Palmerton-based Sikorsky Concrete named national manufacturer of the week
LVB.com News Article
April 25. 2013 11:00 AM
BY ERIC STEINKOPFF
Sikorsky Concrete Products of Palmerton was selected today as the Manufacturing Extension Partnership’s national “Manufacturer of the Week.”
“This is the MEP’s way of honoring manufacturers,” said Pat Felise, MEP spokeswoman. “They look to us to suggest what companies would be good candidates [from] 59 different MEP centers” nationwide.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology’s MEP works with small- and mid-sized U.S. manufacturers to help them create and retain jobs, increase profits and save time and money.
The MEP focuses on five critical areas of technology acceleration, supplier development, sustainability, workforce and continuous improvement.
According to Sikorsky founder Peter Sikorsky, the company’s orders to both residential and commercial markets had dropped because of the sagging economy and rising costs.
The consultants helped Sikorsky identify and market to strategic growth areas while cutting overhead costs by focusing on realistic short-term and long-term goals.
“Sikorsky Concrete is a provider of premium ready-mixed concrete products and solutions,” said Jack E. Pfunder, President and CEO of the Manufacturing Resource Center. “MRC helped Sikorsky launch their first website to improve their marketability, install a ground-mount photovoltaic solar system that pays for itself, develop new eco-friendly concrete mixtures using locally sourced materials and recycle water and waste beyond what’s required by law.”
The assistance is part of a U.S. Department of Commerce program that helps with innovation strategies to process improvements to green manufacturing, as well as partnering at the state and federal level with manufacturing programs to develop new customers, expand into new markets and create new products.
“He [Sikorsky] recognized that he needed help and reached out to us,” Felise said. “We especially liked the sustainability with the ‘green’ concrete.”