Fast-Track Firms -- Greener Pastures

"Beyond that, we've spent a lot of time and money on the front end of the order cycle," McCloskey adds. "For instance, we worked together with our largest customer to reduce cycle times from five-seven days down to three days, including transit."

That involved creating a proprietary electronic interface—dubbed Firefly—that grabs orders directly from doodad's customer, imports them into its ERP system and actually plans the ganged forms without much in the way of human intervention.