Illinois machine shops are a critical component of the small and mid-sized manufacturing community and are the foundation of metal manufacturing supply chains. This sector is highly competitive, and success is dependent on understanding where you stand in comparison to your counterparts and identifying areas of improvement – a tool like benchmarking can provide powerful insights. IMEC is partnering with Gardner Intelligence and the Modern Machine Shop’s Top Shops Program to provide a fully-funded opportunity for forward-thinking machine shops to attain custom reports and benchmarking analysis of their current operations.
The information collected from the benchmarking survey allows Gardner Intelligence to provide customized reports with insight into all areas of running a productive machine shop, including:
- Shop floor practices (lead time, machining time, set-up time, average age of equipment, etc.)
- Business performance (access to customer forecasts, use of customer satisfaction surveys, profit margin, etc.)
- Human resources (use of employee training programs, annual labor turnover rate, average years of experience per employee, etc.)
Like most industries, the revenue and domestic employment rates in this sector are decreasing as a direct impact from COVID-19. Benchmarking is always important to see if there are areas companies can improve and become more profitable, but it is even more essential now in the current economy. Benchmarking allows companies to improve by doing the following:
- Highlighting strengths and weaknesses
- Providing better insight into key customers’ needs and wants
- Identifying areas of opportunity or differentiation
- Monitoring company performance
- Setting goals and performance expectations
Interested in being one of the exclusive machine shops to participate in the survey and receive custom market research and insight?
