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NEMA ratings can often be confusing. All too often, enclosures are specified with the wrong NEMA rating, which can mean wasted revenue if the chosen rating is too high, or premature failure and the potential for safety risks if the rating is too low. Choosing the correct enclosure for your needs helps reduce costs and ensures that your components are adequately defended.

Read Time: 3 Minutes  

In an age when manufacturers are striving to accomplish more work with fewer workers, anything that helps to motivate and retain a skilled workforce is worth the investment. At Fusion OEM, one of our key investments is employee training.  A thorough, well-designed manufacturing training program offers a wide variety of benefits for manufacturers, including reduced costs, increased employee engagement, and product quality improvements.

This week, Fusion partnered with Best Inc., to provide our Panel Shop and Production team members IPC Certification Soldering Training (J-STD-001 Requirements for Soldered Electrical and Electronics Assemblies). Best visited our facility with their Mobile Training Center, the only self-contained solder training center on wheels. It had all of the conveniences of a modern electronics work bench including stereo microscopes, ESD protection and professional hand tools. The two-day training was a resounding success for Fusion, our employees and our customers. Below find three ways we all benefit:

Manufacturing leaders understand the benefits of having an organized and effective safety committee – reduced insurance premiums, healthy employees, and quality on-time production. Safety is an essential component of any competitive manufacturing company, but what makes a safety committee effective? At Fusion OEM, the success of our safety committee depends on team involvement, support from management, high visibility and training. As a result, employees experience increased awareness of safety issues, quick response to safety related issues, and cooperation between employees and management in solving safety issues.

The main goal of every safety committee in a manufacturing company is to facilitate and maintain a safe work environment. A well designed safety committee should foster a sense of ownership by giving employees an opportunity to directly improve safety and reduce injuries within a company, while enhancing communication between management and employees. To accomplish this, a commitment to safety must become a shared responsibility for the entire team. At Fusion OEM, our Safety Committee is responsible for developing and reviewing safety policies, procedures, and communicating safety issues and tips to the rest of the team.

For original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), design and engineering functions are essential to developing and producing quality products quickly and cost effectively. In order to compete in today’s market, OEMs that are focused on continuous product improvement must adapt and localize their engineering near their Production floor.

As a contract manufacturer (CM), Fusion has partnered with one of their OEM clients to receive onsite support for their products. This arrangement strengthens our partnership, improves quality and reduces cost. In addition, it provides a learning experience for our client’s engineers and maximizes efficiency.

For a typical OEM, the long lead times of projects leave room for cost creeps, which arise mainly from inadequate value engineering and multiple changes in design specifications. Also, longer design engineering cycle-times slow cash flow and delay time-to-market. Design engineering issues also show up as field downtime. This is not only extremely expensive to fix within tight time parameters—it is especially aggravating to the end-users.

In the manufacturing industry, employee reviews and performance management are increasingly common topics. To remain competitive, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) need to continually improve efficiency and effectiveness in all aspects of the business. Forward thinking companies like Fusion OEM are implementing innovative solutions that ensure processes deliver results and improve performance. One example of such a solution is our Employee Check-In (ECI) Program.