Five Graphite Manufacturing Lessons
If good things come in 3s, then great things must come in 5s. We took a short break around Thanksgiving from what we usually do (buy graphite, machine graphite components, etc) to take stock of what we have to be thankful for, and the following are 5 graphite manufacturing milestones that Semco is proud to have accomplished.
First Things First
we managed to grow the level of our graphite manufacturing business in 2021 while keeping all our workforce employed. In fact, we have even managed to add employees, no small feat in this very tight job market we currently find ourselves in. We have worked very hard to keep our workers safe during this pandemic, and we made sure our employees have been taken care of and well-compensated. The word got around that Semco Carbon is a great company to work for, and we have therefore been able to attract talented workers. We expect to manufacture even more graphite components in 2022.
ISO 9001-2015 Certification
Secondly, we successfully applied for and obtained the ISO 9001-2015 Certification. We detailed what this certification is and what it means to our company in a previous blog. This achievement was the result of much hard work and determination by all our employees. An important milestone for our company, the ISO 9001-2015 Certification exemplifies the quality of our workforce and of the graphite components that we manufacture.
Sub 1% Scrap Rate
The third milestone we would like to celebrate is the sub 1% scrap rate we achieved for the first time this year. We buy graphite in large blocks, then turn those blocks into graphite components of variable sizes. Considering the variety of shapes and sizes there graphite components can take, you would imagine there would be a lot of scrap material at the end of the process. And we can now confidently say that you would be wrong. A scrap rate of under 1% is a phenomenal achievement by everyone on the shop floor, and we hope to build on this success next year.
97% On-Time Delivery!
Our fourth milestone of the year was our amazing on-time delivery rate. We faced great challenges acquiring raw material because of low availability and increased prices. Add to those difficulties the challenging logistics faced by many companies in 2021, and it is even more remarkable that we managed over 97% on-time delivery for the first 10 months of the year. When customers buy graphite components from Semco, they can be confident they will receive the product when they need it.
50 Years Of Semco!
And lastly, Semco just celebrated the company’s 50-year anniversary in business. This incredible milestone is a testament not only to our endurance, but more to the point, to the quality of our graphite manufacturing. Great things come in 5s, and even greater things come in 50s. Here’s to fifty more years as one of the most trusted graphite manufacturing firms in the US.