New Balance Meetings

I am in Boston this week attending the New Balance Elite Dealers Meetings. New Balance has invited their top running specialty accounts to come to Boston and meet. Yesterday we spent the day at one of the company's factories. It was an incredible tour.

New Balance is known for making shoes in the U.S.A. For full disclosure, New Balance makes 1/4 of their shoes in the U.S.A.. The rest are made in China. At this factory, they not only make shoes from beginning to end, they also assemble parts of shoes. Those parts are made in China.

The New Balance team is dedicated to making great shoes. We watched the various teams of workers stich, glue, heat, and package shoes. They have to produce 600 pair of shoes a day. They don't want to over produce, and they don't want to fall behind. The workers are on their feet all day long, but every few minutes a bell goes off, and they have to exercise - mostly their hands.

The teams are encouraged to not only raise issues like production problems, they also develop the strategies to solve those problems. We saw signs now and then explaining a problem, and what solutions they are using to solve them. This is part of the philosophy they got from Toyota. During the tour we were told they have fully embraced the business practices of Toyota. Hung on one of the walls was a list of Toyota practices they are dedicated to following.

In the afternoon were got to talk to shoe developers who explained they design process to us. We also got to go to the "smash lab" where they test, not only New Balance shoes, but see how they compare with competitors shoes. These shoes get tested my friends.

All in all it was a great day at the factory. I will share pictures later. Today we are in meetings with various folks form the company.

Charlie