Paul Douglas Ross II
President at Douglas Manufacturing Co., Inc.
The Conveyor Equipment Manufacturers Association (CEMA) is a premiere organization whose member companies represent a select group of industry leaders. For more than 80 years CEMA members have worked tirelessly on three main fronts to advance the industry: standardization of publications, safety, and statistical reporting.
Standardization of our components has saved our customers significant amounts of money and helped to improve their efficiencies by leaps and bounds. Knowing that conveyor components can be replaced with relative ease and understand the performance envelope of those components is of vital importance to the users of our products. CEMA’s standards, many of which are also ANSI standards, are cited in most purchase orders and contract requirements in our industry and are recognized worldwide. Standards are reviewed, revised and updated so that CEMA can meet the changing needs of a dynamic and global market.
Along with the standards, CEMA publications such as the 7th Edition Belt Conveyor Book, the 2nd Edition Unit Handling Book, and the new Bucket Elevator Book represent the collective work of the best companies in the industry. These CEMA publications represent the cutting edge knowledge base of the conveyor industry.
Safety is one of the most important areas that we tackle as an organization and it is understandably one that every member company works together to improve. The members of CEMA develop safety standards, best practices and visual aids such as safety labels, posters, and videos that serve to educate and help prevent accidents in the workplace. CEMA’s Safety Labels are available to any interested party and are used throughout the industry to educate and help to prevent accidents. This safety initiative improves the lives of the users of our products on a daily basis.
The CEMA statistics program allows members to track sales trends on a broad basis, industry-wide and on a narrow basis, by product category. For member companies this allows us to track our performance and benchmark it against industry trends. Our statistics program is so accurate that the U.S. Census Bureau uses this information when working to create many of its reports.
One of the added advantages of being a part of CEMA is that member companies develop a clear understanding of the ebbs and flows of our industry that are not available anywhere else. As an active member and through regular attendance of CEMA meetings and by developing lifelong friendships CEMA member companies take away much more than they put into the organization. This helps our member companies to improve results in best in class companies – the kind of companies that the users of conveyor equipment prefer.
It is my distinct honor to not only be an active member of CEMA but to have served as the chair of numerous committees, been a member of the board of directors, an officer and now the president of this respected organization and I am truly grateful to my industry peers for choosing me for this position.
