INDUSTRY FACES
James E. Bushman: From Student to Teacher at Cast-Fab Technologies

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To help ease himself into the foundry industry, Bushman took advantage of the expertise of Milacron's management and operators, who stayed with the company after his acquisition. "I spent a lot of time in the shop ... listening," said Bushman. He also read a lot about the industry, while visiting as many shops as possible.

Focusing on the Customer

Since beginning with one customer at Cast-Fab, Bushman has worked hard at achieving a mix of customers and industries so that successes or failures of any one wouldn't overrun the business. Today, the foundry has no customer that represents more than 30% of its business.

According to Bushman, since 1988, Cast-Fab's biggest change has been its focus on customers and their needs. This focus is accentuated by his heavy investment in a quality reporting system, which tracks, reports and shares all calls received and made as well as visits with customers regarding specific casting issues. "The system may, sometimes, focus on the negative, but it also focuses on the solution," said Bushman. "We've gotten some dramatic results on quality, and I credit a lot of it to the system."

Cast-Fab personnel also participate in "Voice into Choices," a 20-step process developed by the Center for Quality of Management, Cambridge, Massachusetts, which helps companies ground their actions using their customers' perspectives. It provides Cast-Fab with the confidence that future business decisions are customer-driven and not influenced by personal or organizational biases.

With both a casting and fabrication operation, Bushman has the advantage of being able to show customers more than one option for their component. "When a customer comes to us with a prototype for a fabrication, we can show them how much it would cost them to convert that part to a casting, "said Bushman. "The main difference between the two is based upon the number of parts the customer wants. The production numbers must justify the cost of the tooling."

Setting Quality Standards

In addition to a stronger customer focus since his arrival, Bushman also has carried out a strategic plan for maintaining quality. "We have had a much greater focus on doing it right the first time," he said, "and enabling people on the floor to do that."

The foundry also is leveraging its capacity more effectively, according to Bushman. "Today, we're selling castings for less and turning inventory six times faster than we did in 1988," he said. "There's a lot more value in these castings. New designs have reduced weight while still meeting the structural integrity and maximizing the mechanical properties."

A quality standard that Bushman follows is "fitness to the latent requirement," or building an organization that is so in tune with the needs of the customer that it can deliver the needs before the customer asks for them. "They're unspoken needs and rules," he added.

Empowering His People

When taking the reins at Cast-Fab, Bushman brought honed motivational skills that he was confident could bring positive results regardless of the industry to which they were applied. Upon his arrival, he was met by a group of skeptical employees who had suffered through several downsizings, according to "Empower the People," a June 1998 Industry Week article that profiled his firm.

Bushman's goal was for everybody to understand the direction the company was headed. "I believe in treating people with respect and integrity," he said. "I wanted to stress the importance of every person in the organization and that everyone can contribute. I also wanted to make sure that everybody understands the customers' expectations. Motivation, empowerment and customer focus are my watch words."

One of Bushman's biggest tasks was getting Cast-Fab's managers on the same page. "Instead of being directive toward the work force, I wanted them to become motivators, facilitators and enablers," he said. "Instead of telling people what to do, when to do it and where to do it, they would be facilitating and motivating."

To keep workers informed of Cast-Fab's customer issues, Bushman holds frequent employee meetings. "Employees are anxious to know who the new customers are and what we're working on with them," he said.

He also spends a lot of time on the shop floor, getting to know the employees. "We do a lot of things with the shop floor workers," said Bushman. "I have lunch with a random group and solicit their thoughts on teamwork, communication and share what's going on with the company." He also holds quarterly meetings, at which he recognizes workers for their ideas and contributions, a service award banquet and a perfect attendance banquet. "More than 20% of our employees did not miss a single day of work last year," he added.

Bushman has taught workers to be goal-oriented. "When people have goals, they tend to work toward them," he said. To set the company's goals each year, he uses Hoshin planning, in which progress is monitored against the goals set, and the shortfalls are identified. Problem-solving techniques to get back on target in the simplest way also are used.

"Each manager has personal goals that they must achieve," added Bushman. "Our incentive program is tied not only to the success of the company in terms of the profits, but we have them tied to the achievements of the personal goals of individuals as well."

Another facet of Bushman's empowerment effort is training. Since coming on board, he has offered programs in areas such as leadership, total quality management, diversity, safety, problem-solving and courses to improve technical skills.

To move his strategy onto the shop floor, Bushman organized the work force around specific products rather than specific job responsibilities. For instance, instead of engineers working in one room and welders in another, all employees responsible for the production of a particular product work together on the shop floor. According to Bushman, by reorganizing the company into natural work teams and physically putting them together, there is much more interchange. Also, since management has been taken out of the process, problems are solved much more quickly.

Changing Faces

A lot of positive changes have occurred for Bushman, Cast-Fab and the foundry industry since his acquisition 12 years ago. "Clearly, there is a renewed enthusiasm about our industry's future, said Bushman, who has seen his company double its production and sales since his arrival.

For Bushman, the foundry industry definitely has gotten into his blood. "I have fallen in love with the industry and the art form that it represents," he said. "I am amazed at times when everybody describes what they do here. They all come in here every day, and they all perform a different role. It's magical to watch these castings take shape."

"People believe that if I bring my own kids into this business, I have a real commitment to it, " said Bushman, pictured with his son, Ross (vice president of sales and planning), and a 19,0000-lb ductile iron ram for a two-platen plastic injection molding machine.