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1,200 Western Pa. manufacturers surveyed

Thursday, December 06, 2001

By Corilyn Shropshire, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

It may not seem so during this era of mounting layoffs and stumbling stock prices, but there's more to good business than the bottom line.

At least, that's the view being offered by Alpern, Rosenthal & Co., a local accounting and management consulting firm, and the Robert Morris College School of Business.

The pair, citing the results of a survey of local manufacturers that they conducted, contends that product innovation, relationships with employees and customers and internal operations, as well as earnings, make for a successful manufacturer.

Their survey queried 1,200 private Western Pennsylvania manufacturers on their business practices and policies. After dividing the companies into "high performers" and "low performers" based on five-year earnings projections, Robert Morris researchers determined what distinguishes the good from the not-so-good.

Flourishing manufacturers value employee training and input, use technology to connect with their customers and measure each product's profitability, the researchers concluded.

"Our intent is to inform the regional manufacturing community on what best practices they should be employing to be growing and profitable companies," said Fred Rock, director of the manufacturing services group at Alpern, Rosenthal.

Frustrated by the shrinking of the region's manufacturing industry, Rock sought to statistically define what constituted thriving manufacturing firms. Subsequently, Alpern, Rosenthal partnered with Bill Rupp, at Robert Morris' School of Business, to develop, conduct and interpret the survey.

Rock expects the survey to be used as a tool to advance Pittsburgh's manufacturing industry.

"We wanted to help business owners in our region identify what are the things really good companies do? It just amazes me what you can glean out of the responses."

The survey was based upon ideas conveyed in the best-selling business tome, "The Balanced Scorecard" by Robert Kaplan and David Norton, which encourages managers to look at a wider set of measures to better understand their companies.