U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP)

Purdue MEP Helps Local Manufacturer Retain $2.4 million in Sales with Successful Business Continuity Plan

With the help of: Purdue Manufacturing Extension Partnership

About

Estes Design and Manufacturing is a full-service sheet metal fabricator. Estes offers customers a combination of product design, engineering, rapid prototyping and manufacturing services using advanced technology, including 3D laser welding. From conceptual design to full production, Estes' staff of engineers, CAD designers, and manufacturing professionals collaborate to create an environment for rapid response manufacturing across a broad range of product and industry applications: medical equipment, appliance, HVAC, office furniture, aerospace, and more.

The Challenge

Estes Design and Manufacturing was challenged by one of its major customers to supply a business continuity plan. That catalyst, along with a leadership transition at the same time, made it an opportune time to formalize a Business Continuity Program. To ensure the customer’s needs were met and every angle considered, Estes approached the program from the ground up. Additionally, Estes knew that an outside perspective would give critical insight to ensuring a successful program.

 

We reached out to Purdue MEP to guide us in creating a business continuity plan, and they were tremendously helpful. Purdue MEP set up templates tailored to our needs and walked us through how to use them to create our plan. They did a great job teaching us about business continuity and creating a space where we could work through it together and bounce ideas around. I greatly appreciated the attention to detail and ability to think things through with us. Purdue MEP asked probing questions to make sure we were addressing and documenting the root issues and responses in all cases. Our experience with Purdue MEP felt more like a collaborative group project than being ‘talked at.’ I greatly appreciated this approach.

If your company needs to create or tweak a business continuity plan, I highly suggest reaching out to Purdue MEP!

— Doug Ellington, Director of Finance

MEP's Role

Estes called on the services of Purdue MEP, part of the MEP National Network™. In three days, Purdue MEP researched and understood ISO 22301 and other industry continuity planning best practices. Purdue MEP wrote the Quality Procedures, generated the Business Impact Analysis and Risk Assessment matrices, and trained Estes team members to use them.

Estes was left with the infrastructure necessary to then effectively detail and craft its Business Continuity Plan. Estes retained existing business by meeting the customer’s requirement for system implementation. Additionally, gaps were identified during the process that otherwise would not have been addressed. As a result of the project, Estes was able to retain $2.4 million in sales.

Created August 4, 2022