A Manufacturing Company

If you could do whatever you wanted to do. (Continued)

I would build a manufacturing plant designed to build a variety of small products.  The manufacturing floor would be constructed with metal rubber coated boots located every foot like a grid across the entire floor of the facility.  This way when we build our manufacturing equipment or machines to create parts they can be lined up in different configurations, different locations, and readily moved as needed as the factory changes from one product run to a different product run.

 I would put the receiving department at one end connected to a warehouse with the factory in the middle, another warehouse at the other end with the shipping department capping it off at the far end.  All along the front of the factory running down the length of it would be the Administration Offices, employee locker rooms, cafeteria, day care facility, employee gymnasium, employee recreational area, class rooms, and meeting rooms.  Along the length of the back of the building would be the machine fabrication shops, prototype building, product testing, and the research & development portion of the company.

You will notice that the front part of the building would be designed to be extremely employee friendly.  I want a cafeteria so the people have a means of getting something eat before, during and after work if they need or want it.  I would provide free day care services where trained professions would not just watch the children but teach and instruct them as to whatever level the children happen to be at until they are able to go to regular school.  We could even arrange for buses or vans to transport the children to and from regular school to the company for before and after school until their parents get off work.  We could have a library and computer lab available for students and employees use.  Day care expenses are crippling many families which only makes staying a family that much harder.  With a cafeteria on site the children can have breakfast, lunch or dinner with their parent or parents while they are at work.

I would provide a gym at no cost, along with a varied recreational area for people on break or want to come in early or stay late to play in the company facilities.  The idea is to create an environment where people love their jobs and can’t wait to come to work.  I will expand on this greatly as other company ideas would come on line to take care of other needs and services of the employees – but in later posts in this series.

The company would endeavor to build its own manufacturing equipment from scratch wherever possible.  It would also invest in the latest equipment and techniques used for going from concept to actual prototype pieces in the shortest amount of time possible.  I would also invest in the equipment and personal required to make our own circuit boards, chips, and electrical components in house.  Much of this equipment and technology will require employees to be hired who have the specialized educations with which to properly utilize the equipment and technology to its maximum benefit.  I would require of all members of the company to offer classes to be held in the company class rooms to teach the skills that they have to the other employees who might be interested in learning the skills.

The idea would be that if you are currently in the janitorial services of the company, shipping or receiving, a factory line worker, or in food services working in the cafeteria washing dishes, and you want to learn and move up into a different position within the company, that you could take classes to learn the required skills and based upon the successful completion of the required technology you could move up within the company.  The classes could be anything.  It could be a line worker who dreams of becoming a chef and wants to work in the cafeteria.  It could be a person who uses a pallet jack or fork lift to load or unload trucks all day that dreams of learning to cut and shape metal, to weld and build machines for the company.  I would like for other people in the company to learn as much from others in the company as possible.

Why would I build a manufacturing company?

I would build it to manufacture my robotic lawn mowers, snow blowers, leaf munchers and vacuum cleaners.  The lawn mower, snow blower and leaf munchers would use the same power and drive base with just a different attachments for either mowing grass, mulching up and collecting leaves off the ground or for blowing snow to a different area on the ground.  The vacuum cleaners would be smaller and quieter for indoor use.

Among other ideas I have would be to design and build disposable fire alarms that would be about the size of a quarter and powered by a small watch battery designed to last for two years or more.  The plan would be to manufacture and sell four or five of them on a card wrapped with plastic near registers in major shopping centers for less than the cost of a single smoke detector.  Later you could add Radon, and Carbon Monoxide detectors to the product line up and eventually find a way to combine the three into one that are extremely cheap, very small and disposable.

I would like to be able to hold meetings with the fabricators, the prototype builders, insurance guys, marketing personnel and lawyers to roll out new product ideas and then each group takes what they need and works on it until the next product development meeting.  With each product that everything pans with we begin manufacturing as soon as a section of the production floor can be set-up with the required equipment and teams assembled to build, assemble and package the products.

America was once a world leader in manufacturing and enterprising young men could partner with banks and begin new industries.  Today banks don’t lend money to promising technology and enterprising young people, so much of the new technology is being developed in other countries where they still recognize the value of taking a risk to develop technology into new products and markets.  Labor Unions and government intervention into private industries is making it cost prohibitive to manufacture products in this country any more.  America must change its ways and move back to being the industrial giant of days gone by or we will be a user economy with no means of making an income except off of providing services, tourism and entertainment to people from other countries who will visit here on vacation.

If I could do anything I wanted, I would start my own manufacturing company and look for Americans who want a great place to work.  I would seek out enterprising Americans who have product ideas they need help to develop into new products to be manufactured here in the United States.  No Labor Unions would be allowed as they have too many ties to political entities and force the labor rates and benefits to make products to cost prohibitive to be productive in a Global economy.  American manufacturing must get competitive in the worlds global economy and that might mean people have to work for a lower rate of pay in order to have a job at all.  America needs to start limiting the scope, power and control the Federal government forces on employers to be compliant also causing our costs of business to go up.  It’s business and if they can’t make money here they will go where they can.  America needs to be business friendly, competitive, and return to the days where Made in America was a common sight and really meant something!

Hopefully with reading this it has spurred your creative juices and got you thinking of what you would love to do if you could do anything.  Please leave a comment if you have any ideas or thoughts to share concerning your dreams.

What would you love to do?

What product ideas do you have?

What ideas for the perfect fun and innovative place to work do you have for the company I have described?

Wouldn’t you love to be able to take free classes on a myriad of subject’s right where you work for FREE?

Could you use FREE Day Care?

How about extremely low cost food or FREE meals at work, prepared by real cooks in a professional kitchen?

Has this spurred any thoughts or ideas?  I would love to read about them.  Please contribute your comments and share as this whole series is intended to promote ideas geared towards exploring what your true passion in life might be.

When you are thinking about your ideas and passion – remember at this stage it is all make believe so think BIG!  No idea is too crazy, outlandish or wild!

Posted in: Manufacturing Day Care Cafeteria Robotic Lawn Mowers Snow Blower Smoke detectors factory