News and Notes Archive
| December 2006 Sturges named 2006 Outstanding Vendor of the Year by Black Diamond Expo |
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| July 2006 Sturges Recognized for Outstanding Commitment to the Customer |
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| June 2006 Statistical Process Control Use to Validate Tear Webbing |
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| April 2006 Customer Satisfaction Again Above the 90% Mark |
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Sturges named 2006 Outstanding Vendor of the Year by Black Diamond
The award presented by Ken Stone, Director of Product Development and Rob Ingersoll, Materials Manager cited Sturges for “Superior support in developing webbing products for the climbing community”. Sturges Account Manager Tyler Griffith said “We are extremely gratified that Black Diamond has recognized not only our innovative products, but also our unique manufacturing processes and our ability to verify product performance through statistical process control”. At Sturges, our passion is to determine both the needs and expectations of our customers and then to go well beyond. For example, we will develop specific projects to monitor and then reduce a customer’s waste, which in turn reduces their costs. It’s these types of things that build the long term relationships that form the foundation of Sturges. Sturges Recognized for Outstanding Commitment to the Customer
Recently, our quoted four-week lead time for an engineered polyester webbing just wouldn’t allow our customer enough time to meet their tight deadline for fabricating prototypes; they needed the 1,000 yards in less than 10 days. After shipping the order complete in 8 days, our customer wrote "Thank you so much for squeezing this order in prior to your vacation shutdown. It means a great deal to us and potentially our future business". Just more proof that at Sturges, we believe doing the extraordinary is just ordinary good business. Statistical Process Control Use to Validate Tear Webbing
At Sturges, we try to take this burden off customers. We use statistical process control (SPC) to monitor the weaving process on a continual basis, internally quarantining lots until acceptable results are observed on the run charts for both maximum arrest force and elongation. “It’s really the ideal way to monitor this complex process” according to Norma Jean Rice, Sturges’ Quality Manager. “Rather than just testing a few yards at the beginning of a run”, she continues “we test under five different conditions; ambient, wet, elevated temperature, cold temperature and frozen wet, and then make in-process adjustments to the loom only when we see a trend where the data points are moving towards one of the control limits. There is no question in my mind that SPC is the only practical way to have confidence in the product.” For our tear webbing customers, this means our webbing arrives certified to meet the ANSI Z359.1-1992 (R1999) & CAN/CSA-Z259.11-05 and the data is there to back it up. It’s just another example of how we strive to not only deliver a product, but also opportunities to reduce our customer’s processing costs. Customer Satisfaction Again Above the 90% Mark The results are in on the 12th annual Sturges Customer Survey and for the fourth straight year, the Customer Satisfaction Index has exceeded the 90% level. Forty-one replies were received from the mailing to our top ninety-one customers, an impressive 45% response rate. Again, almost half (49%) of the respondents ranked Sturges as "Excellent" for all categories! From “Poor” at 1 to “Excellent” at 4, the averages breakdown follows:
The survey is sent to the top ninety-one customers including in some cases multiple contacts at the same customer in order to gain opinion from different perspectives. Further, it is sent to any customer who may have had a complaint in the past year to determine how well Sturges resolved that particular complaint. In addition to the objective answers, customers are asked, "What one thing could we do better to serve you?" Each of these replies is individually addressed not only to improve the process to that particular customer, but also to improve our quality system and benefit all customers. “While we are tremendously pleased with the results this year, we further understand that the bar has been raised and we must continue to strive even harder to raise the Index again next year” states President Richard Griffith. |
Black Diamond Equipment (www.blackdiamondequipment.com) of Salt Lake City, Utah, a global leader in climbing, ski and back country gear, has selected Sturges as the Outstanding Supplier for 2006.
Customers buying energy absorbing webbing, more commonly referred to as “tear” webbing, are faced with a dilemma upon receiving a shipment. How much costly destructive testing is required to validate the lot, and then how does one know for sure that the test sampling really captured a good representation of the production lot?
