Building Bridges

ARM’s Executive Forum has ended and it was a successful and unique meeting that we shared with the Association of Rotational Molders Australasia. More than sixty executive-level attendees and their spouses learned from one another about business, manufacturing, and culture. I would like to personally thank everyone who attended and all of our speakers: Daven Claerbout, Corey Claussen, Garth Galloway, Simon Gough, Graeme Hall, Roger LaSalle, and Pat Long.

This meeting represented an idea that has been very important to our rotomolding community for more than forty years now: building bridges. This year we were able to create a bridge between the rotomolders of North America and Australia. This allowed ARM members to learn how rotomolders operate in Australia, it also allowed us to learn from people who do not typically attend ARM meetings. We were all able to make new friends while we see our old friends!

Here are a few of the important ideas that we kept coming back to at the Executive Forum:

• Welcome new technology to your business but remember that relationships are more important than technology.
• Use networking opportunities and travel as an opportunity to improve your business. Ask someone in the industry who is better than you for their advice.
• Be the fast second (even on your own product). You can do this in park by using your staff to identify problems in products.

The ARM Executive Forum began in the Spring of 2009 as a purposely smaller meeting that would bring together rotomolding business owners, allowing them to share insights on how they resolved rotomolding business problems in the same way that ARM has always shared ideas on improving our process. We have been building these bridges for many years. If you ask our suppliers, many say that rotomolders share and work together like no other industries they know.

You can save the date now for next year’s Executive Forum, to be held March 25-28, 2018. We will return to the beautiful Hyatt Grand Cypress in Orlando, a favorite of our members!

We will be building bridges throughout the rest of the year at regional meetings in Buena Park, CA, Williamsport, PA, and Toronto, ON. And of course at the great Rotoplas we have planned.

Conchita Miranda is the President of ARM and the Director General of Operadora MPK.

The ARM Blog is written by a variety of leaders in the rotational molding industry. We encourage you to share your input in the comment section. If you’re interested in writing a post for the blog, email ARM staff at info@rotomolding.org.