Charlotte Hill describes how this little-known company creates added value for its industrial clients.

The biggest challenge George Fischer Signet, Inc. (GF Signet) has faced since it was purchased by 200-year-old Georg Fischer has been getting people, both within and outside of the corporation, to understand what it does and how its products add value to traditional piping systems.

Georg Fischer Corporation, a Schaffhausen, Switzerland-based company, is comprised of three groups: automotive, machine tools, and piping systems. “The piping systems group bought us because they saw the value-add our products provide and appreciated our culture of continuous improvement and family-like relationships. But for years after the purchase, the question was ‘How does this fit into piping systems, and is it really strategic?’ We’ve been struggling to integrate ourselves into the large company, and finally, just in the last couple of years, we’ve succeeded,” said Charlotte Hill, president of the El Monte, Calif.-based company.

Not understanding GF Signet’s business is perfectly understandable considering it provides an unusual—but necessary—product to the industrial market. In the 1960s, Signet Scientific designed and built flow sensors used to measure the speed of small- to medium-sized boats. As the company grew, it modified its technology to measure the flow of liquid in pipes, and in the ’80s, it added analytical sensors to its product portfolio.

Charlotte Hill, President

Today, the company manufactures a number of flow measurement and control products, as well as analytical devices that can determine the pH, temperature, pressure, electrical conductivity, and other properties of a fluid flowing through a pipe. These products are used in a variety of applications across numerous markets, including industrial water and wastewater, municipal water and wastewater, irrigation systems, semiconductor and microelectronics, surface finishing, and chemical processing.

Controlling the flow of water and the chemical make up of certain fluids helps industries maintain consistent processes, Hill explained. “For instance, a manufacturer putting nickel plating on a metal screw in a plating bath would need to know the pH of the water, how much water is flowing into the bath, etc. GF Signet’s products help that customer control the plating process for consistent results.”

The right tools
More than 10 years ago, GF Signet put in place a continuous improvement initiative on the manufacturing floor that combined a number of tools, including lean, ISO quality management standards, and statistical analyses. Most recently, the company added Six Sigma to its toolbox and is putting strong emphasis on
data-driven decisionmaking.

“We said, ‘Let’s not talk about why Tony didn’t get his job done. What do the numbers tell us?’ We try to be fact- and data-oriented in dealing with each other because it eliminates a lot of difficulties and finger pointing,” said Hill.

According to Hill, employees on the manufacturing floor are divided into product teams, and on a weekly basis, each team meets to discuss possible process improvements. “We want people to think of ways that will make their jobs easier and more efficient, but it doesn’t always have to revolve around lowering the cost of the product,” she said, adding that by sharing ideas in a team setting, employees feel duly recognized for their contributions. “They can also help others by submitting suggestions.”

Over the years, employees have come up with solutions big and small. Currently, a group of employees is working together to redesign a cardboard insert included in the product packaging. Employees had complained the insert needed to be folded too many times and created material waste. The team is testing its new design vigorously before they quantify cost savings.

“No action is too small, and projects such as this one get everyone involved. Small improvements accumulate over time, and we’ve actually reduced our overall scrap and repair warranty cost well below our competitors’,” said Hill.

In addition to weekly team meetings, GF Signet has trained two Six Sigma black belts. One of the black belts took on the task of finding the root cause of intermittent product failures for the Process Pro line. Occasionally, the company would produce a Process Pro with no power, and therefore no digital display. “She worked with the employees to collect the data, processed the data, and got everyone together to look at possible reasons the product was failing,” said Hill. The company came to the conclusion that a resistor on the circuit board was temperamental, and by finding an alternative component, it saved $30,000 in the first year.

Beyond Six Sigma
GF Signet’s commitment to process improvement goes far beyond its Six Sigma toolbox. For instance, the company’s R&D department is teaming with Palo Alto-based IDEO to design a new family of display devices that have the capability to send reading signals to a programmable logic controller or a PC. Once the signal is sent, a technician can create a feedback loop and control process, Hill said.

“We are experts in electronics and mechanical design, but IDEO helps organizations innovate through design—whether it is for a chair, an instrument, or a new medical device. They’ve discovered opportunities for companies to make their design process more effective so the end product or process satisfies customers better,” said Hill, noting that IDEO designed the first mouse for Apple.

On the people side of the equation, GF Signet constantly analyses its culture, including goal-setting, reward and recognition, and team work. For the past two years, the company has been tightening its relationship with two other Georg Fischer companies: George Fischer Sloane, a manufacturer of pipes and fittings in Little Rock, Ark., and George Fischer, Inc., which is 40 miles south of El Monte and sells GF Signet and other GF Piping Group products.

So far, the HR managers from each company have met to discuss how they can create comparable benefits packages, identical performance evaluation processes, and a common language between the three companies. But that’s the easy part. Hill said the challenge is integrating the three companies’ personalities. According to Hill, GF Signet’s facility has few walls, cubicle partitions are low, and employees interact with each other as friends as well as coworkers.

“GF Signet is more like a big family, and that is somewhat different than the other two companies, but together we have been making great progress in finding the advantages of each company’s style and closing the gaps,” Hill concluded.