We are still recruiting speakers for our Team-Up for Quality series, but not everyone is bold enough to come to Jonesboro and speak in front of a group of people. But the information installers, suppliers, distributors and users have to share with us is vital to the business. Some distributors have said that we need to come see you instead. "Hytrol needs to come on site and review quality issues with us on our turf", was one of the remarks of the HDC survey.

For these reasons, we instituted "Field Focus on Quality" wherein Hytrol Management personnel visit distributorships to discuss Quality issues and trends. The FFQ Team is made up of managers of our Sales, Engineering, Systems, Production and Purchasing teams. We meet with distributor sales people and installers. We also visit customers and job sites. The conversation centers on quality issues – past problems, current issues, and areas where we need to direct our efforts to exceed the competition. It also gives us a chance to tell how we are handling quality issues that have been passed along to us. We can tell about recent improvements we’ve made to products and components.

Field Focus on Quality gives us good first-hand feedback on opportunities for product enhancements. We take along the people who understand your issues and are empowered to make the tough decisions to change manufacturing policies to improve our products. So far we have visited with Cross Brothers in Rochester, NY, with Fortna in Phoenix, and with Advanced in Charlotte and Cary, NC. We plan to visit Bastian in June, and will be contacting others as time permits.