Monday, June 27, 2016

Retirement Blog

To everyone who has been a faithful follower of my blog, I wish to say thank you. I hope that I have at least once passed on some useful tidbit of information that helped you, or you at least enjoyed reading it.

July 1, 2016 marks my official retirement date from New England Machinery, Inc. At that time, I will turn over this blog to my successor to perpetuate the dissemination of information about the packaging industry. I will, however, keep my finger in the mix working on a very limited schedule going forward, but my marketing duties will be handled by another. I sincerely wish all my followers, colleagues, and especially my co-workers the very best and to enjoy this tremendous adventure in the world of packaging machinery. It has never ceased to absorb, fascinate and surprise me and I wish that you too, will experience the challenges, fast pace, and occasional exhilaration of the packaging machinery industry. And, yes, it has been a great adventure park-like ride complete with tension filled climbs up, coupled with breath-taking soars down. Always leaving one craving that next hairpin turn and stomach-dropping fast bump. Enjoy every moment. My best to all! Marge Bonura

The author, Marge Bonura, is the Director of Sales & Marketing for New England Machinery, Inc. (NEM). NEM is a leading packaging machinery manufacturer of bottle unscramblers, cappers, orienters, retorquers, lidders, pluggers, pump sorter/placers, scoop feeders, hopper elevators and much more. The company has been in business since 1974 selling to the food, beverage, pharmaceutical, personal care, chemical, household products, automotive and other industries. For more information on NEM, visit their website at www.neminc.com.

Monday, June 20, 2016

Do You Give Your Employees Refresher Training?

From time to time everyone needs to have refresher training on the tasks they handle regularly. It is surprising sometimes to find out that an employee has been doing something incorrectly for a long time and no one has caught the mistake. Don’t assume that just because someone has been handling the same task for a year or more, that they have mastered the correct way of doing it. We all slip into habits that may or may not be correct. Schedule refresher training for each member of your staff at least once a year. If you can’t take several days to check and review everything all at once, then schedule one or two tasks a week that you will review with them until you have covered everything.

You, the employee and the company will benefit greatly from the refresher training. You’ll be surprised what you may uncover and the employee will appreciate that their supervisor took the time to assist them in polishing their skills.

The author, Marge Bonura, is the Director of Sales & Marketing for New England Machinery, Inc. (NEM). NEM is a leading packaging machinery manufacturer of bottle unscramblers, cappers, orienters, retorquers, lidders, pluggers, pump sorter/placers, scoop feeders, hopper elevators and much more. The company has been in business since 1974 selling to the food, beverage, pharmaceutical, personal care, chemical, household products, automotive and other industries. For more information on NEM, visit their website at www.neminc.com.

Monday, June 13, 2016

How Do You Qualify Candidates for Employment?

When hiring to fill a position in your company, how do you qualify your candidates? Assuming that you first check that the candidates have the required skills, education and experience you are looking for, what else do you look for to determine the perfect fit? In our company we look for someone who will fit our corporate culture. To us it is important that the individuals we work with share our work ethics, values, and positive attitude. We know that we spend more waking hours with our co-workers than with our family and we want to surround ourselves with happy people who are eager to assist our company in succeeding and who embrace teamwork.

So next time you are interviewing a candidate for a position, look for someone whose attitude about work matches the corporate culture in your company. Take the time to question them about how they would handle different situations so you can get a feel for their nature. If their answers make you uncomfortable, better to pass on them for another candidate.

The author, Marge Bonura, is the Director of Sales & Marketing for New England Machinery, Inc. (NEM). NEM is a leading packaging machinery manufacturer of bottle unscramblers, cappers, orienters, retorquers, lidders, pluggers, pump sorter/placers, scoop feeders, hopper elevators and much more. The company has been in business since 1974 selling to the food, beverage, pharmaceutical, personal care, chemical, household products, automotive and other industries. For more information on NEM, visit their website at www.neminc.com.

Tuesday, June 7, 2016

Does Your Company Have Written Standard Operating Procedures?

One of the biggest problems when someone takes vacation time is finding someone to temporarily replace them. It takes more than just putting an extra person in the position as they also need to know what to do and how to do it, to properly cover for the vacationing employee. One of the best ways to resolve this issue is to make sure every employee has written standard operating procedures (SOPs) for all the tasks they perform.

After you’ve taken the step of making sure the SOPs are all completed, make sure they are accurate and detailed enough. Have someone try to follow them to complete the tasks to see if they hit a place where they cannot go any further or are not sure how to proceed. Then make the necessary corrections to the SOPs and try it again until someone who doesn’t know the work, can satisfactorily complete it.

There is one final, important item to keep in mind and that is that the SOPs need to be reviewed and possibly updated at least once a year or sooner if you know you have made a change in a procedure. Once you have accurate SOPs for all your employees’ tasks, there shouldn’t be a noticeable affect if someone is out due to illness, vacation or leaves the company.

The author, Marge Bonura, is the Director of Sales & Marketing for New England Machinery, Inc. (NEM). NEM is a leading packaging machinery manufacturer of bottle unscramblers, cappers, orienters, retorquers, lidders, pluggers, pump sorter/placers, scoop feeders, hopper elevators and much more. The company has been in business since 1974 selling to the food, beverage, pharmaceutical, personal care, chemical, household products, automotive and other industries. For more information on NEM, visit their website at www.neminc.com.