Over the past few years, OEMs have been reminded of just how valuable good suppliers can be. Things like consistency and reliability aren’t traits to be taken for granted anymore. At WISPI, we spend a lot of time listening to our customers to identify ways of making their lives easier. As manufacturers ourselves, we can totally relate to many of the pain points we hear about. That’s why we focus on four key areas we know will add value for our OEM customers.
1. Make it easy to do business
When you work with WISPI, you work with a team of creative, energetic people who are really good at what they do — and have a lot of fun doing it. Having fun is just in our culture.
Frank Meiland, the head honcho at WISPI, says one of the most important lessons he’s learned over his long business career is that you can’t force people into doing a great job. What you can do is create an environment where people enjoy doing their jobs. When people like what they do, they’re more inclined to go that proverbial extra mile to make things easier for our customers.
Everything starts with quality. We’re what’s known as a 3M-Certified Print House. That means we have the equipment, processes and expertise necessary for 3M to feel comfortable with us using their adhesives and other printing supplies. In fact, when you’re 3M-Certified, you can offer the full warranty. Our team members take a lot of pride in this certification and work hard to maintain it. Rest assured, OEMs can count on the quality and longevity they need in their branding and safety decals.
Yes, WISPI is in the business of designing and creating high-quality graphics. But each and every team member understands that our real business is creating solutions for our customers. With our OEM customers in particular, it’s important that the decals we create can be seamlessly incorporated into their own production operations. That requires a willingness to work one-on-one with every customer to come up with a program that’s tailored to their needs.
2. Kitting keeps things streamlined
Safety decals are an important part of an OEM’s final product. To make things easier for our OEM customers, we assemble decal kits for each of the products they are manufacturing.
Think about it, a big truck or piece of construction equipment might have dozens and dozens of decals that need to be slapped on at the end of the assembly line. Having to retrieve them one by one could take a lot of time and cause a lot of aggravation. By assembling these handy kits ahead of time, all the decals needed for that machine are right there in that kit. That step of the assembly process goes a lot faster and smoother, with considerably less margin for error.
Now wait a minute, what are the chances that one of the decals could be inadvertently left out of a kit? I mean, humans are humans, right? That’s precisely why we follow the Four-Eye Principle when assembling decal kits. One person (two eyes) uses a checklist to put the kit together. Then a second person (eyes three and four) inspects that kit with the same checklist. It’s a lot of checking, but every step is worth it to make sure our customers get everything they need to keep their assembly line running smoothly.
3. Just-in-time delivery
Speaking of running smoothly, we are also big believers in just-in-time (JIT) inventory control. Our president, Frank, is kind of a lean freak in general. He’s super proud of the kanban system we’ve implemented here at WISPI. Kanban is Japanese for “visual card.” We use sign cards to tell us when it’s time to replenish our own inventory so we can always ensure we have enough product to keep pumping out the decal kits our OEM customers need — right when they need them.
Internal systems like kanban are a huge help in allowing us to offer JIT decal kit delivery to our OEM customers. Our sales specialists work closely with each customer to establish the right replenishment cadence for their specific operation. The ultimate goal is to make sure each customer has peace of mind knowing that the right decals will be there when their assembly line needs them, helping to avoid unnecessary and costly production delays.
4. On-site fleet graphics installation
Some OEMs also take advantage of another service we’re known for. Whether you’re looking to jazz up some trailers, vans, trucks or buses, our in-house fleet graphic installation technicians will come right to your facility to install the graphics for you.
Installing vehicle wraps and decals isn’t as easy as it might look — unless you have some seasoned pros on the payroll like we do. Tapping into our on-site installation services makes it easier than ever to incorporate our premium-quality, long-lasting vinyl vehicle graphics into your branding and marketing efforts. Whether you’re looking to dress-up a single vehicle or an entire fleet, we can help you get it done.
When you get right down to it, helping our customers get the job done as easily as possible is what our business is all about. It’s also why we have so much fun doing what we do.