If It's Not Our Job, Whose is It?

More so than ever, my phone is ringing with one request after another from hired-gun market researchers. They're generally looking for information on market segments, forecasts, capacities and anything else they can find to include in their reports. On more than one occasion, I've been asked if casting is still a good business in which to invest. Yes, I say, but only if it's going to be done right, meaning a full-on commitment to reinvestment, modernization and automation, not to mention compliance.

Knowing the beating foundries are enduring just to retain current work, lately I've wondered it it'll take more to succeed in this business. You see, our nation's foundries have, at their disposal, the world's most advanced technologies, ample high-quality raw materials and access to more buyers than one can shake a stick at. But even as demand boomed across the board in the late 1990s, too many foundries were only scraping by. This, I believe, is in large part due to the role that many foundries have largely been relegated to--producers and producers only.

To me, the macro-level forces are alerting our industry to take back control of its destiny. One way may be to offer true component design and development work--from a blank sheet of paper, if necessary.

Why change? Because it's naive to think that the casting process will, by itself, capture the design engineer. Consider the confluence of these trends: the whittling down or ceasing of university curriculums covering castings, the rapid loss of experienced engineers due to retirements and attrition, and rival materials' increasing market share. The likelihood that future decision makers will identify casting as their initial choice or even stumble upon it cannot be assumed.

The industry's competitive nature makes the current modus operandi largely a loser's game. You sell "time" on your molding line, and then have to be more efficient than anyone to realize an appreciable margin. And if you don't significantly reduce your production cost next year, you face the threat of waving goodbye to the pattern. It'll be shipped to the next-hungriest foundry looking to fill its machines, or perhaps across the border where it can be sourced for pennies on the dollar.

The handing off of predetermined designs handcuffs the industry's own ability to perform at its maximum level. We can talk until we're blue in the face about the fact that castings are engineered components. But if they are not commodities like we say, why does our business model treat them that way?

Getting more involved with initial component engineering allows you to truly exploit your facility's unique capabilities, thus gaining some competitive protection. Plus, design help is sorely needed by OEMs, by their own admission.

If you speak their language and understand the application and it's function, you can turn some corners. During a recent visit to a foundry who staffed up its design resources, we learned how designers landed a breakthrough casting application (well outside their normal realm of production) by taking on the full design and development themselves. Such opportunities are tremendous and are out there for the taking, but you'll never access them by being a sideline player.

Some foundries have begun to invest in mechanical engineering types, and some have obtained day seats at major customer's design centers. The Internet's collaborative engineering sites open up greater opportunity to participate in designs, too, assuming you're prepared to contribute. I also know of a foreign foundry or two that has engineers in place full-time at customers' offices. They offer consultative engineering and, in the process, get the first-crack at every job coming down the pipe.

In the next chapter, taking on design could be a viable route to steering the right type of work to your mold lines. While truly a departure for much of the industry, it should be weighed against the "costs" associated with the status quo. In other words, the loss of applications to rival methods and the increasingly cutthroat competition on just about everything remaining.

The onus for the continued and future casting application development is on us and us alone. It's metalcasters' role--not that of the OEM--to make the case for castings. Until we are effective in this endeavor, expect to have to bid on jobs that you can hardly turn a profit on, and we'll all continue to shake our heads at slam-dunk casting candidates that remain unfulfilled.

There is an opportunity to create demand, even in the cyclical jobbing business. Maybe we'll even begin to rewrite the definition of "casting supplier."

Michael J. Lessiter

Editor/Publisher