American cast manufacturer Lawton Standard Company is finishing its seventh year of business. Since we previously spoke for Manufacturing in Focus in 2024, Director of Sales and Marketing Andy Mastalir says that the company was in something of a holding pattern, especially following the American presidential election of 2024. Now, it is in a rebuilding phase with positive momentum, and things look to be on the upswing.
New developments
According to Chief Executive Officer Alex Lawton, after the company’s merger with iron casting business Renaissance Manufacturing Group in spring 2024, higher-volume green sand casting was brought into the mix. Green sand casting employs a mixture of water, clay, and sand to make molds, with ‘green’ referring to the moisture content of this economical and adaptable method that helps the mold keep its form as the molten metal is poured in.
Since we last spoke, various service components of the business were also fortified thanks to the brokerage of standalone machine shops. New capabilities have been made possible since the merger, and time is being spent on working to integrate and harmonize several companies into one. Marketing and Communications Coordinator Nate Vandergrift states that cross-site collaboration has grown in the past year, with products that can be made at several Lawton facilities.
Other developments include the KUKA RMC90 robot, currently in a development phase, which is an upgrade from the old pattern of foam tools, Lawton tells us. The robot is a way to skip the tooling process, which is better for speed and quality levels as well as for the environment. The company is also multiple years into a project around its enterprise resource planning software in its production facilities, and has added customer relationship management software called HubSpot. The team also continues to be open to artificial intelligence in the form of large language models, which has made running certain internal processes like human resources and data collection and reporting easier.
A top focus has been the assimilation of the group of Lawton companies as they better understand how to work together. This went from a company with disparate businesses in the same market to a more centralized, integrated offering, and the goal is to deliver the capabilities of these parts in a more consistent way to the customer. “We want to do more business across more locations with the culture we know and like,” Lawton says.
Mastalir adds that it is important for Lawton’s people to understand the full capabilities of the company, especially because salespeople have been accustomed to only promoting the products and services under their own roof. In expanding, these people need to be able to know all the things that can be added to the portfolio of customer service and become experts in the entire business.
The vision of the company’s business strategy is to become supermarket-like, offering a matrix within the business and each plant to serve customers on every possible thing they may want when it comes to iron, steel casing, and more, says Lawton. Lawton Standard can handle any manner of volume, offers a service group, and provides numerous value additions like machining. These make it an ideal one-stop shop for iron and steel.
Smart and sustainable
Since summer 2024, all the company’s sites are certified for ISO 14000:1, and in the next year, all should be ISO 45000:1 certified as well. Lawton notes that less energy consumption leads to a better work environment because of efficiency, and since 2022, the company has diverted nearly 10,000 tons of spent foundry sand from landfills to be put to use in manufactured soil, layering for construction projects, and concrete and brick-making. Mastalir adds that both customer interest and corporate mandates are trending more toward involvement in sustainability efforts, an area in which Lawton Standard has outpaced a lot of its competition.
Around 15 years ago, the mindset around sustainability tended to involve understanding and keeping track of agencies with which companies needed to be in compliance, as well as determining which ones were truly concerned with making an impact, Lawton shares. Over time, the business underwent the Wisconsin Sustainable Business Council’s Green Masters Program to enhance its knowledge, implemented an environmental management system that works in tandem with its quality management, and joined the Wisconsin-based Green Tier initiative. Green Tier allows organizations in the state to align business practices with sustainability-based targets through committing to environmentally friendly practices.
Lawton Standard has since become one of the first foundries and overall companies to qualify for Green Tier 2, which is reflective of its general drive toward improvement in all areas and its desire to be a better community member, a value important to the company and its customers.
Navigating the waters
It has been a challenging few years following the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, says Lawton. 2021 to 2022 saw an explosion in demand and lead times, with the goods economy going wild. Although this has since rebalanced, the industry is still weak. While not quite at crisis levels, recessionary effects are being felt thanks to fluctuations following the 2024 election.
Lawton Standard has found pockets of strength in niche areas like artificial intelligence because of components it can provide to service data centers and waterworks systems with an infrastructure focus (to replace aging pumps and valves). The company has tried to hunker down through tough times while developing aspects like sustainability, software, and robotics, Lawton tells us.
He believes that businesses are very adaptable, especially in the United States, and his company will indeed adapt as long as it knows the playing field. The team spends a lot of time building relationships with its customer base, aiming to show prospective and long-time clients alike that Lawton and its companies will always be close by. “You’re never more than 10 feet away from a casting,” says Vandergrift, which illustrates the company’s focus and commitment to the customer experience.
Alex Lawton is optimistic about 2026 being a return to strength and growth. “We will create our own luck by going after the right things,” he says. Lawton Standard is always thinking about the markets it serves, with the goal of being highly diversified company-wide. The business continues to grow in markets like defense, with the desire to expand into areas like agriculture, and this growth will likely persist in the years to come. Vandergrift adds that while employees do age out and retire, there are many industry programs seeking to drum up more students to become interested in the foundry industry.
Lawton Standard does not need to focus on acquisitions per se but will remain open to opportunities while also giving time to initiatives like mechanization and process improvement. The next period of strength for the company will likely see it in a better position than in its last one, and according to Mastalir, the team will make sure it is ready to rise above the competition and give the customer the best experience possible. At Lawton Standard, the work will always be aimed at ensuring that the company is growing with its customers as they come back time and time again.
