Grote Industries Recognized by Employee Involvement Association for Exemplary Cost Savings Program

MADISON, Indiana, USA (December 5, 2008) - Grote Industries, for the fifth year in a row, has been granted a prestigious SEER Award by the Employee Involvement Association (EIA) for the cost-saving ideas generated through Grote’s well-established employee suggestion program. SEER stands for Savings per Eligible Employee Ratio.

With this recognition, Grote Industries and its employees top a field representing peer companies throughout the world. Grote’s Ed Sitarski also was recognized by EIA, earning Gold Finalist honors for the Individual Idea of the Year Award in ceremonies held recently in Orlando, FL.

According to Larry Truax, Grote IDEAS administrator, the company achieved an annual cost savings of more than $3.8 million through suggestions coming “all across the boards” from employees in every department. Overall the company generated more than $7,000 in savings per employee, the best performance among automobile and agricultural equipment manufacturers worldwide.

“In just one year we adopted 235 of the 476 suggestions offered by employees,” said Truax, “We had ideas that saved $15 and ideas that saved $250,000, and we know there will be more great ideas out there to help the company in the future.”

Perhaps the best suggestion of all was the first one, which was to launch an employee program. Since the start of the program in 1971, Grote Industries has achieved a savings of more than $43 million, considering just the first-year savings for each idea. Given the fact most implemented suggestions continue to save the company for an average of at least five years, the total savings from the program is well more than $150 million.

The employee suggestion program is engrained in the entire culture of the Grote Industries workforce, beginning with new employee orientation and extending to ongoing employee recognition, awards luncheons and other company efforts. Three separate teams, representing various Grote departments, meet weekly to evaluate suggestions to determine those ideas meriting further consideration and implementation.

Truax, who is serving this year as president of the Employee Involvement Association, suggests that Grote Industries’ program success has come in part from focusing attention on four specific questions: (1) What can we do to improve quality, (2) What can we do to improve delivery to both internal and external customers, (3) What can we do to reduce cycle time, and (4) What can we do to eliminate waste?

Ed Sitarski, Grote product & cost improvement engineer, was honored by EIA as a Gold Finalist for an idea that answered all four of those questions and more. This is Sitarski’s second straight year for recognition. Last year he won the EIA Idea of the Year Award for his work involving automating a previously manual LED (light-emitting diode) lamp production process.

This year’s Gold Finalist recognition came as a result of Sitarski’s suggestion that the company consider an alternative to a hot water testing system used to verify that lamp products are properly sealed against water intrusion. He recommended use of a vacuum testing process that uses unheated water as a tracer to see leakage and a vacuum to cause the pressure differential between the lamp and the test environment. This new test system eliminated the need for hot water.

As a result of the new testing process, Grote Industries not only realized a savings in the electric power previously required to heat water at a constant 155 degrees F, but also gained additional benefits, including the ability to test products at a much higher quality standard, a 50% reduction in test time, lower maintenance costs and improved safety in the test environment. The new process was implemented with the assistance of Grote tool and die maker specialist Dennis Lutz, who was responsible for constructing the test chambers.

In addition to the estimated $3,900 annual savings for this new testing system, there are intangible benefits to implementing new ideas such as this. As Sitarski noted in his awards application, “The commitment to quality has improved employee motivation and pride in the Grote Industries label.”

For more than 65 years, the Employee Involvement Association has provided quality educational programs to a broad range of industries that understand their employees have the ideas to help make their companies more productive and profitable. EIA’s Annual Awards Program, the highlight of its annual international conference, focuses on outstanding ideas of the year and leadership of employee involvement and suggestion system programs. Approximately 250,000 ideas are submitted each year from companies throughout the world.

Grote Industries is a QS-9000, TS16949 and ISO 14001 certified company. The leading manufacturer and marketer of vehicle safety systems products, Grote Industries engineers and manufactures LED, fluorescent and incandescent lamps, mirrors, wiring systems, turn signal switches, connection accessories and reflective accessories. For more than 107 years, Grote has provided state-of-the-art solutions for OEM and aftermarket customers worldwide. Headquartered in Madison, Indiana, USA, Grote also maintains locations in Canada and Mexico, and operations in Europe and Asia.