This blog is starting to sound like a broken record – or, depending on how old you are, an iTunes playlist stuck on repeat.
As this fenestration newbie continues to make the rounds of major industry events, I keep noticing something – the warm, thoughtful, dedicated people who make door and window companies work.
It was great to meet more of those good folks during the recent FeneVision User Conference in downtown Cleveland, hosted by software company FeneTech.
In addition to the hard work that goes on during 72 sessions over three days, socializing and networking are a big part of the get-together, says FeneTech president Ron Crowl.
“It’s a very enjoyable event,” he says. “We have an equal mix of educational and social activities. A lot of the value is the customers come here and interact with other customers.”
That was obvious during the user conference, which Crowl calls unique in the fenestration industry because it brings competing companies together to shape the direction of a powerful, multi-faceted high-tech tool they all use.
“A lot of the value of conferences like this is breakfast time, lunch time and after-hours time,” Crowl says. “That’s where you get to sit and chat with other users of the software, and I think that’s the real value of this.”
It would be great if the industry could get together like this to solve other issues, such as the struggle to find qualified workers who won’t quit after a few days or weeks. That was a big topic of discussion during social hours at the FeneVision conference. I heard about employee attrition rates between 40 percent and 50 percent at some companies.
Now that I think about it, FeneTech could probably help with that, too
“The software is very intuitive and easy to use,” Crowl says. “We spend a lot of time on user interface designs. The real key is limiting the selections that can be made at any point in time. It can eliminate the tribal knowledge that historically holds inside manufacturing facilities.”
Plant managers, are you reading this?