Page 19 - MetalForming March 2017

At mid-Ohio (Springfield) metal- former Pentaflex, president and CEO Dave Arndt wears many hats, and that’s how he likes it. Arndt works in many areas for the company, always seeking ways to drive the busi- ness forward. He’s often the “engineer- ing guy or the product development guy,” he says. “And, I direct our mar- keting efforts.”
Arndt also says that he spends a lot of time thinking about the future—of his metalforming company and, now, the Precision Metalforming Association (PMA), since he becomes its chairman for the coming fiscal year.
“2017 marks a new era for PMA and the manufacturing industry overall,” Arndt shares. For the industry, he refers to the new and vastly different admin- istration taking over in Washington, D.C. For PMA, he refers to a new pres- ident taking over for the retiring Bill Gaskin, who has served as PMA presi- dent since August 2000 (he started with PMA on March 1, 1977).
As Arndt takes over as PMA chair- man, his view of the association’s future encompasses three key areas of focus (which, coincidentally create the ERA acronym):
• Education
• Re-engagement • Advocacy.
Education: Focus on On-boarding, E-Learning
Finding, training and retaining the next generation of the manufacturing workforce is a pain point for most if not all metalformers, and Pentaflex is no exception. Arndt admits as much, noting its recent effort to add 40 employees to its ranks in the midst of a 2015 expansion. Defining those grow- ing pains, he notes that he had to hire 160 temporary workers to develop 40 that met the company’s expectations.
To help metalformers with on- boarding efforts, PMA launched in 2016 the OnBoardingME (Onboarding Met- alforming Employees) DVD video- training program. Pentaflex is among some 50 or so companies that have purchased the OnBoardingME DVD.
Operations director Kirk Smith (center), quality director Jim Zerkle (left) and tech- nician Tony Rose discuss the firm’s vision-inspection system (designed and built by MJ Engineering, Gahanna, OH). On the wall are several of the 85 different truck- brake dust shields the company stamps.
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Pentaflex HR director Melissa McCrillis (an active participant in the PMA HR list- serve online-discussion group) discusses training opportunities with CNC machine operator Zachary Bebout, a recent recruit from a local high-school Career Technical Center (CTC). Each year Pentaflex hosts dozens of CTC students and instructors as part of its Manufacturing Day activities. Bebout operates a Haas VF-2YT vertical machining center used to drill, bore and chamfer stamped brake spiders. Pentaflex won a 2016 PMA Award of Excellence for converting the brake spider from a cast part to a stamped and machined part.
Designed for use by HR managers and others as a first-day on-the-job orien- tation resource, the program prescribes a set of coordinated policies, practices and procedures to help new metal- forming-company employees adjust
to their new jobs. Included are sugges- tions for HR-team members related to new-hire orientation and job shadow- ing, and, of course, chapters dedicated to personal safety, safe work practices and emergency response.