Wednesday was yet another early morning start, when we boarded the Terp-mobile for a day in Baltimore, Maryland.
We had a site visit to Black and Decker Headquarters with some sightseeing in Baltimore itself.
Photos from Baltimore are here
The first place everyone ran to when we arrived in Baltimore was Filene’s basement. There was a frenzy of RMIT’ers buying Guess shoes for $4, Calvin Klein clothes and designer bags. It was a shopping frenzy with people just flabbergasted as how cheap everything was. I can’t imagine what the excess baggage costs will be like on the way home! After the craziness of Filene’s, Lisa and I took a long walk around Baltimore Harbor which was lovely and I can imagine, in summer would be just bustling with people. It reminded me a lot of Darling Harbour in Sydney. Our bus driver recommended that we must go to Philips if we want to try the best crab cake in Baltimore and with that we did. There was a main Philips restaurant that was a bit up-market for us but the had a Philips ‘express’ which was fantastic and filled us all up nicely for our visit to Black and Decker.
At first, I was not really even interested in Black and Decker. I thought we’d be sitting there hearing about their range of toasters for two hours. I did woodwork at school at love love love Norm Abram’s New Yankee Workshop and This Old House, but didn’t figure this would mean much at Black and Decker. I am glad I was wrong!
The area of Black and Decker we were going to see was Black and Decker University. This is where all their staff do all their training and professional development. We learnt about how Black and Decker totally relaunched who they were with the DeWalt brand. We saw some of their advertising campaigns, how when they film them they do so to ensure a global feel (filming an ad here that can be shown in South America, Australia and Europe without that ‘American’ feel). They never get the ‘characters’ in their ads to talk – any speech is done so using voiceovers that can be localised. When launching the DeWalt brand, the sales teams actually went out to building sites and left the tools there so the workmen could use them on site and would then return the following week to collect them. That is how sure of their DeWalt brand that they were. And they were confident of after a week of using the DeWalt products that the construction teams would make the move to DeWalt. Sure enough, it worked. Black and Decker, whilst they were being steadily beaten in the market by other companies such as Makita and Bosch, started their steady climb to the top of the professional tools market with DeWalt.
After those presentations we then got to see their staff training area which looked like it was straight off the set of This Old House! There was a whole area set up in a warehouse that had each part a basic construction project labelled. From staircases to window frames, this is used as a training base for their sales teams so that when they are in the field they know the language to use when speaking with tradesmen. There was a practical area as well where they learn to use the tools and understand their application and use in the field. It was a great set-up and everyone who spoke to us seemed to love their jobs, and the organisation itself. It was interesting to learn that on a certain, very popular, home renovation show the product shown must be that of the program sponsor when behind the scenes all those on the construction teams use DeWalt!
We discussed the issue of China and also the products that Black and Decker put their name to. This is taken very seriously and their China operations are overseen by people there to ensure the quality remains of a high standard and any products that Black and Decker lend its name to are also stringently tested to ensure that they are of a quality that Black and Decker find satisfactory as they have a nearly 100 years of trust that is between the brand and their customers. In the machinery lab I noticed that the main power saw had ‘Made in Taiwan’ which is to be expected. There was then a block of wood that is used with the drill that had four screws in it. This was labeled with a huge sticker marked “Proudly made in the USA”.
All in all, it was a great site visit and one that I was really excited to see. As I obviously have an interest in both training and ongoing professional development it was so interesting to learn about how other industries go about training their staff and ensuring that continual learning takes place.
After the visit it was back on the bus to College Park. All the more wiser about the world of dust busters and power drills.
Norm would be proud of me I am sure!