The End of an Era

Yes, a major, major change is underway at work. Something I have been directly involved in since day one of my employment in May of 2002.

Let's go back to the beginning.

The day I was hired was a hot day. I was a week or two shy of turning 47 years old and having just come out of 4 years at a Boeing desk job was not in great shape. They put me right into shipping and receiving. Translation: Packing boxes. I didn't know anything about the sheer numbers of product I would pack, nor did I even know what the items I was packing were. All I know is I packed a lot of them. What they were, in fact, were parts for Sonicare toothbrushes. Unbeknownst to me, I had walked right into the La Croix Industries' fastest moving, most furious, nonstop, never-ending account. One that took priority over almost everything else they made at that time. I had to work like I have never worked before. I worked my ass off to keep up.

To put it in perspective, almost every week we shipped 5 pallets of "short arms", 1-2 pallets of "long arms", and 5 pallets of "channels." What does that mean in numbers? Well, each box of short arms was 23 lbs. and contained 1000 parts. Each box of long arms weighed in at 27 lbs. and also contained 1000 parts. The channels were the ones that kicked my ass--Each box weighed 35 lbs. and contained 1500 parts. A full pallet of each kind of the arms contained 75 cases and the channel pallets contained 67 cases. That means on a weekly basis we were shipping 375000 short arms, 75000 long arms, and 502,500 channels!

That's a lot of packing! Hell, that's a lot of everything; Manufacturing, washing, packing, shipping... That explains why I lost over 25 lbs during the first two months I was employed. I kicked ass. I found something within me that I previously had never felt or known. I had pride in my job and I put everything I could into it. In addition to doing all that packing, I was also the delivery guy, and also unloaded and loaded trucks when they came in. I had a full plate! I worked nonstop all day long and many times had to do overtime as well just to make it all work. My work ethic had come from somewhere deep and had previously been hiding I guess. Fortunately, it was noticed--I received 3 raises during those first two years, and never asked for any of them.

After those two years of packing, I was moved. A few folks noticed that I possessed an intelligence level and mechanical aptitude that was above most of the employees there (it wasn't so much me as it was the other employees) and promoted me to operating the high-speed press that makes those arms and channels. It was not a position to be taken lightly, nor a position that was offered to just anyone. That Bruderer high-speed press was their baby--Their pride and joy. Whenever they had visitors or potential customers that they showed their facility to, it was the Bruderer press they were most proud of.

In the last year or so, I was bumped up once more to the "lead" to the press. That put Bruce as the supervisor, me as the lead, and we had a new guy as the operator. Things were moving way slower than they ever had, but were still fairly constant.

Well, all good things got to come to an end.

Little by little, the Philips company (owners of Sonicare toothbrushes) have been ordering less and less of the parts. The original "flagship" design toothbrush has been replaced by a newer design--One not manufactured by our company.

Last summer Bruce saw the end of the line before anyone else. See, whenever we have to order replacement bits and pieces for the tooling that makes the parts, we have to get an okay from the Philips company because they actually own the tooling that the press uses to make the parts with. Last August when Bruce called to get an okay on some replacements, the guy on the other end of the phone said, "Do you think you could get by on 2 instead of 4 of those?" After a little Q&A, Bruce determined that they were planning on phasing that entire product line out during the first quarter of 2008.

Imagine the owner's shock. When Bruce told Phil the rumor minutes later, he said he saw the color drain from his face. This was money rolling into the company that they could always count on. They used to call the Bruderer "what kept the lights and heat on".

Recently (maybe a month ago), we received the schedule that contained the last shipment. It was due on in the first week of February 2008. Last week Bruce did an inventory of parts that we had on the shop floor (some packaged, some not) and walked up to me with the news.

"Shut the press down. It's over. We've got our orders filled."

What does that mean to us? Not sure. Our company has shifted it's focus quite a lot to machined aerospace parts so it's not the end of the world by any means. What is troubling though is how much material we have left. We have to order the coils of stainless steel from the supplier in the Midwest quite a ways in advance. We now have a lot of material standing around. I'm sure they're going to try to get Philips to pay for them. We'll see. What will we do with the Bruderer press? Well, because it's a high-speed press we can't put just any tooling in there without tearing the tooling apart, but I'm sure they'll be able to use it for something. At least over the years it's paid for itself. I've been occupying my time the last several days with inventorying all the tooling parts we have on hand to give to Philips, because as I said before, they own the tooling.

Yep, it's truly the end of an era.