Saft America does not advertise much, and it doesn’t have to, President Thomas Alcide says. Because the company takes such great pains to maintain a positive image, he says, its reputation sells itself.

Saft America builds battery systems for many sectors, including aviation, energy, transportation and civil, as well and military and defense.

In developing power solutions for organizations in the space community or innovations such as battery technology to support aviation, “it’s important for us to make sure that we have an image out there for these types of applications,” Alcide explains. “Our customers have to expect that we will give them the best quality and the most reliable products we can make.”

Saft understands that the way its operations are perceived helps mold its image, so it goes to great lengths to ensure rigorous safety and ethical standards in its operations. “We deal both with commercial customers and military and defense programs,” Alcide adds. “Ethical behavior is paramount and we want nothing to happen to tarnish that.”

All U.S. sites have ethics compliance officers to whom employees can report unethical behavior confidentially, and Saft offers a hotline for the same purpose. In addition, Saft’s flat management style – with only three layers of management within its facilities – allows workers to communicate openly with executives.

Safety, Inside and Out
A company’s image is not just important to customers, but to the communities in which it operates, Alcide notes. Saft is proud of its stringent safety and environmental standards and works to promote them through internal and external audits.

The company’s Valdese, N.C., plant was recently recognized for its safe operations for the fifth straight year, Alcide notes. “Our employees have the ability to walk away from a job if they see safety or quality as an issue and there is no retribution whatsoever,” Alcide adds.

The company has five manufacturing facilities throughout the country that range from 30,000 to 150,000 square feet. It engages all of its employees in training courses it calls World-Class programs, which teaches the employees progressive manufacturing and safety techniques, cost-reduction strategies and additional concepts.

“These programs are based on the concept of continuous improvement as is lean manufacturing,” Alcide says. “Lean manufacturing is the new buzzword, which changes every four or five years, but we’ve been doing World-Class programs since the mid-’90s, before this was an accepted program.”

The programs are taught by corporate trainers who visit factories regularly and train employees, and new programs are implemented as required.

“We’ve seen [the program] as one of our competitive advantages,” Alcide says. “Our factories run very lean because of it but also very reliably, too.”

Continuous improvement, lean manufacturing and consistent communication are cornerstones of the program.

Alcide says because of a recent program initiative, the Valdese site reduced costs by more than 20 percent on a major product line. “The basic concept of the world-class program never ends,” Alcide adds.

Innovation Leaders
“I think we are a very technically sound company, which allows us to develop strong technical partnerships with our customers,” Alcide says.

This is critical in the niche battery market, as many of Saft’s customers have challenging applications.
Saft works with customers in the planning, production and aftermarket phases to help provide them with solutions, but the company’s ability to predict the potential needs of future customers is what sets it apart, Alcide says.

This was the case recently with the Joint Strike Fighter, a plane on which the military wanted to have battery backup power.

The necessary technology didn’t exist at the time, but Saft worked with the government to create it, and the plane flew for the first time in December 2006.

“Our effort is to always keep on the cutting-edge of technology,” Alcide says. “We have scientists looking into what’s needed next year, as well as five or 10 years down the line.

“We only go into markets where we can be one of the leaders. For that reason, we’re always looking for the next market and the needs of industries.”

The company credits its innovation to its breadth of resources, as well as its continued investment into R&D.

Saft invests approximately 5 percent of its annual sales into research, and “since we are a fairly large company, if we don’t have the expertise needed for a certain application in a certain site, we will find someone with it somewhere else in the company,” Alcide says.