OSG's Blog for

Photo credit: ©Todd Winters, All Rights Reserved

Annually, a 401(k) magazine, PLANSPONSOR, honors leading companies that offer the best retirement plans. The magazine announced the winners of the 2016 plan sponsors of the year awards. OSG is the winner of the asset class 25 million to 50 million in the Corporate 401(k) category!

What exactly is the Plan Sponsor of the Year Award?

Each year the PLANSPONSOR magazine recognizes the finalists of the 401(k) plan sponsors in 6 asset classes, and determines the winners for each class. In order to be considered for the finalists, 401(k) plan sponsors have to be nominated by financial advisors. We were nominated by our partner, Dan Peluse from Wintrust. This year, the PLANSONPOSIR magazine received 300 nominations and selected 5 finalists per asset class. OSG was one of the 5 finalists in the 25 million to 50 million asset class and we were chosen as the winner of the asset class!

OSG’s 401 (k) plan design and retirement preparedness

Total plan assets/participants: $ 25.1 million/440

Participation rate: 96.3%

Average deferral rate: 8%

Default deferral rate: 6%

Employer contribution: 100% on 6%

At OSG, all employees including new hires are automatically enrolled at 6%. Employees are able to adjust their deferral rate, but we utilize an auto-escalation system which increases deferral rate of each employee by 1% at the beginning of each year. This increase happens at the same time with the annual salary increase, so that employees see the small changes in their paycheck.  Any employees who are contributing less than 6% are re-enrolled at 6% at the beginning of the year.

OSG’s 401 (k) plan was carefully selected and designed by its 401 (k) Committee. The committee members include:  Jeff Tennant, the Chief Financial Officer, David Kwon, the Executive Vice President, Kelly Turk, Compensation and Benefits Specialist, Jennie Stephens, the Corporate HR Manager and Donna Gialo, the Business Intelligence Manager.

Turk said “our mission is to promote and encourage employees to achieve their financial savings goals by providing a flexible plan design, a variety of education options guidance tools and investment choices.”

In October, we hosted a Financial Wellness Fair with our financial advisor, Wintrust, to help our employees better understand financial planning. We went over 529 College Savings, budgeting, estate planning and social security, and employees were able to ask questions to our financial advisors.  

Responsibility to support employees

As our parent company, OSG Corporation, is based out of Japan, we inherit their Japanese value of protecting and taking care of our employees. In this sense, we are responsible for supporting our employees by providing resources for financial wellness and retirement. In exchange, we are rewarded with long-term employees who are dedicated, and bring in valuable skills and knowledge to grow our business.

“It is a generous plan compared to what I hear in the market,” said Dan Dimenza who has worked for OSG for 36 years.

Anna Oczkowski has worked for OSG for over 8 years. She found OSG’s Financial Wellness Fair very beneficial.

“We have a lot of questions about financial wellness and retirement, but we do not really get an opportunity to ask,” Oczkoswki. “At OSG Financial Wellness Fair, I was able to get answers to all of my questions and I feel more clear idea for my retirement planning.”

Learn more about the award from here. 

Feeling lucky? Try your luck with our St. Patrick’s Day raffle for an Amazon Echo!

How to Enter

• Take a picture showing your St. Patrick’s day spirit (Picture of you, your awesome t-shirt or anything green) 

• Post the picture as a comment on our contest post

• Only one entry per person

Submission Period

• Submission period begins at 12pm on March 17^th and ends on 9pm on March 17^th (CT)

• You must post a picture on our contest post during the submission period to be entered into a raffle

Eligibility

• Our sweepstakes is open to legal residents of United States

Prize

• Grand prize: 1 Amazon Echo (It will be shipped from our IL office)

• Amazon Echo is a wireless speaker/voice command device

Winner Selection

• One winner will be randomly selected from the submissions

• The winner will be announced by noon on Friday, March 18^th (CT)  

• Announcement of the winner and instructions to receive a prize will be done through the contest post on Facebook

• You are responsible for monitoring your Facebook account for winner notification

• If the original winner does not respond to our message within 2 days, or if the prize is returned to us as undeliverable, that original winner will forfeit the prize and another winner will be chosen

Facebook is not sponsoring, endorsing or administering this sweepstakes and Facebook cannot be held liable for anything related to this sweepstakes.

Did you know that some college students design and manufacture mini-baja vehicles and submarines? Not only do these students take engineering classes, but also they get to implement their knowledge by designing, machining parts and assembling a vehicle. We at OSG believe that such opportunities to actually manufacture a complete vehicle will inspire these future manufacturers and will develop their skills and creativity.

To help these students in their efforts to manufacture these vehicles, OSG donated over $30,000 in new cutting tools to the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) Mini-Baja Racing Team at Purdue University and the Human Powered Submarine Team at the University of Michigan.

“Through our tooling donations to the Purdue University’s Mini-Baja Racing Team and the University of Michigan’s Human Powered Submarine Team, we hope to help these engineers better understand metal cutting through the use and applications of OSG’s advanced and innovative cutting tools,” said Mike Cotton, Marketing Manager at OSG.

The SAE Mini-Baja Racing Team at Purdue University designs, manufactures and races a one-person off-road vehicle.  The team participates in three regional competitions annually. The Human Powered Submarine Team at the University of Michigan also designs and fabricates their submarines to participate in national and international competitions.

Students of the Mini-Baja Racing Team and the Human Powered Submarine Team received the tooling donations last week, and they are getting ready to install the tools in their machines. 

“These end mills are very high quality, and we are excited to put them to good use,” said Tasha Gillum, a student from the University of Michigan’s Human Powered Submarine Team.

We were glad to see the students open the boxes of new tooling with big smiles on their faces. Seeing them excited to use our tools made us realize how important it is for us to be a part of educating manufacturing students. We continue to actively work with technical colleges and universities to demonstrate our commitment to inspire the next generation of manufacturers.   

Our very own, Scott Daggett, better known as an OSG aerospace expert, will be presenting “Milling High Speed vs. Surface Finish in Composites” at AeroDef in Long Beach, California on Wednesday, February 10^th. AeroDef is the most recognized trade show in the aerospace industry where numerous aerospace innovations are presented.

During Scott’s presentation, he will compare various common and commercially available end mills and routers for composites. By examining various geometries, attendees will learn which style of end mills and routers are the best for achieving high feed rates, superior surface finish and lower cutting temperature. Scott’s presentation will assist you in choosing right the geometries for machining specific types of composites.

Scott has been with OSG for 16 years and has diverse experience providing customer support, training and developing products. He has previously spoken at AeroDef, AeroCon, Boeing Symposium and IMTS. Currently as a National Aerospace Specialist, he will be hosting OSG’s 2016 Aerospace Seminars which cover composites and high temp alloys.

Scott’s AeroDef presentation will begin at 3PM on Wednesday, February 10^th in room S-7 during the Machining & Drilling of Composites session. Be sure to also stop by OSG’s booth #237 to speak with our industry experts and learn about our latest innovations!

OSG USA, INC. announced that it has acquired the assets and proprietary manufacturing technology of IMU Dies. Effective immediately, OSG is the exclusive source for IMU branded dies globally.

“IMU has produced and sold dies for almost 40 years, so we are excited to now be able to sell them as an OSG brand and manufacture them at our fastener products plant in Parma, Ohio,” said Mike Grantham, President of OSG USA. 

Customers can order IMU branded dies by contacting OSG USA at the following:

OSG USA, INC.

12502 Plaza Drive

Parma, OH 44130

Phone: (216) 267-1300

(800) 533-1300

FAX: (216) 267-3356

OSG Corporation held a press conference today at the Hotel Arc Riche Toyohashi to announce its sponsorship with Astroscale, a Singapore-based private space company founded in 2013, on the world’s very first in-situ micro satellite “IDEA OSG 1” to collect and monitor data on sub-millimeter sized debris in the Low Earth Orbit (LEO) region in real-time.

The mission of the “IDEA OSG 1” sponsorship aims to contribute to the sustainable use of the space environment by actively developing solutions against space debris. OSG’s corporate tagline “shaping your dreams” summarizes its passion for new challenges and commitment to assist clients accomplish their goals. With the new “IDEA OSG 1” mission, OSG strives to utilize its know-how and resources to protect the environment beyond earth, shaping your dreams for space.

Featured Employee: John Taylor

Title: Pacific Northwest District Manager

Tenure with OSG: 3 years

John Taylor was named OSG’s 2015 Salesman of the Year. He is a rookie with just 3 years of experience in sales at OSG. You are probably wondering if he really has what it takes to be the top salesman. What makes him different is that he utilizes various people to further his knowledge. When he wasn’t making calls and customer visits, he listened and asked questions. Yes, it is that simple.

For John, a coffee break with a colleague can turn into a training session. “One time I spent 3 hours at Starbucks with an indexable expert from OSG to learn milling techniques, trouble shooting and calculations without realizing how many hours have passed,” said John.  He believes that’s how he gets better at selling even if it requires tremendous time and effort. “I pushed myself out of the comfort zone to grow through failures and successes,” said John.

This top salesman doesn’t stop pushing himself further. He is already on a mission to achieve his next goal. “I would like to become an expert in indexable tooling,” said John. “Its versatility and complexity of the industry excites me.”  

Generating codes for complex machining couldn’t be easier with ThreadPro, which has eliminated the hassle of having to “enter data as text, copy and replace.” The configuration of multiple paths, which was not adjustable before, has been greatly simplified to enable the easy creation of zero cut programs. In addition to multiple feed (machining at each cutting edge length), single feed (1 pitch per cut) is also available, which is ideal for machining high hardness materials. Last but not least, with the capability to review machining trajectory, trouble-free tool movement can be confirmed to minimize tool damage.

The new ThreadPro is available in 12 different languages and supports eight NC programming languages. The software incorporates “RPRG” value to reduce setup, machining time and achieve stable tool life.

Click here to download!

Happy Manufacturing Day!

We believe that manufacturing programs of technical schools are vital to train a skilled manufacturing workforce and also to provide a viable career for students.

Find out what OSG can do to help get more young people interested and prepared for careers in manufacturing technology.