MECCO Marking and Traceability

PA Manufacturing Advisory Fellowship

MECCO Marking & Traceability is a leader in direct part marking, laser marking, laser engraving and dot peen machines for traceability and part verification. Our innovative solutions enable clients to permanently mark and trace just about any part, especially ones that must withstand the harshest environments and processes.

MECCO was facing a state of transition as the organization shifted from what was considered a predominately “job-shop” environment where each order was custom manufactured to the customer specifications to expanding their manufacturing capacity to include a standard product line. This would be the first standard product line in the company’s long and storied history in the marking and traceability industry. This standard product line would allow the organization to be more efficient in their quoting, sales, and manufacturing process. This new standard line would also allow the organization to not only expand their current market share but also penetrate new and emerging markets by providing faster turnaround.

Catalyst Connection and The Katz School of Business, via funding from the RK Mellon Foundation, worked collaboratively to assemble a skilled and motivated student team to address MECCO’s need to create a standardized sales process for their new product line. The deliverables for this project included:

• A thorough evaluation of the new standardized product line
• An assessment of the current sales process 
• Standard product sales process, procedures, marketing materials, technical sales literature, etc. to assist in the transition from selling the customization of a job shop environment to creating a standard product line sales approach 
• Recommendations to help MECCO improve the management of its sales process and the framework for a “standard product” sales process able to accommodate consistent growth over time.

The PA Manufacturing Advisory Fellowship (PA-MAF) student team assisted MECCO in the transition from a highly customized product line to a standardized product line. The team documented the desired Standard product launch requirements and assessed what gaps existed in MECCO’s current product.  The PA-MAF student team assisted the team at MECCO in completing/compiling this needed information. Moving forward, once the data has been analyzed there may be a need for competitive analysis to be completed to help shape our messaging to the market.