​How 75-Year Old Cambridge-Lee Industries Keeps Employees On Board with Automation

Cambridge-Lee Industries is one of the largest manufacturers and distributors of copper tubing with an estimated 25% of the global market. Headquartered in Reading, Pennsylvania, the global company produces copper tubes for water supply, air conditioning, refrigeration, and a variety of commercial applications.

In 2013, Cambridge-Lee added 200,000-square-feet to its manufacturing operations with cast-and-roll processes and an annealing furnace while onboarding its employees to new automation technology. Michele Blood, Industrial Sales Manager at Cambridge-Lee, explains that the automation of the feeding process on the annealing furnace required emphasizing how the company values its employees while re-deploying the ones who were previously put product in the furnace to other tasks. The company uses automation as a way to enhance jobs and makes a point to continually educate employees to prepare them for future advancements.

Cambridge-Lee has an ongoing list of values that every employee lives by that allow them to embrace increasing levels of automation. Among them are to “Continuously Improve Everything” and “Embrace Change.” These tenets require all 500 employees to “Constantly evaluate every aspect of your job and our company to find ways to improve. Be curious. Ask questions. Find a better way” and acknowledge that “What got us here isn’t the same as what will get us to the next level. ‘Because we’ve always done it that way’ is not a reason to continue doing it that way. Be inspired by both the challenges and the opportunities that change brings. See the new opportunities, rather than hanging on to old ways of doing things.” (Download all 33 points of the Cambridge-Lee Way here.)

Interested in following in Cambridge-Lee’s footsteps with automated manufacturing? Contact us for a complimentary walk-through to learn about advanced manufacturing technologies.