Paul Mikkola: commanding the development of technology.

Perhaps the greatest struggle facing the U.S. metalcasting industry is its development of technology. As customers become increasingly global, the "Third-World" nations such as Mexico, Turkey, China, India and Korea will continue to try to undercut U.S. casting prices by offering low labor costs, luring patterns away from U.S. foundries. This trend likely will continue in the short term unless the U.S. increases its development of cutting-edge casting technology that will allow foundries to reduce labor and casting costs. However, as the industry exists today in what has been a bullish casting market, the focus often is "production now, worry about research and development later."

For Paul Mikkola, executive vice president of operations at Hitchiner Manufacturing Co., Milford, New Hampshire, the advancement of casting technology has long been the heart of his work. While learning the fundamentals of research and development (R&D) at the former General Motors Technical Center and Hughes Aircraft and running GM Powertrain's advanced development labs and Metal Casting Technology Center, Mikkola's last 10 years in casting have been focused on how to improve his company's and the industry's technology and processes - a struggle Mikkola knows will be vital to future success, even if the industry itself doesn't realize it yet.

"As an industry - and as individual companies - we cannot be satisfied with the status quo," said Mikkola. "We must determine how we can apply technology to make our operations run better. The U.S. is the strongest in the world at manufacturing, but the technology is our competitive edge and we can't lose it."

Development

After graduating from Michigan Technological Univ. in 1966, Mikkola joined the former Central Foundry Div. of GM (now GM Powertrain) and spent the next 23 years making his way up the foundry ladder with stints as: chief metallurgist at the Saginaw, Michigan malleable iron plant; manufacturing superintendent at the Defiance, Ohio aluminum and ductile iron plant; and general superintendent at the Saginaw ductile iron foundry. After his transfer to GM foundry headquarters in 1986 as manager of advanced manufacturing engineering, Mikkola's future road was paved with R&D.

In 1989, Mikkola was assigned to the corporate advanced engineering staff at the GM Technical Center in Warren, Michigan. From there he went on special assignment to the GM joint venture with Hughes Aircraft in Los Angeles, where he worked on government-sponsored aerospace research and learned how to design research programs, how to fund them and how to motivate employees to think about R&D. After returning to the GM Technical Center in 1991 as its director, Mikkola provided the direction for GM casting research.

"GM's casting research was unrivaled among the world's automotive foundries," said Mikkola. "We understood that you couldn't keep all that we were developing a secret, so it was released to the industry for our suppliers and others to benefit and prosper from."

Mikkola points to the successful development of high-production lost foam casting at Saturn Corp. and at GM's Saginaw and Massena, New York facilities as well as the emergence of the organic GM Bond binder, semi-solid casting and casting modeling as offshoots of GM research. Mikkola also mentions the joint venture Metal Casting Technology (MCT) that GM entered into in 1986 with Hitchiner as critical to industry research growth. MCT was instrumental in adapting Hitchiner's counter-gravity investment casting methods to sand casting, and is currently working on projects involving liquid HIPing and the use of thin-walled stainless steel castings in automotive exhaust and chassis components.

By 1995, GM's foundry div., now called GM Powertrain, had refurbished one R&D lab and built another (the Advanced Development Lab was remodeled in 1994 and the Advanced Material Development Center was built in 1989), and Mikkola was placed in charge. At this point, the scope of his and his group's research at GM began to narrow to only what the automaker had a strong interest in. "This generosity in releasing information to general industry lessened in recent years at GM as the drive for capital became more intense and automotive competition increased," said Mikkola.

As Mikkola saw his focus moving to other areas beyond metalcasting R&D, he decided it was time to change.

"I have a passion for metalcasting," Mikkola said. "I have a strong interest in the industry and the people, I don't want to leave those things."

Focusing on R&D

With his desire to remain in metalcasting and continue R&D, Mikkola, a 31-year GM veteran, left GM and signed on with Hitchiner in October 1998.

"I have the opportunity to work in an operation that is privately-held, has a strong reputation and is exclusively casting oriented," said Mikkola. "With its technology-based approach to metalcasting (using its self-invented counter-gravity processes), this company must have innovative ideas that are put into production. Its R&D operations such as MCT must work to increase production capacity, quality and efficiency, and assure new opportunities for the growth of the casting business."

At Hitchiner, Mikkola is part of a management team that includes President and CEO John Morison III and Executive Vice President Frederick Lofgren. This team has set its sights beyond its current product base of automotive, commercial aircraft, golf, medical and tool components, and into building new business from the conversion of components to casting.

"Investment casting has a reputation for producing low-volume, high-complexity components," said Mikkola. "End-users don't realize that investment casters have been able to apply the technology necessary to produce high-volumes of components that are cost competitive with other high-volume metal forming technologies such as forging, stamping and powdered metal. It is, however, the continued transfer of technology that will propel extensive future growth in these markets."

Mikkola sees the U.S. metalcasting industry becoming a supplier of value-added, near net-shape components, but the focus of development for the future must be process not product related. The successful technology and process development and the resultant growth for Hitchiner and the metalcasting industry is dependent, according to Mikkola, on two things - defining a common vision to organize U.S. metalcasting R&D and attracting young engineering talent with new, creative ideas to the industry.

"In Japan and Europe, the government helps to focus its industries, provide direction and, in many cases, financing to solve problems," said Mikkola. "I am not advocating that our government takes control because the government must clear out of the way for businesses that are working to make industry better. But our industry must have a common vision and agree on what technology is vital for our future. If all we do is compete without learning how to develop breakthroughs, manage risks and cross barriers, we will never grow the casting pie. It is essential that the industry as a whole focuses on growth, not just making their individual slices bigger."

Foundries must combine their R&D resources to combat the technology barrier together, said Mikkola. Foundries must focus on the process side of technology development and not the product side. The process development, according to Mikkola, will produce greater enhancements in the long run.

Global Leader

Mikkola's involvement with a benchmarking mission to Japan and Europe several years ago produced the following assessment: "European engineering in casting is superior to ours and it is pushing the paradigms of casting technology further. In Japan, the base of manufacturing is stronger as it places a heavy emphasis on continuous improvement. But, the U.S. isn't far behind European engineering or Japanese manufacturing. As a result, when combining these two disciplines, the U.S. comes out on top."

But the goal shouldn't be to just come out on top, said Mikkola, "because as the high-growth but low-cost areas of Mexico, Turkey and Eastern Europe become stronger, our metalcasting focus must evolve from less of the high-labor, high-volume commodities to more of the engineered components."

The key to this switch, according to Mikkola, is the second step to successful technology and process development - attracting the new wave of engineers to the industry.

"In the past, the industry has been timid to hire the engineering talent it needs to grow because it is scared of changing what has been successful," said Mikkola, Foundry Educational Foundation past president and scholar. "But if we can eliminate this insecurity and unleash the best talent and their ideas in our industry, the future of technology development and our industry will be bright."

Mikkola believes that metalcasting, first and foremost, must change the public perception about the industry by cleaning up its plants and visiting the universities, technical colleges and schools where these engineers develop. In addition to high salaries, these engineers must be enticed with the opportunities and design challenges a forward-thinking industry offers. "The problem is that these opportunities often can't be seen through all the sand that is piled up," said Mikkola.

The future is basically a chain, according to Mikkola. The industry commits to its future and attracts more young engineering talent. This talent uses its skills to spur metalcasting R&D into new arenas. The industry, with its renewed commit to the future, increases the transfer of R&D technology to production. As a result, U.S. foundries increase efficiency and lower the cost of their engineered components to continue as the undisputed leader of the global industry.

Simple? No. But, according to Mikkola, an opportunity the industry must not ignore.

Paul H. Mikkola

Executive Vice President-Operations Hitchiner Manufacturing Co., Inc.

Education/Degree: Michigan Technological Univ./B.S. in Metallurgical Engineering Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison/M.S. in Metallurgical Engineering.

Immediate Family: Wife-Pam; Daughters-Karen and Maija.

Professional Assns: AFS, ASM, SAE, NADCA and FEF.

Company Information

Founded: 1946.

Facilities: Ferrous Casting Div., Littleton and Milford, New Hampshire; Gas Turbine Casting Div., Milford; Nonferrous Casting Div., O'Fallon, Missouri; Mexico Casting Div.-Hitchiner S.A. de C.V., Santiago Tianguistenco, Mexico; Tool & Die Div., Amherst, New Hampshire; Metal Casting Technology, Inc., Milford; Automated Casting Facility, Milford.

Mold Capabilities: Counter-gravity and gravity pour investment casting.

Markets: Automotive, aerospace, electronics, firearms, tools and golf.

1998 Net Sales: $182 million.

Metals Cast: Aluminum alloys; copper-, cobalt- and nickel-based alloys; ductile and heat-resistant iron; carbon, stainless and low- and high-alloy steel.

Employees: 3700.