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BCI's open door policy: with a new tool shop, value-added service and growing machining capabilities, Bremen Castings is working to shed its "foundry" label.

Article Excerpt
JB Brown is wired. He's not necessarily wired in the hyper sense of the word, although the clip of coffee constantly in his hands indicates otherwise. Brown is wired as in connected to as many methods of communication and information gathering that are feasible. Three computer monitors sit on his desk. A fiat screen TV hangs on his wall, constantly broadcasting cable news programming. With an iPhone at his hip at all times, Brown admits that when he feels its vibration every time a new email or text comes through, it kills him not to check and respond immediately.

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Of Brown's three computer monitors, one shows streaming video from the 26 cameras he has installed at Bremen Castings Inc. (BCI), Bremen, Ind. He can--and does--access the same feed when he's at home in the evenings and on the weekends.

"I always love to know what's going on because it opens up doors," Brown said. "You only have so much time to walk through that door."

In his third year as president of BCI, Brown has proven that in some cases, it doesn't take just a step but a flying leap to go through an open door. In the fall of 2008, he learned of a tooling expert who was in the market for a job. Two and a half months later, he had invested half a million dollars into creating BCI's own tooling shop with it new CNC machine, software and someone to run it.

"It was not planned, it just happened," Brown said. "But a door of opportunity opened tip, and I went in."

Ready and Willing

BCI is located 28...

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