though the center standard is made overseas, Atlas supplies all of the seat arms and the pivots for all of these standards. I think their consistent responsiveness has strengthened their position with us. Jim Gartland said: “It’s a nice
relationship and the work’s pretty consistent. It’s more consistent than I thought it would be.” When American Seating asked
Atlas to improve the grinding fi n- ish on the seat sides, the Gartlands installed an automated grinding cell through Vulcan Engineering Co. It was successful and fl exible enough to be used for the metalcaster’s wide mix of work, Atlas placed an order for the second automatic grinder a year after installing the fi rst. “T e automatic grinder is one of
the reasons we can do so many seat ends,” Bill Gartland said.
Looking Forward Beyond the seat sides and other
seating components, Atlas produces hydraulic parts, pump housings, wheels and hubs, exhaust manifolds and other products. “T ere’s no industry that takes over 20% of our product and there’s no cus- tomer that takes over 10-12%, so we’re in seven or eight diff erent industries and we have a really nice spread,” Jim Gartland said. “Right now, our sales are about where they were at this time last year so we’ve seen a drop but it hasn’t been terrible. We’ve seen a lot of new work coming in so we’re very optimistic that when the turnaround comes we’ll be busy and working forward. We’re not looking to change our strategy here, we’re just trying to get through it.” Atlas has existed for over a century,
and the fact it has continued to invest is another sign to customers it is healthy. T e Gartlands are more than willing to prove that. “We don’t have a problem showing
our fi nancial statements to our custom- ers,” Jim Gartland said. “I understood the philosophy when I arrived 40-plus years ago that we don’t show our fi nan- cials to our customers because they might think they could own us or we could give them a price reduction, but
One of Atlas’ more visible products are seat sides cast for major-league ballparks, like this one for the St. Louis Cardinals.
in today’s world I don’t really blame them for asking, so I do show those.” Atlas is fl exible enough to accomo- date a wide mix of work. “We’re not afraid to take on some- body that has a low annual usage of
castings,” Bill Gartland said. “We like to be able to run 100-300 molds but we’ve taken on some that are less than that just because they’re desperate to fi nd some- body to produce it for them.” Jim Gartland echoed that.
August 2016 MODERN CASTING | 25
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