Features August 2019

When Gustavo Mondragon joined Stanhome Mexico five years ago, the direct sales company had a 75 percent local area delivery accuracy rate. Since implementing a program he calls “last mile consolidation”—which bolsters communication, improves efficiency and reduces transportation costs—Stanhome Mexico has upped its local area delivery accuracy rate to 99 percent. As for the remaining […]

Rescar keeps American freight trains rolling; and Barry Anstandig keeps expenses from going off the rails. As senior vice president and chief financial officer for Rescar, he runs a lean financial engine for the privately held, Downers Grove, Illinois, company specializing in repair, maintenance and cleaning of railroad cars. That’s an essential service considering that […]

It’s got to be among, if not the, most patient-friendly innovation of recent times—the medical wearable, made from a thin, lightweight flexible electrical circuit. Non-invasive, painless and easy to use, the small wired device is applied like a bandage to the skin and measures such functions as blood pressure, brain activity, heart rate, pulse and […]

They can take down 5,000-pound, 20-foot-long solid concrete railings—all in one piece. And that could be on a building as high as 37 stories. “We’re the only ones on the market that can do it,” says Max Santos, founder and president of Ontario-headquartered MAXX North America Group Inc. This is because the company uses two […]

It may seem to the benefit of consumers, but the depressed price of natural gas presents issues to a multinational company’s division whose responsibilities include creating around a third of the world’s electricity from multiple sources—and is also in the midst of a realignment. So it’s a big-picture view that Chris Tyler must take to […]

It took less than two weeks on the job as Catania Oils’ new financial controller for Mike Coutu to identify the one glaring weakness in the company’s process-efficiency efforts—other than using old plastic sight tubes to gauge Catania’s massive vats of olive and vegetable oils by eye, that is. “You could tell just by looking […]

The path to progress can be overlooked by disproportionate attention on something else, necessary as it might be. Case in point, says Jim Campbell: the internal combustion engine. It’s been powering what used to be called the horseless carriage since the latter part of the 19th century and getting more efficient all the time. But […]