The day is coming when automakers and other major manufacturers that purchase precision machined products will base their procurement decisions, in part, on whether a company and its employees are certified and credentialed by the National Institute of Metalworking Skills (NIMS). The movement is already underway, according to Steve Mandes, NIMS executive director.
Almost since doctors first told them their son Jerod had severe cerebral palsy, Jim and Lois Montague have been preparing for the day when they would no longer be capable of taking care of him. What the Montagues didn’t plan for was being at the forefront of building a $2 million, 11,000-square-foot group home to house 30-year-old Jerod and seven other severely handicapped young adults.
As the 1980s drew to a close, Tad Korndoerfer knew that if his Long Island, New York-based company was to survive, it was going to have to undergo a paradigm shift in the way it did business. No longer, he felt, could Action Machined Products be content to compete in the commodity-type business on which it had grown up. Price pressures from the consuming industries were eating the margins of Action Machined Products. Plus, while low cost foreign competition was just starting to become a factor in the precision machined products industry, it was obvious which way things were headed. Action Machined Products, which up until then produced the lion’s share of its parts on aging Brown&Sharpe machinery, needed to evolve to the next level.
Jerry Eighmy sees the world in a different light. Where others may see a potential problem, he sees an opportunity. While some in the precision machined products industry believe the labor pool for talented young adults is thin, Mr. Eighmy is working to increase the size of the pool.
PMPA Training partner PMPA Training Partner Receives ISO Certification The Adult Career Center at Lorain County Joint Vocational School (Lorain, Ohio) recently received Quality ISO 9001: 2001 Site designation. The school has been partnering with the Precision Machined Products Association since 1988, offering the employees of companies within the industry continuing education programs in machining, tool setting and estimating. (See related story on CD training programs on page 18.
The past year has been a turbulent one for the precision machined products industry. Parts producers watched as their market share waned in the face of a down market and an increase of imports from Pacific Rim and European countries. Consolidation continues to be a significant issue for our industry as well.
Traditional thinking is that the threat from China in precision machined products will come from the juggernaut that is the state-owned and run precision machining shops, but that thinking may be flawed, according to an expert on the country and its economy.
It's been more than 10 years since PMPA conducted a member needs study. PMPA's president, Dave Knuepfer, and new executive vice-president, Tim Andrassy, agreed that conducting the study now was especially important, because it would add additional member input to the new Strategic Plan and help PMPA focus its resources on those areas and services valued most.
