Metalforming 2010: Survival of the Fittest

Welcome to the Precision Metalforming Association’s blogosphere, where a handful of regulars and the occasional guest blogger will share their thoughts on the metalforming industry. And, we sure hope that you’ll add your comments to each blog as you see fit, to create an ongoing dialog on the important issues of the day.

As editor of PMA’s MetalForming magazine, I’ll be blogging on technology and business-management issues as I come across them during my interviews with experts throughout the industry. These monthly interviews allow me to collect insightful editorial fodder for the monthly magazine and its related electronic products.

To get started, consider this quote from an article that will appear in the July 2010 issue of MetalForming:

“We got lean before we had to, and got ahead of the curve before other companies got there…If we had not performed our quick-die-change Kaizen events in 2008, and reduced man downtime (from 150 hr./day down to 25 hr./day), we may not have been so fortunate.”

Those words, spoken by the tooling manager of a contract metal stamper, were in response to one simple question I asked: “Why did your company survive the 2008-2009 downturn while others did not?”

MetalForming magazine editor Brad Kuvin has covered the metalforming and fabricating industry since 1984. His interviews with engineers and managers at manufacturing sites aim to transfer technology to the magazine's readers and website visitors, helping them improve productivity, quality and safety.