How Simply Stamps Manufactured a Custom Rubber Stamp for NASA and the Artemis II Space Mission
When NASA comes calling about taking your product on a trip to the moon—or lunar orbit, more precisely—you listen.
That's what Bryan Croft, CEO of HC Brands, did when the National Aeronautics and Space Administration reached out to his Simply Stamps business late last year to inquire about getting a custom rubber stamp made to travel aboard the Artemis II space mission.
"We make a lot of amazing, awesome stamps, but when NASA calls, it's that dopamine hit," Croft says. “I’d love to be participating. What can I do?”
In this episode of Great Question: A Manufacturing Podcast, Croft shares the story of how his small Florida-based company manufactured a rubber stamp to NASA’s exacting requirements and celebrated its launch into lunar orbit aboard the Orion spacecraft in early April.
It’s a story of e-commerce and search-engine smarts. Croft, whose background is marketing, said the company makes a lot of effort to lead search-engine rankings when someone searches on key words related to his business. NASA initiated the transaction via SimplyStamps.com’s customer service portal.
It’s a story of engineering and prototyping and many iterations to get it right. The space agency had both size and weight limitations, given the limited space within the spacecraft. Croft estimates the company had to reduce the weight of the custom stamp by approximately 80% compared to a similar non-space-bound stamp.
As a non-engineer, he initially wasn’t sure whether his company could create a product that met NASA’s specs. However, his team had other ideas.
“Part of my team was like, ‘No, no, we're going to figure this out. This is NASA. We're going to help. They took the challenge of the engineering … literally working a lot of weekend hours, just kind of having fun with it,” Croft says.
It’s a story of how a seemingly simple, non-tech, perhaps even “boring” (Croft’s word) product shot into the future of space travel. Moreover, while HC Brands includes several niche brands and products, the 72-year-old company got its start with rubber stamps. “In a garage,” or so the story goes, Croft says.
In this podcast episode, the company owner also discusses why NASA said they wanted a stamp, what it was like to mingle with some of the behemoth suppliers to the space agency as very small fish in that pond, and how that initial inquiry from NASA has helped boost his company’s business.
Of the overall experience Croft says, "It's super exciting. I don't know if you get much bigger than NASA.”
About the Author
Jill Jusko
Bio: Jill Jusko is executive editor for IndustryWeek. She has been writing about manufacturing operations leadership for more than 20 years. Her coverage spotlights companies that are in pursuit of world-class results in quality, productivity, cost and other benchmarks by implementing the latest continuous improvement and lean/Six-Sigma strategies. Jill also coordinates IndustryWeek’s Best Plants Awards Program, which annually salutes the leading manufacturing facilities in North America.
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