Massachusetts MEP: Massachusetts Manufacturing Extension Partnership

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 27, 2004

For more information please contact:
Jack Healy
MassMEP
Tel: 508-831-7020
Email: jackh@massmep.org

Innovative Techniques Means Local Company Doesn't Have to "Chace" the Competition

FALL RIVER, MA - In today's global marketplace, small and medium sized manufacturing companies have to constantly adapt the way they do business in order to survive against under priced overseas competition.

Chace Leather Products has been manufacturing high quality leather and synthetic fabric products in Fall River, Massachusetts for nearly a century, but competition from imported products has recently begun to cut into the company's bottom line. Faced with a 25 percent reduction in business over the past five years, Chace's management recognized the company needed to be innovative.

"For four generations the Chace Family’s philosophy has been 'Total Customer Satisfaction' and we knew that by targeting specialty segments of our industry that required increased service and speed to market we could separate ourselves from the competition," said Larry Walsh, Chace Leather Products president and CEO. "To do this we had to focus on ways to improve the on-time-delivery performance."

During a training program at the UMass Dartmouth Fall River campus, Stephen Chace, Chace's Vice President of Operations was introduced to the Massachusetts Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MassMEP), a resource that provides business and technical assistance to smaller manufacturers. MassMEP representatives proposed a Lean Pilot project to address Chace's needs, specifically focusing on the company's line of hard cases for heavy duty uses and the product line for Motorola one of its largest clients.

Lean Manufacturing is an implementation technique that utilizes simple but effective methods that identify and reduce waste, and inventories, clear shop floors and streamline production processes all with a goal of decreasing costs and increasing productivity.

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