Success Story: Pik Rite Prepares for New Leadership Roles and Increased Production with IMC’s Guidance

written by admin | September 18, 2013

Pik Rite Inc. designs and manufactures innovative, quality-built vegetable harvesting equipment, agricultural manure spreaders, commercial waste-handling equipment and hydroseeding units for a growing national and international market.

The company and its 50 employees are located in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania.

SITUATION

Pik Rite was in challenging, yet highly positive circumstances — production was in the process of doubling. That situation meant that the company needed to fill several production leadership roles quickly. General Manager Randy Beiler turned to the IMC, a NIST MEP affiliate, for their experience and expertise.

I often recommend IMC to other manufacturers as an innovative source in solving problems and eliminating bottlenecks. – Randy Beiler

SOLUTION

Training current employees for their new leadership roles became a top priority, along with executive coaching. IMC developed a project to work with management on strategic topics and train supervisors on the fundamentals of being an effective manufacturing floor leader. The training program for those in new supervisor roles was held over a 10-week period, consisting of weekly three-hour sessions.

Training covered a spectrum of leadership fundamentals, including topics such as : introduction to supervision; managing and measuring team performance; basic communication skills; teamwork for supervisors and group leaders.  The sessions were split between two separate groups of employees taking classes on different days of the week.

Beiler deems the initiative a complete success. “The project improved leadership capabilities of existing management, helped to build more leaders, and educated employees on the basics of economics and expanded their business sense.”

The project fulfilled the main objective of preparing employees for new leadership roles in order to manage increasing production requirements. According to Beiler, “We promoted from within, gave our employees an opportunity to grow, and doubled our production in a two year period.”

RESULTS

  • $2M in increased sales
  • 20 jobs created
  • Cost savings of $250,000
  • More than $700,000 in new capital and workforce investments