EDITORIAL Too Many Old Dogs Need Some New Tricks
• Regulatory agencies want to close you down. • Banks won’t lend you money. • Your suppliers are too expensive. • Your employees are lazy and not skilled enough.
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• Foreign competition has every advantage you don’t.
• There is no next generation of workers. Did I forget anything? I have heard this rhetoric since
I entered the industry 13 years ago. The truth is it is tired. The truth is this complaining doesn’t lead to anything other than a pity party. And once that is over, what are you left with? Hey suppliers, these com-
ments also apply to you. Do these complaints sound familiar? • My customers never reinvest. • My customers want ridiculous paybacks.
ey metalcasters, I am tired of hearing your complaints. • Your government doesn’t support you. • Your customers don’t understand you. • You make lousy profits.
“We love experience because it can bring wisdom only learned through successes and failures over many years. But that wisdom also brings a dose of the ‘that is how it always has been done’ mentality.”
• My customer base is shrinking. • My profits are too low. If metalcasting is such a lousy business for both
casting producers and suppliers, why not just close up shop? You have my permission to seek alterna- tives elsewhere. A great deal of this negativity in metalcasting can
be traced to the overall age and experience level of our industry. Yes, we love experience because it can bring wisdom only learned through successes and failures over many years. But that wisdom also brings a dose of the “that is how it always has been done” mentality, along with a conservatism that wreaks havoc on any push toward the future. Where is the influx of exuberance and new ideas?
Where is the fresh perspective that can catapult your firm from point B to C? Maybe a dose of exuberance comes from someone in your facility that hasn’t been overexposed to our industry’s negativity. Maybe it comes from an outsider who can share new wisdom? Take a look at our feature, “7 Lessons From a Re-
covering Business,” on p. 42 in which the four-year turnaround of a “traditional” metalcaster is examined.
MODERN CASTING / March 2010
By all accounts, the metalcaster was like many in our industry today (except that it was already on the steps of financial failure). The firm’s owners decided to take the drastic step of turning over control to an outsider with an entirely fresh per- spective in hopes of the business surviving and building a foundation for prosperity. While this approach will seem radical to most of you, the thought behind it is the key—find- ing a fresh per- spective. If you aren’t ready for the drastic ap- proach, may- be there is an answer within your firm. I recently met a quality super-
visor from a ferrous caster in the southern U.S. who just entered the metalcasting industry six months ago. He had come from another manufacturing industry. As we chatted about his shop, job responsibilities and future
goals, you could see the sparkle in his eyes. He knew about the challenges the industry faces, but he was excited about the opportunities to help advance his facility by implementing a quality system that was successful at his old manufacturing plant. He knew he was going to be challenged by the old guard at the plant that didn’t like change, but he felt a sense of support from upper management and was going to use it to further the cause. Will he be successful? Only time will tell. But he
was a breath of fresh air in a stale industry. Where is your breath of fresh air? If you don’t know the source, start looking before you suffocate.
Alfred T. Spada, Publisher/Editor-in-Chief
If you have any comments about this editorial or any other item that appears in MODERN CASTING, email me at
aspada@afsinc.org.
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