How to avoid common casting design mistakes

Avoid Casting Design Mistakes

As older design engineers retire, a new wave of young engineers are taking their places. What many younger engineers lack is an understanding of casting design – how to design parts so they can be cast with a consistently high level of quality. We recently sat down with Jeff Taylor, a casting engineer at The…

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Celebrate your freedom this July 4th

Lawton July 4

Here at The C.A. Lawton Co., we are very proud to live and work in the greatest country on earth. We’re blessed beyond belief. We love our homes, our families and our many freedoms. We believe in the ideals that America stands for. July 4th is an excellent opportunity to enjoy a well-deserved day of…

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Without the right playbook, transformation is just a dream

Lawton Transformational Playbook

Like a professional football team’s playbook, an organization that is committed to continuous improvement (CI) needs a visual game plan that gets and keeps everyone pulling in the same direction. At The C.A. Lawton Co., that playbook is the transformation calendar.  It’s a key tool the company uses to manage its commitment to continuous improvement…

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Who do I report to?

Lawton Who Report

A common question job applicants ask is, “Who will I report to if I work in the foundry?” The answer is, you will report to a working supervisor. During the past 12 months, the foundry has been restructured so that each supervisor has no more than five to seven direct reports compared to the previous…

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Lawton demonstrates safety commitment with company-wide event

19 Lawton Safety 1200x628

Many manufacturing firms pay lip service to safety. Tool box talks, posters and periodic training sessions seem to be boring and disconnected from employees’ day-to-day work. Safety training becomes a check-the-box activity for management and employees, not something either group feels passionate about. In contrast, at C.A. Lawton, we take safety very seriously. It’s an…

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ISO 9001:2015: The never-ending quality journey at C.A. Lawton

Lawton ISO QUALITY

When you make a commitment to LEAN and organizational excellence, your work is never “done.” To satisfy customer needs, the C.A. Lawton team must continually improve our processes. That’s why we decided to transition from ISO 9001:2008 to ISO 9001:2015 in 2017. We achieved compliance on February 5, 2018. What does this mean? Why is…

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Remarkable people and one-on-one meetings

Lawton Remarkable

By: Lori Goemans I was recently having a conversation with a family member about “business-ey” type stuff.  In the course of the conversation, I mentioned that supervisors are expected to have a 30-minute one-on-one meeting with each of their direct employees.  Every week.  It’s so important to Lawton that we structured our organization to limit…

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Lawton raises the quality bar high with ISO 9001:2015

Raise Quality Bar

In most industries, quality has never mattered more. Our customers are raising the bar on specifications and quality expectations. To satisfy their needs, we must continually improve our processes. This requires a culture change where all workers expect that our methods and processes can always be better. Here are some of the changes we’ve made…

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