Jeff Van Zant
Jeff Van Zant, Roberts Machine Products’ newest sales engineer, offers customers a wealth of experience from his 40 years in manufacturing and machining. He applies his background in parts production, quality control and plant management to find solutions that deliver optimal quality, fit and cost efficiency.
“Jeff’s experience, along with his strengths in quality control and good customer relations, has prepared him well for his role at Roberts Machine Products,” Bob Hughes, President/CEO, said. “His skills and insight exceed the range typical for a sales engineer.”
Van Zant processes and analyzes customers’ parts drawings to determine the most effective and cost-efficient means for making the parts, giving consideration to their application. From there, he creates a process plan for machining to guarantee product quality, fit and cost management. He draws on experience in fabrication to ensure success in final assembly.
“My process for serving customers begins with investigating their product line to gain an understanding of their strengths,” Van Zant said. “Then I determine how we can integrate our capabilities at Roberts to complement our customers’ success.”
After receiving an order, Van Zant follows the job every step of the way through production and delivery, assuring proper attention is paid to achieving quality. “Then I follow up with a courtesy call for feedback on how well we met expectations.”
He added, “My reward is repeat business opportunities, which come from developing a strong level of trust, based on good communication from the start and exceeded customer expectations throughout.”
And here are a couple of bonus facts about Jeff:
- He has machined pistons for a space shuttle.
- He’s played a role in advancing the machining industry. This includes developing school curriculum in the machine trade and helping new employees master their machining skills.