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Thermal Corporation started in 1969 as
a catalog-house and distributor of all kinds of thermal supplies
(insulation, heat exchangers, heaters, coolers, various temperature and
heat measuring devices, and related supplies). The market being
targeted was defined as "engineers and scientists in university and
industrial laboratories". From the beginning, the basic
philosophy was to provide the kind of service to customers that the
founder, Bob Stottle, had wished was available when he was an engineer,
working in the industry. After the first
catalog was prepared and sent to ad-respondents, orders began trickling in.
A number of the orders received were for cartridge and
band heaters. Those products were listed in the catalog without
realizing that they had application in a special market - the plastics
industry. At about the time that Bob was feeling that he would have to
find part-time work to supplement his income while the sales of Thermal
Corporation were slowly building, a supplier of cartridge and band
heaters sent one of their sales representatives to help enhance the sale
of their products to Thermal. That representative showed how the
products were used on plastic molding and extruding machines and introduced Bob to the
industrial heater business. Business grew rapidly from that time on,
and Thermal Corporation leaned ever-more in the direction of the
industrial heater business and away from " all kinds of thermal
supplies". Within six years, Thermal became the largest
distributor of band and cartridge heaters for the largest manufacturer of
those products in the U.S.
Customers that use band and cartridge heaters also use temperature sensors
(thermocouple and RTD probes). In 1977, the decision was made to add
thermocouple probes to the Thermal line; however, a reliable producer of
quality probes was not found to provide the probes to Thermal. So,
the decision was made to produce the items in house. That marked the
beginning of manufacturing at Thermal Corporation.
Two years later, in 1979, the production of band and strip heaters started
at Thermal. This began because Thermal's major supplier of band and
cartridge heaters was the victim of an extensive labor strike and, a
reliable supplier of quality products was not found to replace them.
It was planned at the same time to begin manufacturing cartridge heaters
but, because of the extensive research and capital equipment required, it
was 1983 before production of cartridge heaters actually began.
In 1991, ceramic knuckle bands became the fourth product line designed and
produced at Thermal. This complimented our line of mica heaters and
allowed us to respond to customer needs for quick delivery with Thermal
manufactured products. Thermal
considered its market as being all injection molders and extruders of
plastic materials. The firm was serving that market by following the
practices of its competitors in quoting delivery times of four weeks or
more. By 1985, it appeared that there was a market need, not only
for quality products, but for fast delivery. Thermal targeted the market
niche for good quality, custom-made heaters and temperature sensors
with shorter delivery times than was available from any competitor.
That remains as the primary niche for Thermal Corporation.
From the beginning, Thermal tried to provide only "quality"
products and services. In retrospect, we realize that for a long
time we didn't know very well how to go about that. In 1985, Bob
attended a seminar conducted by Dr. W. Edwards Deming which provided a set
of philosophies and tools that led many companies (and even a country) to
world-class quality. It was not until 1991, however, that rapid
progress toward achieving world-class quality at Thermal was made when a
consultant, Nirdosh Reddy, was retained to guide the company in the use of
"Total Quality Management" (TQM). Mr. Reddy taught Thermal
employees, in easy-to-understand terms, how to apply TQM tools and
philosophies. In 1993, Thermal received the Alabama U. S. Senate
Productivity and Quality Award in the Small Business category. TQM
remains an integrated part of Thermal operations.
During 1994, in our quest for a meaningful next step, Bob read two
books that impressed him. These books were Reengineering the
Corporation, by Hammer and Champy, and Empowered Teams, by Wellins, Byham
and Wilson. A core group of individuals which represented the
leadership and management of the company then read and discussed the
books. Later a study course was developed which was attended by all
employees. The theme of our effort was to reengineer the company
with empowered teams playing a major role.
Reading the books inspired and motivated us but the books did not provide
a very good roadmap. After much discussion, Thermal decided on a
quantum leap improvement in the niche that we are the strongest in, fast
delivery. We had a quoted delivery of 6 working days from order to
shipment, but averaged less than that. Many times when a customer's
process was down due to the need for a heater, we would build and ship the
product in the same day. In this area, Thermal's competitors had not
been standing still either. While working on our new goal, two of our competitors
made announcements that they could ship heaters in one to three days for
an extra charge. The quantum leap goal
selected was - "what Thermal's competitors would do in one to
three days for an extra charge, Thermal would do in 4 hours at no
extra charge". It was felt that if we could manufacture most of
Thermal's products in 4 hours, this would be both a challenging goal and
one that could be strategically important to Thermal. If our
customers could order heaters one day and get them the next, they could
significantly reduce their inventory of spare heaters.
To achieve this 4-hour manufacturing goal, we had to implement a number of
changes. In the summer of 1994, Thermal hired a consulting group to
provide training to most of our employees on plant layout and on JIT /
Kanban. Though this consultant helped, it certainly was not a silver
bullet. The approach was to increase
efficiency and reduce throughput by redesigning the plant layout. Two teams were formed. One team, the Layout Team, focused on the
physical layout of the plant. The other team, the Policies,
Procedures and Systems Team, focused on what things needed to be done to
take advantage of the new layout. It was anticipated that it would
take 12-13 months to implement the changes. It actually took about
19 months. Still there were other major
areas of improvement needed to be able to meet the 4-hour plan.
Manufacturing equipment needed to be improved. The three production
groups added 33 pieces of equipment or work tables to their
processes. Some of these items were designed and manufactured by the
respective manufacturing TQM Teams. Only 8 out of the 33 items were
off-the-shelf pieces of equipment. Our
computer system needed to be improved. A totally new custom designed
order entry / manufacturing software package was needed. A new
hardware system was purchased to fully take advantage of the capabilities
offered by computers. Another key
requirement was to be able to move human resources to the bottleneck
areas. This meant employees must be cross-trained to work in a
number of areas within the company. A "Pay for Skill"
program was implemented for the manufacturing employees to encourage
cross-training and to reward those who were trained in more than one
process. Due to implementation of all these
changes and improvements, manufacturing and shipping of all qualified
products within four hours is now a way of life at Thermal.
In 1995, Thermal received the Alabama U.S. Senate Award of Excellence in
Continuous Productivity and Quality Improvement. Thermal remains
focused on constant improvement in all of its processes through the use of
TQM and JIT tools, continuously shortening delivery times through
improvement of scheduling and manufacturing processes, and improving the
understanding of all parts of the business by all
employees.
In the late 1990's, Thermal added a new higher performance
mica nozzle band line, and in 2002, added a new improved "ThinFlex"
mica band line. Today we continue our efforts
of constant improvements to remain the best at what we do - quality
products, competitively priced, with the fastest delivery in the industry.
We call it VALUE. |
