Month: February 2016

Altec, Inc. is excited to announce that the St. Joseph Manufacturing Plant was recently honored with the 2015 United Way Spirit of Community Award. The award honors one exemplary business each year for outstanding community service and support of United Way of Greater St. Joseph. The recipient business is determined through an analysis of community involvement, leadership donors, corporate support and per capita giving through United Way.

“The award is the most prestigious United Way recognition” said Kylee Strough, United Way President. At the Annual Meeting, Strough spoke to Altec’s support over the years noting Altec has long held United Way employee campaigns, has grown by $100,000 over the course of the last two years and raised in excess of a quarter of a million dollars ($266,990) in 2015. Last year the average employee gift was $401.59, and more than 35 Altec employees gave to United Way at the Crystal Circle level with a gift of $1,000 or more.

Strough thanked Altec for organizing an entire team focused on the United Way Campaign that shares stories and invites all employees to give. “United Way and giving back are part of the culture and core values at Altec,” said Strough.



“We are truly honored and humbled by this recognition from the United Way of Greater St. Joseph,” said Jon Styslinger, President of Altec. “United Way does outstanding work in helping to improve the lives of those in need in communities throughout the United States. Altec’s long relationship with United Way, and the commitment and support our associates provide to the United Way cause, is something that everyone at Team Altec takes great pride in.”



United Way is a non-profit agency that aims to improve lives through the caring power of community by focusing on education, health and financial stability. United Way invites the community to LIVE UNITED by giving, advocating and volunteering. United Way of Greater St. Joseph operates seven Initiatives/ Programs and supports 18 local Partner Agencies and has been serving area residents for 100 years.

Altec, Inc. is committed to serving the communities in which we operate and will continue with our ongoing efforts to support local charities.

We provide products and services to electric utility, telecommunications, tree care, lights and signs and contractor markets. A large piece of what we do is manufacture truck bodies for bucket trucks, digger derricks, mobile cranes, and the like. Which is why we are more than a little interested in how manufacturing is evolving as we move into a custom economy.

A Little History

Henry Ford is widely (and wrongly) credited with having invented the assembly line. While he can’t rightly own that distinction, he can be credited with creating the first plant to mass-produce and sell automobiles that middle class citizens could afford.

Ford built his operation around the notion of systemically lowering cost and minimizing waste. He structured his Model T assembly line in the sequence that the automobile would be built. Prior to that, manufacturing took place in batches.

Fast forward to post-war Japan. Kiichiro Toyoda, the son of inventor and early Japanese industrialist, Sakichi Toyoda, took what he had learned from his father’s automation of the Toyoda Loom Works and applied it to what was considered a high-risk venture at the time – the manufacture of automobiles.

The Toyota Production System (TPS) would spring out of a powerful tradition of inventiveness and out-of-the-box thinking. Built around the notions of: not overburdening the plant, keeping effort consistent, and eliminating waste, TPS took the notions Ford had developed to the next level. But it would be an employee, Taiichi Ohno who would fine-tune the TPS model creating the precursor to Lean Manufacturing. When asked where he found his inspiration, he laughed and replied that it had been Henry Ford’s book. Full circle.

The New Paradigm: Custom Manufacturing

As you can see, automotive manufacturing has led the way towards streamlined, incredibly efficient manufacturing systems.

So what’s next? Answer: custom manufacturing.

While there has always been a certain level of customization offered consumers in the automotive markets, (after all, you can pick your paint color and accessories package), those customizations have largely been off-the-shelf, plug-and-play solutions. In other words, the lines are already set up to produce a Sunset crimson, Ford Escape with the Light Stone interior, a 2.5L i-VCT I-4 engine, and 19″ Painted Luster Nickel Alloy wheels. But the custom economy we will see ramping up over the next few years takes the notion of “custom” to a whole new sphere. And, upon pondering, you’ll see that it’s the natural evolution of manufacturing – just in time for the natural evolution of what customers want.

So what are the factors of this so-called “evolution?”

1. The digitization of virtually all information. They’re calling it IOE, the Internet of Everything. And it’s happening fast. Already, online advertising has become personal. Already, you can use your phone to talk to your refrigerator at home. Bottom line, information is flowing at the speed of light and it’s changing the way we do everything.

2. Lean Manufacturing. Fact is, we’re just getting better and better at making things. By creating a lean and agile manufacturing approach, companies are able to be more responsive on a level unheard of just a decade ago.

3. Just-In-Time inventory (JIT). Okay, so there’s nothing really new about pursuing JIT. What’s new is our ability to achieve it at deeper levels in the manufacturing process.

The result of all of these influences is a manufacturing scenario where a customer can ask for virtually any design change and have the product (in our case, electric utility vehicles) manufactured and delivered in little more time than it takes to produce a standard model. At Altec, seamless communication between customers, our engineering department working in sophisticated 3D modeling platforms, and on-the-floor plant management have made this level of customization a reality, and it’s only going to get easier.

So, what’s next in the custom economy?

That just might be where Chuck comes in. You see, Chuck Hull invented the 3D printer, and we can only imagine where that technology will take us next.

To learn more about Altec products and services, please contact an Altec representative today.