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BY TIM PENNINGTON EDITOR Industrial Polishing Services masters polishing and plating. Rising & Shining The drive from Industrial Polishing Services' U.S. headquar- ters in San Diego to its expansive finishing operation in Baja California, Mexico, is a short 5-minute jaunt across the border. Walk inside the massive 250,000-square-foot plant, and one of the first things a visitor will notice is the level of cleanli- ness and order, which is not easy to do in a facility that does polishing, plating and coating on the scale that IPS does. Polishers have materials they are working on neatly stacked beside them, with materials they have just finished on the other side waiting for inspection. Rooms have good lighting and exhaust systems, and everyone is wearing proper safety equip- ment. The main manual plating line has an innovative design that makes it nearly impossible to have ground contamination, so the floor beneath and around it is clean and dry. "Everyone here has a sense of purpose and takes great pride in what they are doing," says Enrique Mereles Jr., who heads the IPS sales and marketing efforts. "We take good care of our employees, and we consider their safety and wellbeing along with the sustainability of the environment." IPS has one of the largest finishing operations in North America, with a workforce of over 800 specializing in high- volume, high-quality decorative metal finishing while providing business-to-business services to OEMs and others. Beyond the door hardware, kitchen and bath industries, the company also offers finishing services to the automotive, gaming, motorcycle, sporting goods, consumer goods and other industries. The facility permeates with a continuous improvement philosophy, from the organization and cleanliness of the work areas to the metrics posted at each operation, keeping track of various key performance indicators, as well as visual guides and instructions for the operators. It starts with the company's upper management, which has built IPS into a best practices and continuous improvement organization, implementing Six Sigma, 5S and lean manufacturing principles. It has also become ISO 9001:2008, C-TPAT and Clean Industry Certified, which it has been for over a decade. 14 JANUARY 2016 — pfonline.com PLATING/POLISHING P L A T I N G / P O L I S H I N G