Sixty-five years ago, Norco (norco-inc.com) was a southern Idaho welding supply company with only two stores and 20 employees. Today, the highly diversified enterprise is the nation’s largest independent welding, safety, medical, and gas supplier, serving seven states and selling...
Social media platforms, like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, have changed the way we communicate with our friends, family, and colleagues, and today are changing the way we do business. For industrial gas distributors, getting the word out about your products...
James Russell Engineering Works, Inc. (Russell Engineering) (russelleng.com) was established and has been in continuous operation in Boston, MA since 1874. Owned through five generations by the Russell family, the company started as a designer/builder of large-scale metal fabrications and pressure vessels,...
From March 18–21, for the first time ever, the 2013 Pittsburgh Conference on Analytical Chemistry and Applied Spectroscopy (Pittcon) (pittcon.org) came to the Philadelphia Conference Center in downtown Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. By all indications, it won’t be the...
The competitive landscape in the welding industry has evolved significantly over the last half century and the successful market players are the ones who have evolved with the industry and add measurable value to their customers. For over 50...
Who could forget the great recession of 2008 and 2009? On the heels of the worst economic crisis in recent history, I had the opportunity to give the keynote address to the membership of GAWDA (Gases and Welding Distributors Association)...
Lean Thinking is a philosophy of “No Waste.” It calls for a hundred small improvements every day rather than a major overhaul once a year. It is a concept based on making systemwide improvements to bring your customer greater product...
Over the last 12 months the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been stepping up their audit activity, including at medical gas facilities. B&R Compliance (br compliance.com) offers clients an analysis of the kinds of questions FDA inspectors are asking,...
In this, the seventh article in a series on Continuous Improvement as a key business strategy, the authors look at how eliminating waste in the workplace positions a successful company for greater achievements, efficiencies, and productivity. Gas and Supply (gasandsupply.com), headquartered...
On June 28th, 2012, the United States Supreme Court decided in a 5 to 4 decision that The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) was constitutional. At the heart of that decision was the individual mandate— the requirement that...
