Page 18 - MetalForming July 2013

25 Years Ago,
Metal Stamping
Magazine Became
MetalForming came of age at the age of 21. That’s when, with the June 1988 issue of Metal Stamping magazine, the Preci- sion Metalforming Association changed the publication’s name to MetalForm- ing. This was “in response to the changes in the metalforming indus- try,” wrote PMA president Jon Jenson, who at that time also served as the magazine’s editor. “The industry has begun to blend various types of opera- tions, and technologies that were tra- ditionally separate are being merged,” Jenson wrote.
OSHA’s Impact in the Late ’80s
This year we mark 25 years as Met- alForming magazine, yet our story begins actually just a couple of months before our official name change. For years this magazine covered closely the debate surrounding the use of pres- ence-sensing device initiation (PSDI) in pressrooms, and finally, in March 1988, OSHA issued the long-awaited regula- tion authorizing the use of such devices to initiate stroking action on manually fed mechanical power presses. An arti- cle in our May 1988 issue described the 3-yr. review process to overturn the original regulation prohibiting
MetalForming
...and with the name change came an entirely new editorial mission and perspective. Please join us
in this look back, not only at how the magazine has evolved but also how forming and fabricating technology has developed to help metalformers meet the challenges of the times.
16 MetalForming/July 2013
www.metalformingmagazine.com
BY BRAD F. KUVIN, EDITOR
PSDI, published in 1971.
Also trending in the late 1980s was
diversification as a strategy leaned on by metalformers to protect against eco- nomic swings.
“As with any investment portfolio, diversification is the best way to protect against economic swings that could negatively impact any single segment of the business.” That’s what Wayne Groenstein, chairman of Interlake Stamping, wrote when we asked him to consider strategies that metalformers have followed to remain competitive.
“Strategy should avoid the pitfalls of significant revenue concentration in
any one customer or product segment,” Groenstein continued. “Value-added operations represent a very productive means to protect margins associated with commoditization of metal-com- ponent manufacturing...Effectively delivering value through value analysis, value engineering, prototyping and pre-production support provide tremendous benefits to the customer and represent additional margin opportunities to the manufacturer.”
The 1990s
Automation came of age in this decade, and the changing automotive