Community Engagement at Daman

For years, Daman has provided local community students and business leaders the opportunity to stop by and learn about Daman's practices in continuous improvement, the application of lean manufacturing practices, team engagement and how values really matter in an organization. Daman's doors are always open to businesses and schools who want to use Daman's facility as an environment within which to learn, teach or assess.

Why Is Peer Industrial Networking So Important?

Daman's community engagements range from local high school student visits to tours, workshops and panels with local business teams and their leaders. For over 10 years, Daman has facilitated a local NFPA Fluid Power Action Challenge, engaging over 1,500 seventh and eighth grade students, teachers, administrators and volunteers since the first event back in 2010. The competition, which involves the application of hydraulic concepts and team building experience, is a valuable way to share Daman’s culture with young community members.

Such community sharing and engagement is a critical piece to the company's value of helping others to succeed. But, it doesn't stop outside of Daman's headquarters. Our employees are constantly partaking in their own external experiences as well, learning from other businesses both within and outside of the industry.

Daman believes that peer networking is critical to team success, as it combats myopic tendencies and wards off the inertia that so easily paralyzes teams. As MITSLoan states, “in a world of increasing globalization, companies of all sizes need to stay attuned to new developments and currents of innovation beyond their core markets. Now, more than ever, managers need to be aware of the dangers of dependence on entrenched beliefs and technologies.”

While trade associations are the best-known venue for interaction among companies, these experiences are limited to the same people in the same industry. Over time, this can instill groupthink tendencies. Sharing one’s own best practices opens up the opportunity to learn about what others are doing successfully, which can lead to innovative solutions across the board. Learning from other industries about new innovations and best practices can be applied to any sector, as the learning provides new perspectives and fresh outlooks that have universal value.

So, if you have some best practices to share, consider opening your doors to local businesses and students. Here are some of the benefits experienced at Daman that have also been shared by other industry believers in peer industry networking.

Benefits to local business teams and leaders by Harvard Business Review:

• Learn how applied strategy specifies what is really important in an operation—and what is measured. It is important to ask, What does this plant aim to do exceptionally well? Does it aim for low cost? High quality? Quick response? It is impossible to excel at everything.

• Understand the importance of structural alignment. Does the facility have the equipment to achieve its strategic focus? During the tour, look for distinctive elements that might contribute to the operation’s competitive effectiveness.

• Observe the impact of day-to-day management. How well is it being managed on a day-to-day basis? To assess day-to-day management, visitors must consider a plant on three levels. At the first level, a plant is a set of processes: it comprises the physical methods used to transform material and information from one form into another. At the next level, a plant is a set of systems—computer-based and manual—that facilitate and coordinate those processes. At the third level, a plant is a community of people.

• Identify the path to improvement that the facility has developed. For instance, at Daman, everything revolves around their practices of Continuous Improvement (CI), and signs of how it is practiced can be found throughout the facility.

Almost everyone who leads, works for, or interacts with a manufacturing company can benefit from seeing a factory firsthand. Plant visits allow senior executives to build a better understanding of a site’s performance potential, to assess a competitor, to rally the frontline workforce, and to communicate the company’s performance, strategy, and current challenges. Plant visits allow managers to review a supplier’s qualifications, to share best practices with a partner, or to benchmark performance and practices. Shop-floor operators can assess another plant’s operations and apply what they’ve learned to their own factories.

Benefits for students by Westford University:

• Industrial visits bring clarity to important management concepts, as students experience first-hand how these concepts are put into action.

• Industrial visits bridge the gap between classroom theoretical training and practical learning in a real-life environment.

• They provide an opportunity for students to ask questions related to their area of interest.

• With regular industrial visits, the students are able to identify their prospective area of work, such as marketing, finance, logistics, etc.

• This also gives students a platform to enhance their interpersonal skills.

• The students get to see the best practices opted by different companies for similar work.

• Since the industry visits are planned in various sectors, students find it easy to select relevant organizations for their assignments.

• Using the case study approach within the visit brings out critical thinking among students.

To arrange a visit at Daman to expand your team's learning experiences, contact your Account Manager or Daman's HR Director Krysten Shoulders at 800.959.7841.