Why Bridge?

Why Bridge?

Why Bridge Technical Services? Why start a company now?

I’ve worked in manufacturing for 30 years now in various roles: electrical engineer, manufacturing engineer, HSE manager, and project engineer. Because those roles have all been in manufacturing, each required multiple skill sets, including engineering, field service, phone service, programming, developing and presenting training, and all types of documentation. One thing that anyone with more than a few years in manufacturing will recognize is that most companies are doing more with less resources. (I could argue that we are doing the same amount of work but leaving out some perceived non-value-added tasks, but that’s another blog post.)

One issue is the dreaded “headcount.” Your company/department can’t just add a person—it’s typically very challenging to justify that funding. Let’s say you have a small group with 2 project engineers, and your annual workload is enough for about 2.5 folks; you cannot make a convincing case to add that third person. In reality, the work is cyclical. Your two engineers may manage the workload very well for, say, three quarters of the year, but there’s that one quarter where you really need 4 folks. (Unfortunately, it’s usually Q4 when the installations hit the fan; and we’re starting up on a Friday afternoon.)

The next issue is that long, growing to-do list that every department has.

We start every year so optimistically. It’s January and we’re thinking about what we want to get done this year. “I have 12 whole months! No way I’m not going to find time to do that one thing on my list that’s been sliding the last couple years! This year is going to be different.” If it helps you, please imagine Morgan Freeman reading this next sentence. “It was, in fact, not going to be different this year.” It’s not going to be different this year. It’s manufacturing. Things are going to happen. Unplanned projects are going to come up. A random piece of equipment is going to fail and require weeks of unplanned activity. Sales is going to introduce a new product that requires a different raw material, Operations need to run trials, and you suddenly need a new piece of equipment. Corporate is going to send down several new standards and you’ll need to do gap assessments. There is going to be an audit finding that you need to address ASAP.

None of these are bad things. If your company does not have challenges like this, the company is not growing. I’d keep that resume updated.

In today’s environment, you are not going to get it all done with only the resources you have in house.

The last two years have added even more challenges: equipment lead times are longer; spare parts are hard to find; everything takes longer; there is higher turnover, and it takes longer to fill those empty positions.

That extra 25% workload on your team creeps higher; that to-do list gets longer as things on it slide.

It’s way too easy to stay busy trying to catch up or keep up, when you’d like to spend your time improving your processes. We get so busy emptying buckets that we don’t fix the roof leak. You really need X to be done, but nobody has time to work on it.

That’s why there is a Bridge Technical Services.

We can be your “plus one” to help you get over those gaps.

We can tackle some of those items on your to-do list; or help your folks with their day-to-day work to free them up to make progress on that ever-growing list of needed improvements.

So, what can Bridge do for you?

• Project management/support:
  • Up-front documentation (scope definition, capital justification, CER/AFE docs, project schedules, RFQ/RFPs, sequence of operation docs.)
  • Project tracking and scheduling.
  • Post-project support (work instructions, prints updated, manuals, spare parts lists, PM plans, BOMs.)
• Process Improvements (identify/remove bottlenecks; changeover reduction; reduce scrap/rework.)
• Gap assessments.
• Safety assessments.
• Training documentation.

Whether you need help closing actions on that to-do list, covering the workload while one of your team is out for vacation or leave, or temporary coverage while you’re waiting to fill an open position, we can assist.

Email or call to see how we can help bridge that gap.