Jaime and Jeff Maliszewski believe a knowledgeable customer makes a happier customer.
That's why the owners of both Reliable Plating Works and Elite Finishing in Milwaukee offer plating classes for their customers every Friday in February. The classes are designed to educate his customers' engineers, designers, salesmen, purchasers, and product managers on how plating is done and what plating can do for their product.
"We walk them through every step of our process," Jaime says. "Some are amazed at what it takes to finish their parts, and a lot of times, it opens their eyes to how we can work better together in getting their parts back to them faster."
It's an educational opportunity that RPW and Elite Finishing have been offering for many years and has been taken by dozens of its customers and hundreds of those employees.
Focusing on Customer satisfaction
The owners of both Reliable Plating Works and Elite Finishing in Milwaukee offer plating classes for their customers every Friday in February."The best companies focus on more than balance sheets," Jeff says. "Customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction, and profitability all go hand-in-hand."
They start with a quick introduction and video with commentary of the plating process while they eat lunch and then follow it with a full plant tour with hands-on looks at all of the equipment, including the lab.
Then it's back to the classroom for information on cost drivers, design issues, plating properties and capabilities, polishing and vibratory finishing, and other information and a show-and-tell on hard-to-finish parts.
Jaime says classes fill up quickly; they can only accommodate 20 people per class, and they almost always are full.
"It's just a great tool for us to use with our customers," he says. "They see who we are, how we do things, and the challenges that we have. It certainly allows us to work closely with them in the future."
Adding Virtual Classes
They start with a quick introduction and video with commentary of the plating process while they eat lunch and then follow it with a full plant tour with hands-on looks at all of the equipment, including the lab.Now RPW and Elite Finishing are coming out with a new twist: virtual classes. When the pandemic caused some classes to be put on hold, the Maliszewskis and their team say they missed the opportunity to connect and educate their customers. Holding classes virtually will allow them to continue connecting and educating customers, especially those that are farther away since the shops service customers in every state, including Illinois, Michigan, Texas, Minnesota, and Indiana.
"We are turning our materials into e-documents that we can share online," Jeff says. "Our first class is scheduled for March, and we'll continue to hold them on Friday afternoons."
Not only do the classes — both in-person and the upcoming virtual ones — allow the RPW and Elite Finishing teams to meet their customers in person or online, but they have also allowed the customers to get to know one another and possibly start business relationships together.
"Besides learning about plating, attendees have met a lot of new people and used this as a networking opportunity," Jaime says. "This has always been very beneficial for our customers."
RPW was founded in 1929 and offers finishes in copper, electroless nickel, and nickel-chrome in bright, satin, duplex, triplex nickel, woods, and hexavalent. In pre-plate, they offer polishing, buffing, deburring, vibratory, plus design and engineering services.
RPW employs over 80+ people at its facility, where it services several industries, including motorcycles, furniture, advertising displays, hardware, lawn and garden equipment, barbeques, paper dispensers, bicycles, appliances, and hand tools for clients such as Harley-Davidson, Master Lock, and Kohler.
Adding Elite Finishing for Aluminum Surfaces
In September 2001, the company built Elite Finishing from the ground up using a Brownfield Grant in an old fuel reformulation plan, adding 30 more employees and the ability to plate decorative chrome on aluminum and brass substrates. RPW added the location a few miles away because they didn't want to bring the aluminum finishes into their existing operations.
"We had an opportunity to pick up some business, but the aluminum and the dust it brings can sometimes be a nasty situation," Jaime says. "We decided to keep the operations separate, but we're all part of one big family."
And family is essential to the Maliszewskis. Their grandfather, Julian, bought the company in 1929, and his son John — passed away in Oct. 2021 at age 81 — started working in the business in 1953. Jaime and Jeffrey's other brother, Jack, retired in 2020 after 47 years with the company.
Still Servicing Long-Time Customers
RPW offers finishes in copper, electroless nickel, and nickel-chrome in bright, satin, duplex, triplex nickel, woods, and hexavalent. In pre-plate, they offer polishing, buffing, deburring, vibratory, plus design and engineering services.That family-first attitude is what has kept many of their customers coming back for decades. In fact, RPW still has a customer they service that their grandfather started working with in 1929. In another case, residential indoor air quality equipment manufacturer Broan-NuTone honored RPW as their longest continuous supplier spanning the entire 75 years of the company.
"My grandfather was working with Broan-NuTone when their founders were working out of a garage before they even became a company," Jaime says. "The relationships we have built over the years are very important to us, and we work hard to maintain them."
One of the reasons RPW and Elite maintain those relationships — and stay in business for so long — is their commitment to environmental sustainability and their belief in giving to their community.
The RPW and Elite teams have worked hard to reduce the number of resources and energy they have been using over the past decade, and the company has invested in getting several of their employees trained in Six Sigma production processes.
Significant Results in Cutting Energy, Reducing Costs
They have seen significant results:
- A 50% reduction in waste from material over-usage thanks to weekly process reviews by the RPW Quality Improvement Team and a Green Belt project run by RPW's four Green Belts.
- An 80% cut in start-up waste product by switching to a 24 hour/day continuous production schedule.
- Over $1 million in reduced metal shrinkage costs because of their work with Wisconsin Manufacturing Extension Partnership's Lean Manufacturing Team.
- A $200,000 reduction in nickel waste through process improvements thanks to the efforts of their four Six Sigma Green Belts.
- A $20,000 decrease in utility use with a 24 hour/day continuous production schedule.
- A 30% drop in plant energy costs with a 24 hour/day continuous production schedule.
- And a 100% commitment to 0% landfill waste.
"Our conscientious materials management means that RPW is keeping materials out of the waste stream," Jeff says. "It also means we'll never have to worry about the expense or hassles of being part of an EPA Superfund cleanup."
Jeff Maliszewski interacting with one of the kids at the charity outing that RPW helps support.RPW and Elite have also worked with the team members to give back to the Milwaukee community. In recent years they have chosen to focus efforts on elementary education and partnered with St. Joseph Academy on the city's south side, which was originally created to provide early childhood education for children from infancy through pre-school. The growing program now provides quality instruction, in a Christian-oriented environment, for students through the sixth grade.
RPW also leads St. Joseph's annual golf outing, which has helped to raise more than $1 million in the over four decades they have worked with the organization. Jaime has served as the event chairperson for more than 20 years.
"By providing childcare and education for low-income children, this group gives parents a way to take jobs and break the cycle of poverty," says Jaime, who is also a founding member of Airport Gateway Business Improvement District and the Airport Gateway Business Association, two groups dedicated to improving the business environment in the area surrounding General Mitchell International Airport in Milwaukee.
Launching Custom Chrome Division
In late 2020, RPW began a service for car and motorcycle enthusiasts when it launched its Custom Chrome division, www.usachromeplating.com. Jaime says it serves the ever-growing need for the one-off, unique, and specialized custom job.
"The collector car hobby is big, and so is the need for quality, original replacement and refurbished parts," he says. "And chrome; a lot of chrome. It's most likely going to need work, from simple polishing to reshaping to total repair. Everyone in this game wants perfection."
Visit https://rpwinc.net and https://elitefinishing.net
