Respect is more than a company-wide value at New England Wooden Ware (NEWW), an independent corrugated box converter in Gardner, Mass. It’s a way of being that’s reflected in the company’s age — 171. It shows in the tenure of its 140 employees, many who have worked there more than 40 years. And once a year for the last two decades, respect has been returned by one of NEWW’s largest customers, The Gillette Co.

Since 1984, the Boston-based consumer-product giant has honored a handful of its top suppliers every year with an OmniMark Supplier Award in recognition of a perfect or near perfect record of providing outstanding “total product value” — customer service, cost competitiveness, and continuous improvement. This year only 27 out of more than a thousand suppliers received the award. NEWW has earned an OmniMark every year since the award’s inception.

To honor NEWW’s 20th anniversary of unequaled success, Gillette further recognized the company with an Outstanding Achievement Award at the OmniMark Award ceremony April 28 at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston.

The special recognition took NEWW attendees by surprise. “We went to this award banquet as we have many times in the past, and right in the middle of the ceremony they suddenly had a special presentation that we were not aware was going to happen,” says NEWW President David L. Urquhart, who also serves as director of the Association of Independent Corrugated Converters (AICC) Northeast Region.

From Eight to Two—

NEWW has done business with Gillette since the 1970s. At that time, Gillette worked with about eight corrugated box suppliers, Urquhart says. He remembers when NEWW turned down an opportunity for more Gillette business out of fear the workload would be too overwhelming. “The years went by and business practices changed and as time evolved we ended up with more and more of this Gillette business, I guess because we did a good job satisfying them,” he says. “So much so that by the mid-1990s there were only two [corrugated] suppliers of Gillette that we were aware of.” Today NEWW supplies almost all corrugated products used by Gillette. “It’s close to being a singe-source arrangement,” Urquhart says.

Specifically, Gillette honored NEWW with a special OmniMark for providing corrugated containers, point-of-purchase displays, and specialty products like boxes with built-in moisture barriers for razors. But NEWW’s service to Gillette doesn’t stop there — it also takes a secondary route. NEWW supplies corrugated products to a number of other Gillette vendors, including Sonoco, Hartsville, S.C.; Markson Rosenthal & Co., Englewood Cliffs, N.J.; and Precise Technology, Inc., North Versailles, Pa. This year, Precise received an OmniMark, too. Clearly, NEWW’s timely, on-target service contributes both directly and indirectly to Gillette’s effective supply chain.

Urquhart says the company’s unscathed track record is a product of NEWW’s employees’ skill and respect for Gillette and all customers. “We realize how important this account is,” he says. “And these people are real craftsmen…they’re New England craftsmen and they just do great work. And they really pay attention to Gillette. Our people respect Gillette. They respect how they operate; they respect the products we are asked to make; they respect the way we get treated by this large customer.”

Quality Manager Don Broderick attributes NEWW’s recognition to the company’s policies of timeliness, simplicity, quick response, and — most of all — attention to detail, citing a quote by 19th Century British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli. “Success is a product of unremitting attention to detail,” he says. “One thing, I guess, is the culture you develop in your business — on the production floor and with your people. One thing we stress is attention to detail. If you don’t pay attention, you’re going to lose the game.”

“I guess in many jobs people may get bored and then they lose their focus,” Broderick adds. “We have hundreds of Gillette orders per day. If we make a big mistake we can shut down one of [Gillette’s] lines. And we do not want to shut down one of their lines.”OBM