EDITORIAL
An Iconic Turnaround W
hen you think of iconic metalcast- ing facilities in North America, the names John Deere Waterloo, Neenah
Foundry, General Motors Defiance and Waupaca often come to find. Sitting alongside these plants on metalcasting’s Mt. Rushmore is Caterpillar’s Mapleton, Ill., facility. However, like many North American metalcast- ers the last decade, the Mapleton facility had been struggling as global sourcing became the answer to every purchasing department’s prayers. Instead of giving up when much of its product line was shipped to a casting facility in Mexico, Mapleton decided to shed its past and approach to business as a captive facility and re-engineer itself to compete in the global jobbing marketplace. You may think you have heard this story
before. A captive metalcasting facility with an almost bottomless wallet finally realizes it needs to compete globally, so it spends millions upon millions to increase flexibility, efficiency and productivity. Think again. Mapleton’s story is different (see feature on p. 18). A plant that once was barely profitable at 150,000 tons of production/year is now profitable at 40,000 tons/year. A plant that once employed more than 1,000 workers is now at 450. A plant that once was a high production caster of blocks and heads is now focused on low- volume components (still mostly blocks and heads, but also mixing in a variety of other jobbing work for Caterpillar and other end-users). A facility that previously relied on cutting-edge mold package technology has re-engineered its two molding lines mostly by reusing existing equipment and retrofit- ting an existing cope and drag mold line in a man- ner I have never seen. The Mapleton metalcasting facility had to
become flexible—a word most jobbing metalcast- ers know well. But flexibility doesn’t come easy to a casting facility of its size and scope. This plant’s ability to make a change in both mind and body has earned it this year’s MODERN CASTING Metalcaster of the Year award. This remarkable
change is one all metalcasters should admire and emulate, whether they employ 1,000 or 10. While Mapleton freely admits it was pushed into its change to stay alive, the need to continuously evolve to meet the ever-changing demands of the market, business climate and our customers is something that must be built into every facility’s strategic plan. While your facility may not be
A facility that previously
relied on cutting-edge mold package technology has re-engineered its two molding lines by
on the brink of closing, how will you address the rising costs associated with the regulations the U.S. En- vironmental Protection Agency may be promul- gating to curb green- house gas emissions (see Regulating Greenhouse Gas Emissions on p. 23)? If you are a sand caster, have you consid- ered what changes your facility might need to make if the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration issues a rule reducing the permis- sible silica exposure limit by 50%? If your facility is operating at 80% capacity right now, what will you do if your top customers want to increase their production by another 20% as the economy heats up?
Te need to plan
reusing existing equipment and retrofitting an existing cope and drag mold line.
and be proactive will define the future of your facility and our industry. Use the example of the MODERN CASTING Metalcaster of the Year to determine how you must evolve. Te key is
for you to stay ahead of the curve.
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.
June 2011 MODERN CASTING | 7
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