Local company screws around to build employee morale

Local company screws around to build employee morale

A joint study by The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM; Washington, D.C.) and Deloitte and Touche (New York) estimates that the mass retirement of the baby-boom-generation workers will create a need for 10 million qualified employees between 2012 and 2020. Given the strong demand for machinists and engineers, many manufacturers are faced with a shortage of qualified workers. However, one medical technology company is adopting an innovative approach to attract new candidates and maintain their current workforce.

Acero Precision, a medical technology company based in Newtown Square, PA, is heading to the slopes of Jack Frost's Big Bolder Mountain this Friday, March 4th where they will participate in the 2011 WMMR Cardboard Classics. In an effort to encourage their engineer's skills outside the workplace, four Acero engineers will join the two hundred hand-crafted cardboard sleds racing down the hill that day. Competing for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place in the categories of Best Design, Best Themed Sled, and Fastest Sled, the only requirement is the completed sled must be fully constructed out of cardboard, tape, string, and glue only.

Ironically, the team based their design concept on what they do best, manufacture precision orthopedic bone screws. This larger-than-life cardboard sled coined, Precisely Screwing Around,' is a twenty-six foot bone-screw shaped sled. Sitting on top of two skies, Precisely Screwing Around stands seven feet tall and weighs over 500 pounds. The team hopes their calculated design and hours of hard work make them the first-place winner in the Best Design category.

When Acero President and Drexel Engineering Alumni, Michael Fitzgerald, was approached by his staff to sponsor the event he could not have been more excited. Mr. Fitzgerald states, "When we decided to sponsor the team back in December, I didn't expect the experience would bring everyone at our shop together. Every day we have watched their sled grow from a design on paper to a cardboard shell to, well, this. While there are four team members racing this Friday, all eighty of us feel like we've helped along the way. Needless to say, we are all proud of them."

This is one of several off-site programs Acero Precision provides its employees. The Acero Field Experience Program was created to motivate existing employees by sending them off-site to see their products perform in the real world. For example, Acero Precision sponsors Highcroft Racing so their staff can see how the components they produce for the car come to life first-hand.

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