“Change” might be a dirty word to some, but to Ray Attiyah, it suggests infinite possibilities. Mr. Attiyah is founder and owner of Midwest Manufacturing Solutions (MMS), a firm that climbs into the trenches with client companies and helps them formulate new and more efficient ways of operating.

        “Manufacturers must change faster than the external environment to gain and sustain a competitive advantage,” Mr. Attiyah said. “Our approach has proven to deliver that change with real results.”

        The folks at MMS hate being called consultants, so most of them identify themselves as project managers. Mr. Attiyah's business card bears the title of CRO, which stands for either “Chief Recruiting Officer” or “Chief Remover of Obstacles.”

        “Consultants tell you what to do and how to do it. We roll up our sleeves and go out on the floor and get clients to do it,” he said. “The key to that is we have to be right. Results have to be measurable and they have to be quick; speed is a huge morale-builder.

        “We work with companies to become not just well-run but to grow. Ultimately, people want a challenge; that's how people stay fit and it's the best way to retain employees. People want to work for a growing company.”

        While MMS clients include a couple of service organizations, and the company works with manufacturers' service departments, its primary focus is on helping production processes run lean and smart, with the flexibility to spot and seize opportunities. It's the world most familiar to MMS project managers as well as to Mr. Attiyah.

        “Everyone here has run a manufacturing plant. Clients like the fact that we've been in their shoes,” he said.

        The CRO himself started as a project engineer at Johnson & Johnson and soon earned the reputation as the company's firefighter. He worked from crisis to crisis, solving problems and implementing operations improvements.

        When Maryland magazine printer Johnson & Hardin recruited Mr. Attiyah to fix its entire operations, he implemented many of the processes he learned in his so-called “Mission Impossible” days at Johnson & Johnson. After bringing needed change, he gave the company six months' notice and began planning his own enterprise.

        To kick-start his own company, Mr. Attiyah needed one solid customer. In 1996, at the age of 26, the young change agent convinced management at West Chester armorer O'Gara-Hess & Eisenhardt that he could help them make strategic improvements.

        From the beginning, Mr. Attiyah has believed that selectivity of clients and employees was essential for success. In qualifying a prospective client, MMS evaluates the firm to see how committed its leaders are to change, and how open to new ideas. And while MMS emphasizes the importance of speed in making improvements and achieving results, it deliberately takes its time in hiring new project managers.

        Said Mr. Attiyah: “We ask ourselves not only if the applicant will do a good job, but if he will enjoy it, which is a key to their staying with us long term. When we look for somebody we ask how confident will they be sitting down with a client's president, vice president, plant manager or supervisor.

        “I spend quite a bit of time ensuring that we hire entrepreneurial people who can make change. I get thousands of resumes; in fact, I have received 436 resumes since March 1. But we'll take eight to nine months to hire somebody. We hired someone last year we'd been talking to since 1998.”

        Matching the right project manager with the right client sets up a formula that can lead to substantial improvements, the CRO said.

        “We're able to get a 30 percent improvement in production in three months or so that would have taken them a year and a half on their own, and would have been very frustrating,” he said. “Typically, they can then improve another 20 percent in the six months after we're gone.”

        Hamilton toolmaker Long-Stanton Manufacturing has worked with MMS since 1997 to streamline and stretch its capabilities.

        “We did things we didn't think we could do, because we'd never done it in the past,” general manager Roger Egnor said. “We met deadlines and achieved goals we thought were impossible. MMS helped make all that possible.”

        MMS has grown substantially in the recent past, recording a 40 percent sales increase during 2001 and anticipating growth of 30 to 40 percent this year. About half its business comes from repeat customers, as clients ask MMS to help them address emerging needs.

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