Here’s one: An electrical supplies procurement planner says to the manager, “What do you like most, my new forecast, or my inventory projections?” The manager looks at all the spreadsheets and replies, “I like your sense of humor.” Unfortunately, the last two years have been one bad joke when it comes to the supply chain, […]
Somewhere in Chicagoland, there are a couple of electricians waiting for a $2 dollar bracket on a job site. And it’s costing them hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars. “This occurs on a daily basis throughout the industry,” writes Philip Nimmo in an article about procurement management for Electrical Contractor magazine. Material handling accounts for […]
As I watched the roof on our family-owned warehouse collapse, several thoughts ran through my mind. From the parking lot, I asked one of the firefighters if I could quickly run into our building and retrieve the servers that ran our computer network and critical business systems. He said the remaining piece of the roof […]
Contractors work on slim margins. An electrical contractor’s average profit margin before taxes is just 6%, according to a Risk Management Associates report. For a profession that carries ample amounts of risk, single digits don’t seem sufficient. That’s why Paramont EO, an electrical distributor in Chicago, Illinois, offers an array of services, supplies and logistics […]
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Electrical Contractor Magazine published an article this week on what Ground Fault Circuit Interrupters (GFCIs) do, and perhaps more importantly, do NOT do. Understanding the use cases and differences between GFCIs and AFCIs is a safety essential (see our previous blog on Arc Fault Circuit Interrupters for a refresher). Understanding how GFCIs work and what […]
When a contractor presents 3-D design images of how the selected lights and fixtures will look within a given environment to a potential customer, he can claim ownership of the design. This gives him value and differentiation against the competition, who likely don’t have 12 pages of 3-D renderings of how the lighting choices are […]
