We wanted to share the latest news from Mectalent with this newsletter. In addition to our daily work, we have been working on various development projects throughout the company and have strengthened our expertise with new professionals in product development and ICT functions.
At the beginning of the year, we have developed our internal logistics to better serve our customers and prepare for the future needs. In practice, this has meant a layout change in our production facilities. We have organized the flow of material between the warehouse and production to work as smoothly as possible. Through these changes, we have e.g. streamlined the material collecting.
Another measure to improve our operations' efficiency has been to improve the existing 6S system. 6S is one of the tools in the Lean management philosophy, and its purpose is to better identify and eliminate non-value-added activities, or waste, from processes. With the changes we have implemented, we have not only improved efficiency but also the quality of work. A well-functioning 6S system also has a positive impact on workplace safety.
We have implemented new zero-point clamping systems for the machining centers. A zero-point clamping system is a mounting system for a CNC machine. It sets the workpiece in place with extremely high accuracy in accordance with all the coordinates. The repeatability accuracy of clamping between the clamping cycles is up to 0.005 mm. The short set-up time of the zero-point clamping system allows us to improve the efficiency of a single machining center as well as the entire manufacturing process. Our customers can see the benefits of the new clamping systems in the cost of the machining work.
In our assembly services, we have developed new ways of utilizing collaborative robots. Cobots have been harnessed to, for example, install thousands of helicoils in parts ordered by our customer, which has freed up the assembly personnel for more demanding tasks.
Automation of assemblies and production is a strategic choice for Mectalent. We pay extra attention to delivery realiability, which is directly affected by the utilization of cobots, for example.
We joined the FAME ecosystem (Finnish Additive Manufacturing Ecosystem) in January. FAME is an industrial ecosystem aiming to improve the position of additive manufacturing and develop its business potential.
Being part of the FAME ecosystem provides us with an opportunity to network with other Finnish experts and collaborate in ideating and developing new business opportunities for multiple fields, from semiconductor industry to health technologies.
At the end of March, we joined the Photonics Finland technology cluster. Photonics Finland supports the development of new business and research opportunities related to photonics, including manufacturing.
Mectalent’s cooperation with various educational projects continues. In March we joined in piloting KoKiVa project, implemented by the University of Oulu and the City of Oulu. The purpose of the project is to develop cooperation between educational institutions and companies and to create new models for work-life visits.
In February, we conducted the yearly customer satisfaction survey. We asked our customers to tell us where we succeeded in 2022 and how we could improve our operations. Thank you to everyone participating in the survey!
The results of the survey show that the three most significant reasons our customers chose Mectalent were the quality of our services, our expertise, and our ability to collaborate.
Our product development services received positive feedback for understanding concepts, bringing new ideas, and implementing projects. According to the respondents, our manufacturing services were successful in manufacturing challenging components with precision and in delivery reliability.
When asked about improving our services, our customers requested additional resources, faster response times to offer requests, and pricing adjustments. We also asked our customers what additional services they would like us to offer, and the three most popular options were sheet metal work, painting services and life cycle management.
We will take the survey results into account as we develop our operations. Quality is a joint effort of our entire staff and an essential factor in our success. Customer satisfaction is one of the key indicators of the quality of our operations. We are pleased that our customers gave our product development services an overall rating of 4.3 and our production services a rating of 4.2, with the highest rating being 5.