D&S In The News

D&S MANUFACTURING PRESIDENT TO BE FEATURED SPEAKER AT INDUSTRY WEEK’S BEST PLANTS CONFERENCE

Black River Falls, Wis. — Michael Dougherty, President of D&S Manufacturing, will serve as a presenter for Industry Week’s Best Plants Conference at the Midwest Airlines Center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The seminar, entitled, “Accelerate: A Powerful Model for OEM Supplier Development,” is slated for Thursday, April 3, 2008, from 10:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.

“Accelerate” is an OEM supplier development model that was created in fiscal year 2005 by a consortium led by the Wisconsin Manufacturing Extension Partnership (WMEP), Oshkosh Corporation, John Deere Company and Harley-Davidson. The four-step model combines the use of two lean manufacturing principles, Value Stream Mapping (VSM) and Manufacturing Critical-path Time (MCT), to eliminate delays in the production environment and to determine a supplier’s order fulfillment capability. D&S served as a participant in the pilot program launched in 2007 and was invited by co-speaker and OEM customer Sean Ketter of Oshkosh Corporation to outline the program from a supplier’s perspective. Mike Hablewitz will provide further insight in his role as Director, Supply Chain, for WMEP.

According to Dougherty, “In order to succeed, OEMs require greater flexibility and increasingly shorter response times from their domestic suppliers. And, they also demand that these same companies be extremely price competitive. With speed the critical measure of success and improvement, D&S evaluated our processes, from order entry and machine programming to paint change over, to identify waste reduction opportunities,” he explained.

As a result of the company’s internal initiatives, D&S reduced its MCT from 30 days to 20 days and also shortened the firm delivery schedule, which enabled Oshkosh Corporation to reschedule production in a more compressed planning horizon. “Perhaps most impressive, however, was our ability to issue a rebate check to our customer for 50% of the actual savings achieved,” Dougherty concluded.

For more information about Industry Week’s Best Plants Conference, April 1 - April 3, 2008, visit www.iwbestplants.com.

For more than 40 years, ISO 9001:2000 certified D&S Manufacturing has served as a custom manufacturer of exceptional quality large scale components, assemblies and complete weldments for a broad cross section of well-respected corporations that include Caterpillar, Oshkosh Corporation, The Trane Company, CNH and Parkson. The company’s extensive capabilities include technologically superior machining, laser, high definition plasma and oxy-fuel cutting, as well as manual and robotic welding. These resources are complemented by diverse value-added services ranging from wet painting and shot blasting to assembly and testing. A dedicated and highly skilled workforce lives a commitment to superior project management, exceptional quality, accountability, teamwork and continuous improvement, which empowers the company to live its slogan, D&S …. Solid™.

For more information, please contact John Barkley, Sales Engineering Manager, D&S Manufacturing, P. O. Box 279, Black River Falls, WI, 54615, 715-284-5376, ext. 307 or fax 715-284-4084. Send e-mail to sales@dsmfg.com, and visit D&S Manufacturing’s Web site at www.dsmfg.com.

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