Connecting and Educating through Lunch and Learns

In training our suppliers about Pace Industries and our die casting capabilities, we begin the process of Early Supplier Involvement. As we’ve discussed in earlier blogs, Early Supplier Involvement is where our greatest opportunity lies and allows us to work with our customers to find uncommon, creative solutions.

Pace’s St. Paul Division, which produces aluminum die castings for highly cosmetic, complex and difficult-to-fill parts and specializes in flash-free, net-shape production, has become a shining example of this practice. The St. Paul team recently visited GHSP, a leading global supplier of mechanical and mechatronic control systems to surface transportation industries, and held a Lunch and Learn in an effort to educate on zinc and aluminum die casting.

Not only were they able to discuss services, capabilities and processes, but were able to showcase some of the parts St. Paul had die cast for GHSP for the 2015 Ford Mustang. These parts were recently featured in this Detroit Muscle episode on Power Nation TV.

The benefits of the Lunch and Learn were being able to teach and familiarize GHSP’s purchasing team, engineering team and quality team with die casting, the processes involved and the tolerance involved. The results were positive from all teams who felt the meeting allowed them to view Pace as an advisor on future opportunities and gave them a direct contact to follow up and ask questions.
“By establishing a contact, it shortens that bridge in order to have the conversation with somebody. They are more likely to pick up the phone and call you if they’ve met you.”
— Darren Bombich, Sales Manager / Sales Engineer
When conducting your own Lunch and Learns, it’s important to know who your audience is so you can flavor the presentation towards that group of people – an engineering group loves data and very technical information, while a purchasing audience requires less details and more of a bigger picture. Take the time to truly understand your audience and tailor the presentation to them.