Employee Recognition

From the President

Welcome everyone to 2013!

It should be a good year as we have already set a record. Unfortunately it’s for

snow fall!

A big thank you to Robert and David for pulling together the first OMC news let-

ter. The plan is to run this quarterly newsletter and include information pertain-

ing to the ongoing operations here at OMC, customer and employee spot lights,

any regulatory change affecting our work place. More importantly, we want to

open up the lines of communication. We will try to answer the Who, What,

When, Where and How. The only thing missing here of course is the WHY. That’s

where we all get engaged and again, our focus for 2013. Darcy Cullum

In late 2012, many names were given by fellow staff for nominations. Those that were picked from the large list as top performers are as follows,

Initiative, Travis Cardinal Positive Attitude, Antonio Larracas

Positive Attitude, Hassan-Lubenga Ali Work Ethic, Simone Gatien

Attendance, Mamadou Amadou Most Improved, Paul Oullette

Once again, congratulations to all who were nominated in 2012 and to those who were selected as example makers. To have a workplace that has the quality and care that all the OMC staff display is impressive; essential to our prosperity and creative efforts. We look forward to the 2013 nomina-tions. Robert Leonardo

Why,“why?”

I will briefly touch on

the big Why so we all

understand our di-

rection here at OMC.

As I am sure that all

are aware, manufac-

turing in North Amer-

ica is on the decline. Customers con-

tinue to push for lower costs while ma-

terials, energy and overheads continue

to increase. To succeed, you need to

have an efficient lean enterprise and

you need everyone to be engaged and

part of the process.

We know we have a great group of

people here at OMC and when we all

get engaged; we will be leaders in our

industry.

Get engaged, ask “WHY?” Darcy Cullum

Fun

Facts

About

Plastics

The word "plastic" comes from the Greek word - "plastikos" - which means mouldable.

Best Practice Moulding

Law # 1 – You must always use moulding

best practice here at OMC.

What does this mean? Each plastic resin

we use is designed and engineered for a

specific application or range of

applications. They also come with a set

of instructions on how to use them:

How to prepare them – drying

temperature and time.

How to heat them in the barrel –

minimum and maximum temperature.

How to cool them in the mould -

minimum and maximum temperature.

Law # 2 – You must always operate

within the above guidelines.

Then, there is a right way to go about

setting-up the moulding machine – a

standard procedure that experts around

the world agree is the right way.

Moulding is not a black art or a craft – it

is a science and not a particularly

complicated one at that! The specific

procedure can be seen on every set-up

sheet and/or posted at the Set-Up

information board.

Law # 3 – Follow the above procedure.

Simple eh? David Turner

2012 Employee of Year , Mohsen Bani-Yaghoub (centre), Presented by David

Turner (left), Darcy Cullum (right)

The Attitude Online WWW.OTTAWAMOULD.CA/ATTITUDE.HTML

THE ATTITUDE O t t a w a M o u l d C r a f t L t d.

WWW.OTTAWAMOULD.CA/ATTITUDE.HTML January 2013

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Artistic cake shown at our 2012 party reflect-

ing our mix of cultures in the OMC culture.

Decorator, Simone Gatian

T H E A T T I T U D E January 2013

Customer Snap Shot: KUN

A Master Piece of Form and Function

Our relations with this successful Ot-

tawa based business have been

forged over a long history of many

product designs & production runs.

The Original Rest, shown in the image

above is based on the earliest design

of the KUN rest; it remains the favorite

Spotlight: An Interview With Kirk Laymann, Customer Service

of violin & viola players around the

world. The first Kun rest was designed

and patented by Violin & Bow Maker

Joseph Kun, renowned violin peda-

gogue in his native Czechoslovakia.

Prior to the introduction of Kun rests,

there were very few such devices on

the market. Players often had to strug-

gle with makeshift solutions to avoid

discomfort while playing their violin or

viola.

The early Kun rest

and all subse-

quent ones since,

possess three

unique character-

istics: an ergo-

nomic shape for

ease and comfort

in playing, simple

mechanisms allowing the rest to be ad-

justed in three directions and a stylish

minimum profile to maintain a quality

sound from instruments.

The owner and CEO of this Ottawa based

business, Marina Kun (since 1975) has

continued to choose Ottawa Mould Craft

Ltd. as a major manufacturer for many

KUN components.

At OMC, we are happy to be part of the

KUN line; to consistently manufacture a

product that is of high quality, as we do

for all of our customers.

For more information on KUN, visit,

www.kunrest.com Robert Leonardo

In the roll of customer service, for ten

years, Mr. Kirk Laymann has been the

primary contact & voice of OMC for our

c u s t o m e r s .

In addition to

customer ser-

vice, Kirk is a

highly experi-

enced resin

p u r c h a s e r

with all our

resin suppli-

ers.

I had an interview with Kirk for this

month’s Spotlight article where Kirk

agreed to answer some questions for

The Attitude.

Q. What is your primary responsibil-

ity/duty at Ottawa Mould Craft?

A. I am the primary customer contact.

Responsibility is to, "keep the cus-

tomer happy, whatever that takes".

Q. Who are the internal customers

(coworkers) that are immediately af-

fected by your work?

A. Dhaval, Production Planner and

Steve, Purchaser.

Q. What are your greatest challenges

in your work? A. Getting timely answers for the cus-

tomers and drawing [out] the correct

information from some customers.

Q. What do you appreciate most about

your work here at OMC?

A. The people and variety of work, that

OMC is always evolving technology and

processes.

Q. Least like?

A. Getting interrupted by news letter

interviewer.

Q. What are your personal hobbies and

interests? A. Hockey, Hockey and Hockey.

My wife calls me a "hockey freak", not

fan!

Q. What does the “right attitude” mean

to you?

A. Keeping the customer happy its why

we are still around and why we still get

orders. Continuing the putting the cus-

tomer first legacy that OMC was built

on.

Q. What is your most memorable mo-

ment at Ottawa Mould Craft? A. IQMS project and the trip to California

with the implementation team. David Veal

Have an idea for The Attitude? Talk to Darcy Cullum or David

Veal.

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Two pieces of news from Finance The federal government recently intro-duced Bill C-44, the Helping Families in Need Act. The Act provides an em-ployee with the ability to take leave when a child is critically ill, dies or disap-pears as a probable result of a crime. The act also amends the Employment Insurance Act to provide benefits to a claimant who is providing care or sup-port to their critically ill child. Effective January 1, 2013, the annual maximum insurable earnings will in-crease to $47,400 from the existing $45,900. The Employment Insurance premium rate for employees will also increase to $1.88 for every $100 of sal-ary/wages up to $47,400. This equates to a $0.05 increase for every $100 of salary/wages from 2012. Kirit Shah

T H E A T T I T U D E January 2013

Quality, what does it mean

to you?

Why would anyone what to be a "Quality Assurance Manager"? I used to ask myself that quite a lot. It sounds like a nice job but when you've been doing it for a few years (over 30), it can seem like your responsible for all the mistakes that everybody else makes? It's no won-der most of us "QA" guys are bald and look 60 before we are 26! So what does quality mean to you? Ask ten people and you will probably get ten different answers. Look up the history of "Quality Management" and you will find definitions, books, charts and problem solving techniques that sound more like something you ordered drunk from a sushi restaurant than a business plan! My definition is relatively simple. Give the customer what he asked for, when

you said you would and at the price he agreed to pay for it. This is how our customers rate our performance (see the notice board). Gone are the days of "acceptable" reject rates. If you make parachutes do you think it's ok to have

2% defective? If your delivering babies do you think it's acceptable to only drop 1% ? I should hope not but that's what "manufacturing" has considered accept-able for so many years. Customers today won't accept "non-quality" because

Cultural Calendar

February 10th is Chinese New Year. The

year celebrated is 4710 on the lunar

calendar; the

year of the

snake. Cele-

brated by Chi-

nese people

a r o u n d t h e

world, this major

holiday is where

friends and family gather for a reunion

dinner and celebration. Red clothing is

worn to ward away evil spirits and bad

fortune and new clothing symbolizes

starting the year anew. The Snake is the

intuitive, introspective, refined and col-

lected of the Animal Signs. Commonly

the snake is perceived as acute, aware,

cunning, proud, vain & vicious.

February 13th is Ash Wednesday, the

beginning of the Lent season. It is ob-

served by some Christian’s through pen-

ance, reflection, and fasting which pre-

pares for the celebration of the resurrec-

tion of Christ (Easter Sunday), taking

place March 31st.

they know they are paying for it. Quality is expected from us and it's a non-negotiable. It's also what sets us apart from our competition and ensures our future. So I hear you ask, "what can I do to im-prove quality"… Ok, so perhaps that's not exactly what you're asking, but the fact is you are already doing it. Our quality re-cord and relationship with our customers is excellent thanks to what you do every day with excellence. How do we improve? Just "do the right thing" every day without compromise and if you're not sure ask. Easy eh? Finally back to my first question "why would anyone want to be a "Quality Assur-ance Manager"? In my case it's because I'm proud of the people and systems we have in place assuring quality product and services to our customers. David Veal

An Assembled 3M Canister Body Items like these, manufactured in part, here at Ottawa Mould Craft Ltd. are used in various parts of the world by emergency and military person-nel. Such items offer protection through natural and manmade emergency situations.

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Health Tip

It’s cold & flu season again!

Here are some things you can do to stay healthy

and prevent the spread of the flu:

1. Get a flu shot

2. Wash your hands frequently

3. Use hand sanitizers

4. Cough and sneeze into your arm, not your hand

5. Keep your hands away from your face

6. Keep common areas clean and disinfected

Please see the seasonal flu guide posted on the main notice board.

T H E A T T I T U D E January 2013

THE RIGHT ATTITUDE WILL ACHIVE THE RIGHT RESULTS

So what would you like to see in “The “Attitude”? Are there Customers or products you would like

to know about? Who would you like to see next in the “Spotlight” interview? Do you want to know

what the average day is like in another department or position? As Darcy said in his opening ad-

dress “We will try to answer the Who, What, When, Where and How” . You just have to ask why?

Please see myself or Darcy if you have any comments suggestions, ideas or requests.

David Veal