Cablecraft Motion Controls Increases Sales and Invests in New Products and Processes Following SCMEP’s Competitiveness Review

Cablecraft Motion Controls LLC, located in St. Matthews, South Carolina, is a privately held company specializing in the manufacturing of motion control products for the agricultural, industrial, auto, marine, defense, horticultural and construction markets. Products include cable control assemblies, rod ends, ball joints, linkages, motion transfer assemblies, subassemblies, control heads, hardware, and end fittings. The company is headquartered in New Haven, Indiana, and sells products globally to both original equipment manufacturers and through a partner distribution network.

Cablecraft Motion Controls was looking for an overview assessment of their current operation and ways to improve. With the sale of the aerospace business, and competition in the commoditized product sector, demand was declining. The effort to seek out new products and differentiators was becoming more and more important.

SCMEP, part of the MEP National Network™, performed a Competitiveness Review. This assessment delivers a road map to improve competitiveness, performance, and the company’s bottom line. It provides key strategic inputs for the future direction and areas of focus and is a foundational component of transformational activity. Robust processes for product launch (Lean Product Development) and creating a pipeline of new products (Strategic Growth Acceleration) was suggested. Also, due to an aging workforce, a concerted effort to create a learning environment where tribal knowledge can be effectively transferred to new employees was crucial.

In order to prepare for the changes facing the plant and to accommodate changes in the marketplace, there were several areas that would require focused attention. These areas were broken into five basic categories; market research to determine new areas of opportunity for Cablecraft, developing a robust product development process to ensure speed to market, with intense study of the design cycle efficiencies, developing an innovation process to ensure there are new products in the pipeline, Training with Industry to create a methodology to effectively transfer knowledge to new employees, and an inventory management process to prevent the frequent stock out situations.