Excerpt from the article:
For most businesses, change is an essential part of long-term success. Ongoing innovation, in products, processes, service and value, is the best way to beat the competition.
Innovation. It’s the essential ingredient in any company’s ability to thrive and stay viable for the long haul. Innovative companies are restless explorers, constantly searching for and testing out new ideas, investigating new markets, looking for ways to become more value-added for their customers. It’s a relentless undertaking, not for the limited of vision or the “we’ve always done it this way” thinkers. Instead, innovation requires a willingness to examine assumptions, stick your neck out and possibly fail. Risky, yes, but the potential rewards make taking the chance worthwhile.
…Another example is Eastman Machine Co. Headquartered in Buffalo, N.Y., it has been manufacturing fabric cutting equipment since 1888, says Robert L. Stevenson, president and CEO. Originally, Eastman Machine manufactured cutting machines for harnesses and other horse-related items. Later, the company began offering cutting machines for apparel. Later still, noticing a rise in the use of industrial specialty fabrics, the company moved into this arena.
Now, Stevenson says, they manufacture cutting equipment for fabrics used by aerospace (such as carbon graphite pre-preg and resin-coated fabrics), the wind energy field and for fabrics used for inflatable and permanent structures (such as the fabric roof of the Denver International Airport), in addition to other markets such as recreational space. “Staying innovative is the only way to stay in business,” Stevenson says. “We’re continually expanding our product—like in terms of creating faster machines and developing user-friendly software. Seventy percent of what we sell today wasn’t even invented 25 years ago.”
For more information on Eastman cutting machines for advanced textiles, click here.
