As a result of its “world class˜ manufacturing status and continuous improvement, the Kansas City company was recently awarded the Missouri impact! Award for Continuous Improvement in Manufacturing Excellence from Missouri Enterprise at a ceremony attended by Kansas City Mayor Mark Funkhouser and others. Missouri Enterprise is a partner with the Missouri Department of Economic Development (DED.
"Brunson Instrument’s initiative clearly demonstrates what it takes to be a world class manufacturing facility," Missouri Enterprise President Mary Davis told a large crowd of employees, guests and public officials at a ceremony at the company’s underground facility. "They are a true model for others to see and emulate."Deighton Brunson, the company’s current president and grandson of its founder, A.N. Brunson, accepted the award, saying the company strives to continue in the tradition of its founder, continually seeking ways to incorporate the "best practices" and state-of-the-art techniques to enhance productivity, increase quality and exceed customer expectation.
"We feel honored to receive this recognition for all of the work that we have done over the past several years," Brunson said. "Our people have taken the concept of Lean Manufacturing, theory of constraint, value stream analysis and similar technologies and have brought us closer to our primary goal of becoming indispensable to our customers."
Brunson Instrument Company is one of a very few American companies that specializes in industrial measurement. The 81-year-old company helps solve measurement problems for manufacturers of large machines, including aircraft, paper mills, satellites, ships, machines tools and particle accelerators.
Missouri companies such as Brunson Instrument, which utilize high-tech processes to solve difficult problems for other businesses, are exactly the kind of innovative businesses championed by Gov. Jay Nixon’s Show-Me Jobs Initiative. These businesses that provide unique services will be one of the keys to transforming Missouri’s downtrodden economy. After working with Missouri Enterprise to implement some "Lean Enterprise" tools and techniques and to earn ISO certification, Brunson, a relatively small company without a large, organized research and development function to continually develop new products to add to their line, found that they had some unused manufacturing capacity.
Knowing that the company had excess manufacturing capacity, Missouri Enterprise suggested a Eureka! Winning Ways® program to Brunson. Missouri Enterprise Growth Coaches facilitated the Growth Strategies Idea Generation process in February 2007.
The process made enthusiastic advocates out of all who participated, and the group used the Eureka! Winning Ways® process to generate 87 very practical ideas for new products or improvements to existing ones. The company is already receiving multiple orders for two of these new products and expects them to generate more than $750,000 in new sales this year. Lean Enterprise is a systematic means of identifying waste in a company’s operations and reducing or eliminating those activities that do not add value to the company’s products. According to Brunson, embracing a lean culture is definitely the path to future growth.
"It’s not a way to reduce the workforce," Brunson said. "It’s a way to become much more productive and profitable with the current staff."
Missouri Enterprise, a partner of the Missouri Department of Economic Development, created the Missouri impact! Award in 1998 to recognize the accomplishments of its business clients and associates who have excelled in the areas of continuous improvement in manufacturing, innovative technology development, environmental solutions or contributions to the success of Missouri business and community/state economic development.