D'Addario named entrepreneur of year

It's called "Toyotism," and it's what won Jim D'Addario, chief executive of Farmingdale-based guitar string manufacturer D'Addario & Co., the prestigious Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2011 New York Award, he said earlier this week.

"Toyotism," simply put, is a manufacturing process, often called "Lean," derived from the Toyota Production System that considers to be wasteful expending resources for any other goal than the creation of value for the customer.

D'Addario said his privately held company, one of the world's largest makers of guitar strings and other musical accessories such as reeds, put Lean into use in 2007.

Company president Rick Drumm had heard of the process at a Maine-based musical instrument manufacturing company where he worked before coming to D'Addario a few years ago.

D'Addario said his company trained 12 people in the Lean process, and did everything else it could to make its manufacturing, warehouse and other operations "value-added."

That meant less wasted time filling out reports, for example, leaving more time for improving guitar strings.

"We started off well below one percent of the time doing value-added stuff," D'Addario said. "Now six or seven percent of the time we're doing value-added."

D'Addario said that as a result of these efforts the company was able to double its profits in 2009, even though sales declined by about 6 percent.

The company does not disclose profit figures. Sales this year are expected to be about $150 million, D'Addario said.

Ernst & Young, a global accounting and financial services firm, gave D'Addario the award in the "distribution, manufacturing and construction category" last month.

He is now eligible for Ernst & Young's 2011 National Award, to be announced in Palm Springs, Calif., Nov. 12.

"I'm sure I'll be up against some pretty tough competition," D'Addario said.