. And you know we hire a lot of great people. I’m very proud of the people we have working for us.