Page 34 - MetalForming July 2014

Customer Responsiveness
Defined
In February 2013, metalformer Waukesha Metal Products won a job to stamp shelving and side rails to support the construction of new automated warehouses. Time was of the essence, more so than ever before, and by May its new 660-ton Seyi press was up and running.
The newest addition to the production floor of Waukesha Metal Products is this 660-ton big-bed Seyi press and space-saving Dallas feed line. Ordered, installed and up and running in just four months, the line ensured that Waukesha Metal could meet tight delivery deadlines of stamped parts (including the metal shelf shown) for a customer servicing the automated-warehousing market.
“Responsiveness to the cus- tomers’ wants and needs... it’s what we do as contract metalformers,” says Jeff Clark, presi- dent and CEO of metalformer Wauke- sha Metal Products. The firm operates three manufacturing facilities—stamp- ing and tooling stars at the 48,750-sq.- ft. headquarters plant in Sussex, WI; a 42,000-sq.-ft. plant in Grafton, WI, han- dles fabrication work; and its newly acquired 110,000-sq.-ft. facility in San Luis Potosí, Mexico, serves customers
south of the border.
While on the fast track to signifi-
cant growth (overall sales grew 21 per- cent from 2010 to 2013), Clark and his team got a good test of the responsive- ness of which he speaks early in 2013. With the Sussex stamping plant at capacity and running nearly 24/7, in February the plant landed work sup- porting the construction of huge auto- mated warehouses. Suddenly, the com- pany’s pressroom had just four months to launch production of 300,000 large sheetmetal shelves and 1.2 million side rails used to build the shelving units within the new warehouses.
“With no capacity to absorb a job this big,” says operations manager Bill Milbrath, “and a tight production
32 MetalForming/July 2014
www.metalformingmagazine.com
BY BRAD F. KUVIN, EDITOR