The Shankshot Redemption

Your friends and business partners at Feed Lease will be attending this year’s Annual PMA Golf Outings in Grand Haven, MI on June 13 and in Cleveland on June 16. We’d love to see you there to find out what’s new with you, hear what’s going on with us, play some golf and basically, socialize. It doesn’t matter how well we play. For us, it’s refreshing and rejuvenating just to get out from behind our desks and away from the shop for a minute.

Of course, if we’re being honest, we know we’re not totally getting away. Business will undoubtedly sneak onto the links – it always has and always will. Doing business on the golf course may be a tired stereotype, but it still happens. And as well it should. Golf provides the perfect atmosphere for business communication, decision making and selling.

First, since it’s not likely anyone on your foursome is a scratch golfer, there will be a fair amount of shanking, slicing and hooking from everyone. Golf has a way, sometimes a very cruel way, of leveling the playing field. And in fact, the hillier and more undulating the course, the more level that playing field becomes.

Suddenly, that competitor CEO isn’t such an impenetrable force. He or she is just like me, wandering around the rough trying to find my ball. There is common ground to be found at a golf outing. Back in business, our relationship may be ‘them’ versus ‘us.’ But on the golf course, it’s both of us versus little white dimpled balls and a holes in the ground.

On the course, dare I say, we’re partners. We’re even friends. Like a bunch of kids playing in a sandbox. Well, hopefully not too many of the sandboxes.

Everything you encounter in business, you’ll encounter at a golf outing. There’s a lot of planning, a lot of time spent lining things up. Both settings present possibilities for hope, success, disappointment and immense satisfaction. Just like in business, there are times on the course when you just have to survive a hole. You have to play through the failure. You get all your ducks in a row, you take your shot, and for some unknown reason, you end up hitting one of the ducks.

Or worse, a duck picks up the ball and walks away with it. That happens all the time on golf courses and in board rooms.

In the end, though, golf outings like the Annual PMA Golf Outings are all about the golf, recreation, getting out into nature, beer carts, steak dinners, door prizes and, under the best possible playing conditions, getting commitments for future orders.

Congratulations! It's an ERP!

We adopted an enterprise resource planning software package (ERP) at Feed Lease. Perhaps “given birth to” the software is a better description since we felt like we were going through contractions, hyperventilating and feeling an intense pressure to push during its early installation. 

But now that our baby is mostly up and running, we are experiencing some of the joys ERP’s bring to businesses. Still, this whole process of transforming our business to operate at a much higher level of efficiency has been our greatest undertaking. And while this transition will probably take 12-18 months to be fully realized, we all see it as very promising. (Twelve to 18 months...that’s when children start walking on their own, right?)

Just as the addition of a baby changes everything for parents, adjusting to our new ERP has been both challenging and eye-opening. How our business operated without an ERP was a lot like how the human body operates on junk food. It’ll run on junk food, but it won’t be as healthy, predictable and energized as it could be. You’ll never get peak performance from junk food. The ERP has allowed us to see that peak performance is well within our reach. And that’s very exciting for us.

The whole process isn’t without its trepidations. You have to expect some level of anxiety when you go from using a hammer and chisel to the space age overnight. We’re all electronic now. We’ve gone digital and now, nothing can happen unless it’s in the system. Deals we used to do over the phone have to be done within the ERP.  

But that inconvenience is way overshadowed by the information that is now instantly available at our fingertips. Data analysis, which we lagged in, is instantaneous.

If nothing else, and there is a ton of “else,” the ERP is letting us see down the road. Operating efficiencies, accuracy in reporting, data, cost breakdowns; this system will positively affect our entire processing system in terms of time and money. 

We understand there is little instant gratification in the early days of this 12-18 month implementation. We’re changing a lot of dirty diapers. But we have all the tools we need now for success and most of them were already a part of us: our strong, cohesive team. Our family. Who better to help us grow and nurture this ERP? 

You know, I just realized if you change the “E” in ERP to a “U,” you get something else newborns do. 

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Looking for more information from Feed Lease? We are the experts in coil handling equipment, coil cradles and more. Visit our website today to learn about all the products and services we provide!

Zig-Zag Is In. Are You?

Imagine a customer ordering and receiving a press mounted Zig-Zag Roll Feed and you're on your way to enjoying your own bliss. One Ohio customer recently learned that he could rake in the savings with the Roll Feed Model RFZZ-3-24 Zig-Zag.

Not only could he run multiple blanks out of a single strip, his metal stamper roll feeds guaranteed him optimization in part output, which in turn, minimized his web scrap.

Consider for a moment what he now sees happening within his own shop - multiple out blanks based on blank diameter for added scrap savings.

This Ohio customer has seen the light when it comes to the Zig-Zag Roll Feed Model RFZZ-3-24, and so can you!

Discover the mechanics of Zig-Zag roll feeds. They are mounted on linear rails and can be programmed to move up to 6" in either direction. Up to three 3.25" blank can then be stamped. The Zig-Zag is height adjustable and is entrance self-centering. Zig-Zag Roll Feed Model RFZZ-3-24, can accept a maximum stock width of 24" (61 cm), a maximum stock thickness of .125 (3.1 mm), and finally, a maximum side shuttle of 12" (30.5 cm). The Zig-Zag also provides hand crank adjustment and V-Grooved edge guides.

Take a look at the other model sizes to suit almost any application and you're on your way to additional bliss.

Try your own hand at a Zig-Zag; you don't even have to live in Ohio.

Call us! We will be more than happy to provide you with a proposal with full specifications.

Maximum Material Yield? Are you getting the most out of your material?

Get the Feed Lease Zig-Zag advantage to optimize part output and gain scrap savings of up to 13%!
Feed Lease Servo Driven Zig-Zag roll feeds can get you the boost you deserve. Simply enter the Blank Diameter, Web Width, Strip Width and 2 or 3 blanks out of the strip to achieve optimal material yield and maximum savings.

Feed Lease Zig-Zag roll feeds are available in a wide variety of width, thickness and blank diameter capacities and come with numerous standard features. Fully programmable and available press mounted or cabinet mounted, the roll feed rides on linear rails for smooth, accurate operation. A servo driven ball screw drives the X-axis while a second servo drive simultaneously advances the Y-axis for optimal positioning. Entrance and exit self-centering, hand crank adjustable, V-grooved, edge guides provide consistent, accurate guiding through the roll feed and into your die.

Call today with your requirements and get the Feed Lease Zig-Zag advantage! You can also contact us on the web! We look forward to working with you!

One Great Relationship Leads to Three Coil Handling Equipment Lines Built, Delivered and Installed in One Plant

In business, just like in life, great relationships are everything.

In more than 45 years building and installing the coiling feeding and coil handling equipment that moves the stamping industry we’ve established some great relationships with great companies and great people.

There’s a quote we found from a guy who calls himself the “pit bull of personal development”, named Larry Winget. It sums up how we do business:

“Do what you said you would do, when you said you would do it, the way you said you would do it.”

That about says it all when it comes to our approach to designing and building coil handling equipment. Whether it’s a single space saver machine for a regional stamping shop, or building and installing three complete lines to feed and straighten coil for global companies like Tower International, we approach every job that same way.

In the case of Tower, just last month we finished delivery of a conventional complete line system with a max capacity of 36” and 20,000 pounds.  The system was the 2nd of three we’re building and installing at a Johnson Controls stamping plant in Ramos, Mexico.  The third line, going in this month, is a 72”, 50,000 pounds capacity Reel/Feeder/Straightener Combination.

We put in a Space Saver line at Johnson Controls plant in Athens, Tennessee about six years ago, but it was our work for Tower that set us up for this joint venture. After working with them on their Elkton, Michigan and Bluffton, Ohio plants they stipulated using only Feed Lease machines at the Ramos plant. There’s not a better compliment than your customers demanding their colleagues and partners do business with you.

We used Allen Bradley controls in all the lines and built and delivered all three coil handling systems within the 18-20 week timeframes they needed. 

The 72” Reel/Feeder/Straightener Combination line included a magnetic tail out servo feed. Adding the magnetic tail out may seem like a small thing, but when it saves you losing 8’ of scrap per roll, we think it’s kind of a big deal.

Turning that 8’ of scrap into usable metal means more parts from every coil, higher productivity and more efficiency on every stamping run they do. When it’s feasible to do in the facility, we think it’s worth doing.

Like all of our turnkey installations we provided on-site operator training with the new machines and systems.  Making sure everything is running smooth and all the people actually working with the machines can use them is just part of the package.