Page 51 - MetalForming June 2009

only the banging of metal with large dies and presses,” I can hear the non- manufacturing sector say to the above paragraph. And so it goes in the media. They only seem to be aware of the body count in terms of how many jobs are being lost. Company X closes and 3000 lose their jobs. The press covers it in a feeding frenzy with lots of human-inter- est stories including the poor corner diner that will have to close as its clien- tele evaporates. But what about the scores of relatively small supplier com- panies that actually made the compli- cated components that Company X assembled into doors or seats or exhaust systems or safety devices or, or, or...? Our mass media, for the most part, is phenomenally illiterate when it comes to science and technology. Out goes a reporter to visit a small component supplier company to assess the impact of Company X closing. He or she arrives with maybe a cursory exposure to man- ufacturing. The owner takes the reporter on a tour and explains the complex technology that his company developed over many years to maintain a tight radius here, a bend angle there, a flat- ness, a thickness, a form height...only to see the eyes of the reporter glaze over. “Yes, this is impressive, but how many individuals and families will be affect- ed if you close your doors?”
They just don’t get it, they in the media, they in the government, they in the financial sector, that a small com- pany, say in a small town in Ohio, that supplies a common component made with extraordinary technology can bring down a giant of a customer. For more than 25 years I have seen first- hand numerous metalforming compa- nies develop unique high-tech appli- cations for sensors and controllers.
Over many years of refinements these companies created such critical implementations that their customers gave them more and more work due to their ability to deliver quality product at low cost and on time. I am dismayed,
angry and frustrated at the inability of the nonmanufacturing sector to under- stand this.
“Oh, let them go bankrupt. Someone else will quickly rise to the occasion.” No, no one will rise to the occasion for a long time. There simply is no quick
way to learn decades’ worth of special- ized applications of sensors and con- trollers. The truly critical manufactur- ing core competencies lie with the existing small-to-mid-sized manufac- turing companies. They are the Davids that can bring down the Goliaths. MF
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