Month 6 – January 2013

It’s been pretty cold this month, and the weather forecasts indicate that there is a whole lot more cold to come.

Speaking of forecasts, we had our Northeast Region forecast meeting earlier this month. It was a two day conference consisting of group sessions on various topics and issues as well as a private meeting for each profit center manager to discuss his or her 2012 performance and 2013 goals with Rick, Hajoca’s president, and Chris, the vice president. Paul was also there to provide input and feedback as the regional manager.

Jeff and I prepared our packet with our 2012 financial figures as well as our forecasted goals for 2013. We also presented our intangible or non-quantifiable goals such as employee training or personal health and wellness. Rick said he was happy with Lansdale’s performance and wished Jeff another successful year. Everything went smoothly!

Later in the month, I went to a meat packing plant with one of our outside salesmen to do a VMI (vendor-manged inventory). VMI is a business model in which a buyer (in this case, the meat facility) provides certain information to a vendor or supplier (Hajoca) of one or multiple products and the supplier takes full responsibility for maintaining an agreed inventory of the material.

I found VMI to be a neat concept. Although it requires some time and labor from the supplier’s salesperson, this “cost” is offset by the fact that the buyer is relying on the particular supplier for most, if not all, of their purchases. From the buyer’s perspective, they save time because they don’t need to have purchasing agents to monitor inventory levels and write purchase orders ever time they need to restock.

February should be quite an adventure. I’m scheduled to fly to the Charlotte Pipe and Foundry Company for the first week, and our region is having a “Counters Plus” meeting in the middle of the month. Details to come next month!