October 21st, 2009 by Reg Gustafson

Clinkenbeard’s Fasterestest Blog addresses two key audiences:

1. The Rockford business, political, economic development, manufacturing, and aerospace-related communities;

2.  All professionals who wish to engage in a forum that focuses on any issues of “speed to market” as they relate to all areas in the product development cycle in relationship to metal casting, rapid manufacturing and rapid prototyping.

It is true that these key audiences are similar in scope to our other social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, and our Fasterestest Group on Linkedin), but this blog allows readers a forum to present more in-depth comments and more detailed lead topics. It is also the social media site where we have found that most Rockford-area business and economic conversation takes place.  So, we thought we’d perpetuate that with this mission statement.

With respect to our slogan, Fasterestest,” that’s simple: we operate under a speed strategy that creates a healthy sense of urgency in our workplace and allows us to deliver some of the “shorterestest” lead times on Earth for the manufacture of our customers’ products and prototypes.

So, please, join, participate, learn, teach and enjoy this site!  It’s ours as much as it is yours.

The Staff of Clinkenbeard

September 15th, 2009 by Reg Gustafson

Hurdles which prevent speed to market; purchasing requisition and fund allocation.

At Clinkenbeard we turn requests for quotation around in 24 hours or less. As we go about our daily business quoting work for customers, it is not difficult to identify hurdles which can prevent successful speed to market during this stage in the process.
(Indeed, the whole process must be streamlined to eliminate bottlenecks which stall the process of prototype part procurement. One of those potential bottlenecks we will address now.)

One common reason for delay in this process comes during the stage of obtaining “signatures” or approval for funds to purchase initial prototype hardware. As we make follow-up calls to check status on recent quotations, we speak with purchasing agents who have spent weeks to obtain purchase requisitions and approval to spend funds – only to find the process stymied at this stage in the development.

The purchasing agent then informs the supplier that the quoted delivery date must still be maintained, in spite of the two weeks spent obtaining authorization to spend funds. At this point, stress levels are high and relationships can be damaged. Contingency plans must be put in place to prevent or address these types of internal delays so that the authorization process can be expedited, just as the rest of the process is expedited to procure prototypes quickly.