Harris Teeter 2000 Annual Report Download - page 18

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13
96 97 98 99 00
86.0 88.2 100.7 108.0 116.2
Harris Teeter – EBITDA
In Millions of Dollars
96 97 98 99 00
47.1 64.1 58.4 65.4 65.2
American & Efird – EBITDA
In Millions of Dollars
Ron Ensley, Senior Vice President of Manufacturing, is responsible for industrial
thread operations for A&E’s spinning and dyeing and finishing plants worldwide,
including 12 facilities in North Carolina and eight in seven foreign countries.
American & Efird: New Customer Support Center
A&E’s new customer support center was completed in fis-
cal 1998 and helped us become more efficient in our customer
service capabilities by relocating all functions servicing customer
needs into one building. In addition, we can do a better job of
evaluating the quality of the service we provide our customers.We
also commission an independent research firm to carry out regu-
lar customer satisfaction surveys from which we can measure our
year-over-year improvement in the professionalism of our sales
staff, our customer relations and overall service and product qual-
ity. Another key measurement system for A&E is ANETRACK®,
which was developed by us to help our salespeople quantify
the benefits of our superior thread product to our customers and
prospective customers. By measuring the number of sewn pieces
per interruption, we can clearly demonstrate the superiority of
A&E’s product performance versus that of a competitor.
Setting the Standard for Color Accuracy
As A&E becomes increasingly global in its reach, one of our
greatest challenges is worldwide standardization of product
characteristics, not the least of which is color. Accurate color
matching and the consistency of color over time and in differ-
ent locations are among our highest priorities. New Datacolor
Colorite™technology allows our technicians to analyze color and
use an internal Internet-based capability to communicate with
both our customers and other A&E facilities. Both color and
stitch configuration can be accurately represented on the com-
puter screen to simulate the actual stitch appearance. From a time
and convenience standpoint, this new system is revolutionary,
since we are no longer required to mail samples back and forth.
It will also allow us to more accurately measure our results. Over
time we will be able to statistically evaluate our degree of improve-
ment at matching each shade to a targeted color standard.