It's All About Detail
Production efficiency makes the difference at Blue Grass Manufacturing

Don Bundy’s office is an unpretentious place, much like the man himself. And although Bundy runs a multi-million dollar company, he maintains the ability to poke fun at himself.

Bundy, president of Blue Grass Manufacturing Company Inc. in Lexington, insists on being photographed beside his favorite print, Pablo Picasso’s rendering of the half-crazy Don Quixote, an impoverished Spanish noble who set out to revive the glory of knighthood.

The print is placed squarely in front of Bundy’s desk and serves as a reminder of his own foibles. “I have been accused of holding onto goals until some people think I’m foolish,” Bundy says with a grin.
But holding onto goals has also been a benefit to Bundy. His contract manufacturing company grosses about $10 million a year.

Its fortunes have fluctuated over the past 18 years, from a low of $5 million to as much as $25 million per year, depending upon its number of contracts.

Bundy bought Blue Grass Manufacturing Company in 1982. At the time, the 20-year-old company produced typewriter and copier assemblies for IBM.

“I took the company and diversified it to a larger customer base,” Bundy explained.

He added specialized work centers for cutting metal and for the fabrication of sheet metal and welding. Once those elements were added, the company “began bidding larger and larger products,” Bundy said.

Blue Grass Manufacturing hit paydirt in 1987 when it won two large contracts, one for Clark Equipment and the other for IBM. The company operated the test facility for Clark Equipment, where it endurance-tested their forklifts and other machines 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The company also did the assembly work for IBM’s plastics for typewriters, keyboards and laser printers.

Bundy proudly points out that Blue Grass Manufacturing Company is ISO 9002 certified, which means that its standards are deemed as world-class by the International Standards Organization.

He describes his business as a medium-skilled, medium-technology enterprise, with electro-mechanical assemblies as its specialty.

But Blue Grass Manufacturing Company does a wide variety of other work as well, including turnkey assembly, packaging, tooling, production machining, stamping, welding and fabrication.

Bundy keeps a small demonstration area inside the plant to show onlookers some of the items his company has produced. They items include things like ice bucket controls for refrigerators, pumps that empty washing machines at the end of the washing cycle, light bulb assemblies, truck pistons, pulleys, assemblies for underground transformers and even knife handles.

Bundy says that Blue Grass Manufacturing has two basic types of customers. One is a corporation that outsources some of its work, another is the inventor who develops a product and needs someone to manufacture it.

“We’re in a perpetual product start-up all the time with something,” says Bundy. “Every two or three years if you came through this plant it would look totally different.”

That state of change makes planning a crucial element. The details of his business are managed by a sophisticated software system that tracks every aspect of operation.

“Manufacturing is all about detail,” Bundy explains. “It (the logistics system) is what separates me from a ma and pa shop.”

Attention to detail helped Bundy’s operation to be named a distinguished supplier to General Electric Company in 1994, ‘95, and ‘96. It won that designation by helping GE improve the quality of its components, reduce the cost of its products and by never shutting down GE’s production lines.

Attention to detail also led Bundy to form the Supply Chain Alliance, a partnership that combines the resources of member companies to broaden the range of services that each offers to customers. The goal of the alliance is to allow customers one-stop shopping. 

Lisa Summers is a staff writer for The Lane Report.
lisasummers@lanereport.com

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