If we are to continue delivering the performance our customers have come to expect from MESA, our focus on continuous improvement for 2007 is to "take a breather". No, that is not contrary to the concept of continuous improvement, it just means we have grown so rapidly in 2006 that we have lots of new employees we need to ensure are totally up to speed before we embark on any new major change initiatives. So, our management team has agreed that our resources will be focused on completion of ongoing major improvement projects.
In 2007, our focus will be to complete the work in four key areas.
- SharePoint: While this is an internal program that our customers currently do not see, it has great impact for the benchmark service we want to continue to deliver to our industry. Implementing this web-based collaborative tool allows MESA employees to share best practices at all company facilities located throughout the U.S.; stay informed with real-time dashboards that provide company-wide information; improve speed of workflow; provide database functionality that allows all employees to access any information they need to do their job.
- Safety and Training: Even though safety has always been a cornerstone of the MESA way of doing business, training in 2007 is critical for our company. Our ability to grow is currently constrained by the availability of qualified people. The focus then is to train our new people as quickly and as efficiently as possible. Because of the tremendous growth we experienced in both 2005 and 2006, we have implemented a more rigorous mentoring program for our field service operations, utilizing experienced employees to assist in development. MESA's annual training investment dollars per employees is twice the industry average according to the American Society for Training and Development. We are proud of this accomplishment and intend for this training to translate into higher performance for our customers.
- Consistent Service: With the expansion of locations offering service operations, our goal is that the service operations within MESA will be seamless to our customers, regardless of where they are located. This means within our operations, we need to be consistent with all our equipment, competency of service personnel and policies related to our service operations. Both of the initiatives described above are a part of this consistent service initiative.
- Facilities: We have two expansion projects underway at our Tulsa headquarters. Our magnesium assembly is undergoing a significant expansion resulting in a doubling of our production capacity. This project is about 50% complete with a target date of April 1, 2007. We anticipate significant improvement in both delivery times and cycle times with this expansion. We will be adding about 3000 square feet of additional office space, beginning in late spring. The addition should be completed by the 4th quarter, providing more space for our expanded administrative and sales groups.
While we are not implementing new change initiatives in 2007, we are certainly not standing still. The natural inclination after such a successful year in 2006 would be to think "we have arrived". However, any MESA employee you talk to will tell you that is absolutely not the MESA philosophy. Neither is it that everyone thinks it is business at usual. Our employees have adopted the attitude of doing business The MESA Way. This attitude ensures all our customers that we will never be satisfied with status quo - benchmark is not good enough at MESA. We want to be out there in front of benchmark!