While many manufacturers have decided to reshore their operations, setting up domestic footprints and investing in advanced technology to support these facilities, a skills and labour shortage persists, which could be addressed by improved DE&I efforts.

It’s no secret that demand for both skilled and unskilled labour is at a high, thanks to attrition and the rapid advancement of technology. With the Baby Boomer generation retiring at a rapid pace, paired with a growing need for technologically adept skilled labour, there’s a major gap in the market and current talent pipelines aren’t satisfying demand.

As Industry 4.0 took effect, there was the hope that advanced technology could replace the need for skilled labour, and while it certainly improved rates of productivity, it shifted the demand to skills of a different nature: those necessary to operate and maintain the new technology and equipment.

Currently, there are over 500,000 manufacturing jobs vacant in the U.S., a number that’s expected to reach 2.1 million by 2030 unless greater action is taken. Nearly 80 percent of manufacturers are struggling to find talent, noting that it is harder than ever to hire.

Why all of this matters for manufacturing specifically, is the multiplier effect it has on the economy and national gross domestic product (GDP). Manufacturing has the highest multiplier effect of all sectors: for every $1 spent in manufacturing, $2.74 is added to the economy. The sector needs to be functioning optimally to have the greatest possible impact.

Global GDP would increase more than 25 percent with improved DE&I initiatives across sectors. If gender diversity, alone, was achieved and pay equity made a priority, it could add $28 trillion to the GDP by 2025.

DE&I programs are no longer “nice to haves” but rather “must haves” when it comes to operating any business. This holds especially true for the manufacturing sector, which stands to benefit exponentially from improved DE&I.

Effective DE&I programs promote employee attraction, engagement, satisfaction, and retention. DE&I reinforces stronger customer engagement and satisfaction across a broader demographic market and encourages greater rates of innovation, enhanced productivity, better decision-making and problem-solving capabilities, and increased revenue and profitability.

Given that the average U.S. unemployment rate is around eight percent, a rate that is higher amongst people of colour (POC), if these cohorts were equally engaged in the workforce, and specifically in manufacturing where they are underrepresented, many of the staffing challenges and barriers to optimal productivity and profitability could be overcome.

For manufacturers, DE&I programs make sense on a foundational level. As manufacturing is a methodical and systematic operation that’s fueled by the engineering mindset, evolving DE&I priorities could be used to drive the next era of growth and innovation in the sector.

When employers engage diversity in people, they benefit from a diversity in skills, knowledge, and experience which leads to greater rates of innovation, and better decision-making and problem-solving capabilities.

Further to improved rates of innovation, diverse companies enjoy two-and-a-half-times higher cash flow per employee and revenue can be increased by up to 20 percent more than industry median financial returns. Based on the following statistics, there’s a lot of ground to be gained.

In 2021, only eight percent of the CEO workforce of Fortune 500 companies were women, and that’s the highest it’s ever been, according to Fortune. For every 100 men promoted to management, only 86 women can say the same. And then, when women are in executive roles, they are more likely to invest in DE&I. Similarly, in 2022, only six Fortune 500 companies had a Black CEO.

Inclusivity is the pathway to diversity: you have to welcome diversity and approach these interactions with openness and an intention to achieve equity. This goes far beyond what is mandated by law and it is clear that not many companies are finding success in this regard.

By now, most companies should have invested in some foundational DE&I initiatives, but it takes more: a comprehensive program and approach to ensure company-wide adoption of the procedures and culture that go along with it. It’s becoming clear that many companies are struggling to mature their DE&I initiatives.

Luckily, support is available to manufacturers in this position. Resources are available through the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) to ensure that manufacturers are taking advantage of the multitude of competitive advantages afforded by DE&I.

NAM board of directors unanimously approved the Pledge of Action on behalf of all manufacturers which entails a commitment to taking 50,000 tangible actions to improve equity and parity for underrepresented communities in manufacturing by 2025, including the creation of 300,000 job opportunities to improve representation.

Some steps can be taken internally to get the ball rolling. One of the best ways to launch a culture of inclusivity is to begin at the top, moving out and down. Without the leadership, all efforts to become more diverse, equitable and inclusive will fall short.

Leaders of today should be seeking leaders of the future, so when hiring, it’s important to identify talent that can grow with the company from the ground floor up, serving as convincing ambassadors for the company, the culture, and the brand.

Further, it is important to set and communicate clear talent-management goals and systems of accountability to ensure the culture is instilled at every level of the operation. This may require some operational changes to create workforce conditions that are more inclusive and attractive to traditionally underrepresented groups.

For instance, women make up more than half of the population but are underrepresented in manufacturing workplaces for a number of reasons and some of these challenges could be overcome by a change in perspective.

Part of making manufacturing more inclusive to women could require a move away from rigid hours and employee demands. When women have children to care for, these careers become next to impossible for many of them. To make industry accessible and inclusive, some actions as simple as rethinking shifts and offering flexible hours and childcare options could attract more women to the traditionally male-dominated sector.

By understanding the barriers to entry, it is easier to overcome the associated challenges. This is why it is important to get a clear snapshot of your operation and the best way to do that is by using data to understand the current state of the company, as well as monitor and measure the progress of DE&I initiatives and programs.

After instituting a DE&I program, it cannot stop there. The leadership of a company must continue to engage, involve, and evolve its employees across its operations to ensure it is always up-to-date and relevant. Doing this will ensure it is agile enough to adapt to market challenges as they arise and continue to reap the benefits of DE&I.

A DE&I program is no longer—and in truth, has never been—just the right thing to do from a moral and ethical standpoint. Across the board, DE&I programs have proven to be wise business decisions bringing competitive advantages, and should not be overlooked.

In the case of manufacturing specifically, strong DE&I will not only improve the profitability of individual operations but will also have a resounding impact on the growth and viability of the sector and the economy as a whole. It will just take a bit of the engineering mindset that is at the core of the sector to rethink how DE&I can be integrated to its full advantage.

The post Innovation Through Diversity, Equity and Inclusion<p class="company">The Key to Success in Industry 4.0</p> appeared first on Manufacturing In Focus.

“We don’t promote ourselves as being a Black-owned business. We promote ourselves as a quality manufacturer of adhesives and chemicals,” notes President and Chief Financial Officer Karl Johnson.

Launched in 1971 by George Hill, who currently serves as Chair and Chief Executive Officer, DCTI’s divisions include Adhesive Systems, Inc. (ASI) which formulates and manufactures packaging adhesives used to seal cereal boxes and other consumer goods. A division called Paperworks, Inc. (PWI) does office supply and maintenance, repair, and operations sourcing while Diversified Chemical Technologies Operating, Inc. (DCTO) oversees chemical formulation development and manufacturing. Among DCTO’s proprietary products are metal-working process fluids, disinfectants, and industrial cleaning solutions for sanitizing factory components and equipment, as well as floors, drains, walls, glass and the like.

“Everything that we make, we developed in-house. We have three product development labs, staffed by five PhDs and a handful of technicians. One lab for adhesives, one for oil-based chemicals, and one for water-based chemicals,” explains Johnson.

DCTI also has a sales operation in Mexico and recently launched a joint venture with a firm called Staffing Synergies. The latter company provides workers and human resource services to warehouses, distribution centers, and light industrial facilities. The venture, called Diversified Synergies, LLC, is doing “what’s called kitting—light assembly, sequencing, small packaging operations. Right now, we’re assembling COVID test kits for a healthcare partner,” Johnson says.

In addition to setting up this partnership, DCTI has been laying the groundwork for a 140,000-square-foot manufacturing plant that is set to open in Chicago in 2024. The facility will initially employ roughly thirty people to make consumer products for an automotive aftermarket client.

The company’s dizzying pace of growth is even more impressive given its humble roots and roundabout origin. Decades ago, Hill was an executive with Chrysler Corporation when he went to a small business administration convention in place of a Chrysler official who could not attend. While waiting to get credentials at the event, he signed up for a seminar for small companies that wanted to get government work in the chemicals sector.

Next thing he knew, he was being offered the chance to enter this marketplace himself. Hill and a former business partner began manufacturing specialty chemicals and launched DCTI together. At first, the company was based in Hill’s Detroit home and had minimal resources and staff.

Getting a start-up business off the ground is always difficult. Being an African-American-led company in a more openly biased or prejudiced era than today presented additional challenges in terms of gaining markets and financial support. “It was a different world in many respects,” recalls Hill, who notes that the riots that ravaged Detroit took place only a few years before the company’s founding.

The early days were far from glamorous. Hill and his former partner pitched local businesses on homemade floor and toilet cleaners they mixed themselves in a 12,000-square-foot plant. Difficult as things might have been at first, Hill never lost faith.

“This is the United States of America, and there’s no substitute for hard work and confidence in yourself,” he asserts.

Hill and his former partner gathered a talented team of chemists and other staff. Innovation and risk-taking became bywords at the fledgling firm, which expanded from janitorial cleaning products to “process-driven products” such as cutting fluids, lubricants, and coolants for automotive manufacturing says Hill.

Over the years, DCTI developed a few products that were “fairly innovative and, in some cases, revolutionary,” including the automotive industry’s first ambient temperature parts washing compound, he continues.

The company was soon recognized for its abilities. In 1978, it was selected as Michigan’s small business supplier of the year “Not the black business, but the small business supplier of the year for the state of Michigan,” says Hill, with a touch of pride. He got to travel to Washington, DC, where he met then-President Jimmy Carter at an event to honor companies that had won the same honor in each state.

Today, Hill is the sole proprietor of DCTI, which employs approximately ninety-four people. Another two hundred work at the Diversified Synergies joint venture.

As befitting the company name, staff members come from a wide variety of backgrounds. There are some common characteristics, however; the firm likes new hires who are talented, hardworking, and self-motivated. The firm offers a tuition refund program for staff members who want to obtain a degree at a post-secondary institution.

DCTI is also a “second-chance employer,” adds Johnson. The company is willing to hire people with criminal records for non-violent offences and “give them the skills that they need to be successful within the organization,” he states.

“Our second-chance related team members have been absolutely splendid,” adds Hill.

The company has created a culture that empowers all workers to embrace the company’s core values. “Number one: do the right thing. Number two: treat others with respect. Number three: be reliable. Number four: be a collaborative team player. Number five: be a problem solver,” lists Johnson.

Interestingly, for a firm that specializes in adhesives and chemicals, DCTI is a strong proponent of sustainability. Hill personally supports sustainability, and many big corporations have started to embrace ecologically friendly products and processes.

Future generations “are not going to inherit the goodies we did in terms of water and air and a whole host of things,” unless measures are taken to avert man-made climate change, says Hill, adding, “I do not think, overall on a global basis, that we have taken all the steps we need to take to preserve [the environment].”

As for the business side of sustainability, he says, “We’re an awfully small company to have so many Fortune 500 companies as customers, and sustainability and being green is one of their objectives… We are going to help them meet whatever their strategic objectives are.”

The company practices what it preaches. It is currently “helping to develop a plant-based labeling adhesive,” that boasts a significantly smaller carbon footprint than chemical-based or petroleum-based products, says Johnson. He will not reveal much more, citing corporate privacy issues, but says this eco-friendly labeling adhesive might be ready for release in 2023. The company has a long-term sustainability initiative and to date has reduced both waste-to-landfill and water consumption by over 20 percent, and continues to make improvements. The company also treats waste-water used in its manufacturing operations on-site before discharge into the City sewer system.

DCTI is certified as a Michigan Minority Business Enterprise (MBE) and has a passion for “creating prosperity in communities of color,” says Johnson. This entails hiring people from areas where the firm has a presence and participating in charitable and community initiatives. The company was an early sponsor of Math Corps, an innovative program designed to make mathematics more appealing to children and promote a STEM-based education. It also supports the Detroit International Jazz Festival and other cultural initiatives.

While dedicated to community outreach, Hill wants the company to be recognized for the quality of its work. To this end, it has been putting more energy and resources into promotion, trademarking a logo, and trying to gain more of a presence at trade shows and industry events.

As with all North American businesses, DCTI had to cope with the impact of COVID. In addition to ensuring the well-being of its staff with masking and other health protocols, the company’s auto-related business “basically shut down,” as the vehicle plants were briefly shuttered, recalls Hill. This was partly offset by a big demand for adhesives used to bind consumer goods as manufacturers adjusted to the new marketing realities of less in-person shopping, and more home deliveries to housebound workers.

“There was a huge amount of volatility. It was very difficult to plan,” Johnson remembers.

The Texas freeze’s unseasonably low temperatures wreaked havoc in the Lone Star State, home to many petrochemical plants, and the war in Ukraine has drastically affected oil and gas transmission in Europe. These events have also affected business.

Beyond these issues, “Access to capital is probably our number one challenge. We are positioned for growth, but you need capital to support that growth,” states Johnson. Small businesses have always had a harder time than big businesses in securing capital, he points out.

For all that, leaders at DCTI envision a very bright future. The company plans to expand into the healthcare and food processing markets while enhancing its existing capabilities. In five years, Hill would like to see the company double in size and continue to be “on the front line of our customer’s strategic objectives.”

The post Diversified Chemical Technologies Marks Over Half a Century of Success<p class="company">Diversified Chemical Technologies </p> appeared first on Manufacturing In Focus.

With the help of a private financial backer, Northwest Instruments and Controls (N.I.C.) was incorporated in 1992 in Billings, Montana.

Today, 30 years on, N.I.C. is a highly respected, exclusive manufacturer representative for process control equipment, serving the industrial market throughout America’s West Coast (except California), including Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, New Mexico, Arizona, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Nevada.

Recognized across the West Coast for its outstanding customer service and quality products, N.I.C.’s instrumentation, control valve expertise, and complete engineered solutions make the company a one-stop shop for process control needs.

With about 15 staff today, N.I.C. is now expanding fast. Increasing its territory in the past few months, the company is actively looking for more people, including and outside sales professional for the Northern Wyoming and Montana area as well as another valve technician for the repair shop in Timnath, Colorado.

Active in multiple industries including oil and gas, refining, power, food and beverage, water and wastewater, and pharmaceutical / biotech, the team at N.I.C. encompasses mechanical engineers and also chemical engineers, since the company deals with corrosion and material compatibility.

“A lot of our solutions touch different processes, and some of those can be very corrosive or erosive or have certain reactions, so there’s always that coming into play,” says Rick Jenkins, Regional Sales Manager for the Southwest Region and part of the Rockies. “Oftentimes, there are multiple possible solutions for a given application, but usually one will be the better fit, and getting that right comes with experience.”

Unlike some process-control equipment companies, Northwest Instruments & Controls is a family-owned business, and it shows. Every call is important, and all are taken personally. The company wants to succeed and see its customers succeed. “We develop very close-knit relationships with our customers, see them outside of work hours, and get to know their families,” remarks Rick, “and we want them to look good for their bosses in advance in their careers.”

Treating clients like partners, N.I.C.’s hands-on approach is less about one-off sales than about personalized service and satisfaction. Along with striving to ensure that products are installed to customer standards and satisfaction, the company will come back and do training if necessary.

“We take full ownership of these solutions, and if something fails it’s very personal to us,” says Rick, “so we do all of our due diligence upfront and make sure we’re providing the best solutions we can for our customers.”

Sometimes, customers come to N.I.C. with specific requirements; in other cases, the team will go to their clients. Often the staff will make helpful suggestions that the customer hadn’t thought of, which can lead to other projects.

Engineering firms are process experts, and often have written specifications of what their needs are—for a certain instrument valve analyzer, for instance. N.I.C. will then find a solution, based on its own expertise and that of the manufacturers, and partner with them to review applications and share any necessary discussion.

“Especially nowadays, when there are a lot of younger folks in the workforce who may not know what they need, we can lean on our experience and say, ‘This is what I’ve seen that works here,’” says Danny Burton Jr., Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Northwest Instruments & Controls. He notes that some younger people are a bit out of their element, especially those working for power plants.

“In those cases, we rely on our own expertise and working with our own manufacturers, who often have subject-matter experts in the field they sell into and the applications they sell into. We work with them to review applications and have discussions with customers about potential solutions.”

If necessary, N.I.C. will write specs for customers. Owing to the company’s vast knowledge of instrumentation and of the client’s plants themselves, N.I.C. will come in and train the client’s engineers. And because the company does plenty of damper configuration, from surveys to drawings, and building dampers with manufacturers to expansion joint configuration, drive configuration, and linkages, Rick will perform a lot of the work himself.

Along with instruments and controls, N.I.C. has a large mechanical side to the business. In some cases, the company is doing even more work on the valve side in the mechanical world, where there may not be an actuator or any instruments. This includes dealing with highly erosive, corrosive processes, or even high-heat areas like 5,500-pound steam lines or a coker line.

Some clients have areas where they just have a manual isolation valve. “And so, based on our experience and examining of the process conditions and proposed solution, we can tell the customer with confidence that this particular valve should last at least, say, 150 cycles, as opposed to maybe the 10 to 15 they were getting before,” says Rick.

Over the years, Northwest Instruments & Controls has established relationships with many of the finest manufacturers in the world. These include Baker Hughes Masoneilan, Flexim, Reotemp, Mogas Industries, Process Insights, Groth, Continental Disc, Ametek O’Brien, Teledyne, Environment One, Schubert and Salzer, Clyde Industries, Fuji Electric, Berthold, and Swan Analytical, to name a few.

“We have our set manufacturers that we work with directly—and we obviously have our sales territory—but often, it’s not just quoting part numbers,” says Dan. “We have an identified problem that’s going to require probably some sensors, some valves, and maybe a controller, all for solving this one problem. So it’s an all-around solution for a given problem,” he explains.

“And a lot of the time, when a customer is asking us for a certain piece of equipment, we’ll identify an issue, and then we’ll start probing and asking questions. What we often find out is that there might be a separate root cause for the equipment problem, that they might need other pieces or components for that solution.”

One of the company’s recent partnerships is with Germany’s FLEXIM. With over 30 years of engineering experience, FLEXIM has emerged as one of the global leaders in clamp-on ultrasonic flow meters for liquids, gases, and steam. “We are doing a lot with them,” says Dan of the company, which has its headquarters in Long Island. “The FLEXIM line, it’s exclusively with us here in the Rockies region.”

More than a manufacturer of measuring devices, FLEXIM is a comprehensive provider of customer-driven solutions and services including on-site measurements, instrument commissioning, lab analysis, project handling, training, consulting services, and instrument rentals.

To fully respond to its customers’ needs, N.I.C. has around seven outside salespeople. They spend most of their time inside industrial plants—refineries, power plants, food and beverage, pharmaceutical, water, and wastewater—all of which have control systems with valves and sensors.

Danny Burton, Rick Jenkins and the rest of N.I.C.’s outside sales team are often in these plants looking at systems, following wires, examining processing instrumentation and diagrams, talking to engineers, and delving into problems. They will then work with their manufacturers to provide the best-fit solution within the time constraints, which invariably have been affected by the pandemic supply chain issues.

“Things that we could once get very quickly now have much longer lead times, so often we have to look out of the box,” says Rick. “Maybe we haven’t necessarily provided that brand of equipment to that manufacturer in the past, but right then we need to find something that’s on the shelf for a certain need-by date, so we’re increasing our flexibility, our number of solutions, and trying to make our customers look good for their bosses.”

Thanks to its salespeople, N.I.C. is now selling many more fuel supply valves, recently fulfilling an order of almost one million dollars for a large project. Also recently developing a full potable-water control system, Rick says that although the company didn’t build the actual system, it provided all the instrumentation, including the controls, valves, analyzer, and transmitter.

“We just handed that to the plant that we did it for,” says Rick, “and we’ve got a couple of others that are environmental wins. One is providing easier measurements and easier reporting for people at this plant to be able to hand off information to the EPA (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency). Another project we won is automating a system that had been normally manually controlled to put dissolved oxygen into the process of going into a boiler to protect the steam piping.”

In December, Northwest Instruments & Controls celebrated 30 years in business and looks forward to working with its customers and being partners in their successes for a lot longer.

“The big thing for us is that we’re always looking for the next challenging application so that we can create a solution,” says Dan. “Give us a challenge and we’ll cover it, whether it’s an analytical challenge or process issues, or even obsolescence—that’s the biggest thing today. Just give us a challenge.”

The post Complete Custom Solutions<p class="company">Northwest Instruments & Controls</p> appeared first on Manufacturing In Focus.

Founded in Germany in 2020 to help machine manufacturers grow their spare parts business while boosting sales volume and revenue, the company’s customer-focused approach and innovative thinking address the mandate that it’s impossible to accurately price products without using a market and data-driven approach.

“Historically, all companies used to do cost-plus pricing for their spare parts, the most common approach to parts pricing because it’s very simple,” says Tim Geyer, Head of North America. However, in today’s digital environment, the cost-plus pricing approach doesn’t work anymore, he adds, and one of the reasons is there are many third-party competitors offering the same parts to end users.

“Competitors are already using digital capabilities to update prices and to expand offerings, and OEMs don’t.”

Manufacturers also have a very complex parts portfolio, making it impossible to manually keep track of what they should be charging for a part. By only using cost-plus approaches, companies are going to miss the mark for more than 90 percent of their parts. While manufacturers do source parts from different suppliers at varying discounts, if they use a cost-plus approach for all their parts, they unwittingly overprice or underprice many of their parts.

“Parts are extremely important and a large driver of profit and revenue,” says Geyer. “But OEMs now have a very strong competitive environment, and their pricing strategies simply don’t work in that environment anymore.”

“There is a difference, however, when it comes to manufactured items and commercial items,” adds Alex Morbe, CEO.

“The cost-plus logic works pretty well with the manufactured items since they have all the data, drawings, design, and the IP in-house,” he says. “This is all they need to get pricing out there and they don’t really compete against anyone… However, this is different with all the commercial items.” With this segment of parts, it’s very important to have market data, which is where MARKT-PILOT comes in.

“Quick, intelligent access to competitive market information such as lead times and parts pricing wasn’t possible two years ago, and we are exclusive in that way,” says Morbe. “There’s no one else who can do the same thing that we do, while being focused on sustainable revenue growth.”

MARKT-PILOT is an advocate of market-based parts pricing, believing it’s the best way for an OEM to price purchased parts and the best way to maximize customer loyalty, increase revenue, and increase profit margins, adds Geyer. In short, without manual effort, OEMs can find the perfect sales price for every single part they’re selling, while ensuring they’re in line with the market, have competitive offerings, and still charge what customers are willing to pay.

This all started when the company’s founder Tobias Rieker, while working as a pricing analyst for an OEM, was tasked with comparing prices against third-party competitors. Customers complained about expensive parts; meanwhile, the company owner felt they were undercharging. Rieker’s analysis revealed they were leaving money on the table for more than 70 percent of their parts, and believed there must be a sustainable way to gather market data for parts at scale with less manual effort.

“He spent a lot of time finding that information,” says Geyer. “When he finally got market data for a couple hundred parts, he randomly checked some parts again, and found out all of the prices were outdated already, because they’d changed in the meantime.”

The main reason for the company’s success is realizing that on average, OEMs price 21.7 percent of parts below market value, says Geyer.

“Their competitors are charging more for these parts than the OEM, and obviously an OEM should never be the cheapest play on the market because they’ve invested so much in branding and the customer relationship already. So, they should definitely be charging more than third-party vendors.”

When it comes to exclusive parts—51.9 percent—an OEM typically has no or very limited competition, meaning customers have a hard time finding alternative vendors for these parts.

“Even though it’s purchased parts, there are many reasons why it could be exclusive to the OEM,” Geyer says. “And for these parts, there’s essentially no competition. They could be charging much more, resulting in the OEM leaving money on the table for these parts as well.”

Market-based pricing, he adds, benefits OEMs as they can increase prices with confidence for underpriced parts, capitalize on exclusivity for parts where they have limited or no competition, and boost sales volumes by intelligently reducing prices for some parts where they have charged too much historically.

The system is working. Initially a small German startup, MARKT-PILOT expanded to the North American market in 2021 where it has helped 150 OEMs increase their spare part revenue and customer loyalty. Key results include increasing parts revenue by more than 200 million USD in total, averaging a 20 percent increase in parts revenue after implementing a pricing strategy fueled by PRICE-RADAR’s market data.

“It’s the reason we were so successful, because it’s a very clear business case,” says Geyer. “When our customers first start working with us, we provide them with an analysis where we look at their current portfolio, how much money they make with purchase parts right now, typical profit margin, and more. We give them a very valid estimate, backed up by strong data, of what we know is possible for them to achieve from a top line revenue and ROI perspective.”

Although the topic is still fairly new, the industry has realized market data is imperative for future success, particularly in equipment manufacturing sectors including agriculture, mining, construction, tool, packaging, and plastics processing machinery, where MARKT-PILOT focuses on providing the most accurate data possible.

“It’s very challenging because the data quality in manufacturing isn’t always the best out there,” says Geyer. “We created a technology tailored to work for the machinery industry, and that can really cope with both the data quality and the processes within the industry, instead of being generic and not providing true value to our customer. Our approach is very targeted in that sense.”

MARKT-PILOT’s “secret sauce” is providing the most accurate market data for parts by having access to more than 10,000 data sources globally, including relevant e-commerce platforms, web shops, and marketplaces where a customer can look up a part and purchase it from an online vendor. The company also gathers data from more traditional channels, including parts manufacturers, distributors, dealers, and offline vendors, collecting information on prices, availability, and lead time for every single part that customers want analyzed. Within one dashboard, they can see exactly which parts they’re currently underpricing, which they are overpricing, and which they are the exclusive vendor for.

“We tell them exactly what we recommend they should be charging for these parts as well,” says Geyer. “They see the market prices and we help them find the perfect sales price to improve their financial results, and at the same time make sure that customer retention and customer loyalty is maximized.”

When an OEM first starts working with MARKT-PILOT, they upload a list of their most important parts with pricing, and within three to four weeks, they receive an initial full-market benchmark, where they might find they’re underpricing 3,500 parts and overpricing 2,000, for example. MARKT-PILOT’s experienced customer success managers then examine the information and provide specific recommendations on how to change prices and communicate the changes to customers.

Helping customers realize the competition for parts out there, and the need for a better visibility of the market without sacrificing resources means it’s vital to provide automated solutions. “We make sure our customers’ team can really focus on what matters, and that’s always serving end users, coming up with new strategies, and increasing customer loyalty, rather than focusing on manual tasks, like comparing prices on the internet,” says Geyer.

And that pricing is incredibly difficult right now, with the cost surges going on due to inflation and supply chain issues, he adds. “The best way to cope with that complexity is simply to integrate market data into your pricing strategy, rather than trying to guess or come up with elaborate, handmade strategies yourself.”

It’s always best to rely on what the market will bear, and that’s only discernible by having high-quality, accurate market data available at scale for your parts portfolio, which is exactly what MARKT-PILOT provides.

“What sets us apart is the quality, as we know our customers rely on our data,” says Morbe. “Our main goal is to provide this strong data, so we want to make sure that everyone who works with our data can rely on it. This is where we have our AI in place, and we’re highly focused and specialized in validating results. We make sure our customers only use confirmed data.”

This is also something put in place at an early stage, as the company realizes how important and how unreliable market data can be. “If you just Google a bike, you will also find cars, socks, everything,” says Morbe. “We want to make sure our customers don’t see the results they don’t need.”

The company’s AI data engineering team in Germany developed and continues to build PRICE-RADAR in-house, ensuring no technology is outsourced, unlike other solutions in the market. MARKT-PILOT works exclusively with OEMs in the machinery industry, another key differentiator compared to other pricing software.

“We live and breathe their challenges,” says Geyer. “We’re 100 percent focused on OEMs.”

That dedication to customer service is appreciated. “When they start working with us, it’s an eye opener for them, because they realize they don’t need consultants to come in and help achieve results with the data they now have. It’s much easier to understand and use in daily business, thus more cost-efficient,” says Geyer.

And while other pricing projects usually yield a return of maybe two or three percent, MARKT-PILOT looks at typical revenue and margin increases of up to 20 percent, a “game changer,” shares Morbe.

“We’re the enabler of a market-based parts pricing strategy, and we’re a big advocate of that strategy versus the more traditional strategies,” Geyer adds. “And no, there’s no other provider out there that can help an OEM adopt this market-based pricing strategy at scale.”

The post Making a Mark with Smart Pricing for Spare Parts<p class="company">MARKT-PILOT</p> appeared first on Manufacturing In Focus.

The WAFIOS history stretches back to 1893, when the business was first established in Pfullingen, Germany. Over the next 130 years, the company grew to become the leading global supplier of precision machinery for wire, tube, and formed parts.

Today, the company manufactures more than 120 models of wire and tube working machinery and, in addition to its German-based global headquarters, has facilities in the United States, China, Brazil, France, and Mexico. Manufacturing in Focus sat down with executives of the North American subsidiary, to learn more.

How has the company grown and thrived for nearly a century and a half? “In general, the success and the growth of WAFIOS lies in being a technology leader and the diversity of different machines here,” says President Markus Arnold. Machinery manufactured by the company is used around the globe to produce a startling variety of wire articles, from tiny surgical components to high tensile chains, roofing screws, automotive valve and suspension springs, seat frames, wire forms, and much more—most recently, formed electric motor and E-Mobility parts.

“These machines are used in various industries,” Arnold says. “This variety of machines has helped us, throughout all the years, to maintain a growing level of business in North America as industry and markets have changed.” Achieving this level of product diversity is challenging.

“Having such a wide group of machinery is a blessing and a curse to a certain extent,” says Manager of Engineering and IT Bob Ackermann. “The engineering and customer support required is very challenging.”

To keep up, the company has had to excel in technology and innovation. “Our goal with WAFIOS is to be the technology leader,” says Arnold. “We always try to be ahead of the game.”

To this end, more than 10 percent of WAFIOS’ staff roster is devoted to R&D, and the company boasts 200 active patents worldwide. “That’s the one big thing that sets us apart from the competition—the technical capabilities that we have at WAFIOS,” Arnold says. “That’s our secret, that’s our advantage.”

At WAFIOS, knowledge and experience gained in one area can be successfully applied to other areas, helping the company maintain its wide product range. “The engineering required is very diverse and there’s a lot of cross coupling between the engineering efforts,” Ackermann explains. “For example, we know cold forming from our other divisions and we can apply that to areas that you wouldn’t think are really related in other machinery. So, there’s a technology crossover there that’s very beneficial to the company.”

Maintaining a place as the global technology leader requires top-notch talent at every WAFIOS location worldwide. “We need to have good members of staff, good engineers and service technicians available locally,” says Arnold. “That is one of our strengths. We invest locally in employees who are able to run, repair and train customers on our equipment; we constantly train our people in order to maintain knowledge on a very high technical level. Additionally we maintain facilities in both Branford, Connecticut, with spare parts stock, service resources and machines available for demonstration, and the Chicago-area Midwest Technical Center located in Mokena, Illinois, which provides additional resources as a service center, with machines available for trials and demonstration. Both facilities are structured to support application development, as well as provide customers with hands-on training programs. I think that’s another advantage that sets us apart from the competition.”

This commitment requires sustained effort. “We invest heavily into training new people,” Arnold says. “The trainee rate at WAFIOS is over ten percent—ten percent of the members of staff are people that are being trained, young people that are being trained.” The team has brought Germany’s traditional emphasis on technical training with them to the United States. “Germany has quite a good model where young students that finish school, they can learn a trade with the company. And we try to do that here as well, with young people in the U.S., to get good people trained,” Arnold says.

Training has become particularly important with the current labor shortage, “for both our customers and ourselves. It’s been an effort,” Ackermann says of the difficulties of finding employees.

To deal with the labor shortage, “we’ve widened out how we look at things,” Ackermann says. WAFIOS has looked to local community colleges to recruit potential workers, and the team participated in trade group presentations, reaching out to high schools to promote the industry and encourage future workers to enter the field. “We give them a live demo to interest them in choosing a manufacturing path, applying for jobs out there in our industry,” Arnold says.

Supply chain issues have been another challenge, Arnold says. “We need to have machines available and in time for customer needs. So, in order to overcome these challenges, we basically increased our stock of available machines here in the U.S. We have done the same thing on our spare parts.” This has required “a good production plan, getting the market data to see which machines are required and starting to order parts in advance for our machines,” Arnold says. “I think it has been a big challenge, but I feel we managed it very well with all these actions and measures that we took in the last two years.”

Despite current challenges, the future is full of promise for the industry in general and WAFIOS specifically. “We are excited with everything that is changing out there,” Arnold says. “We are always looking for the opportunities that we can win, and there are lots of new opportunities out there for us—and also for the industry—with all these changes that are about to come.”

Automotive is one sector showing particular potential for increased business as electric vehicles gain ground. These vehicles require different parts than conventional vehicles and WAFIOS is already prepared for the change. “Our machines have been modified to do these new parts and all of a sudden we have new markets,” shares Arnold. And the team isn’t stopping there; the evolving landscape of the entire energy industry presents a massive opportunity that the company is eager to embrace. “That really excites us,” he says.

This ability to harness new opportunities utilizing new technologies highlights the strategy that has kept the business growing and thriving for 130 years. “That goes to what the company has always been about, the technology efforts that we make,” Ackermann summarizes. “The electro mobility efforts are an example of that—that we could take our existing technology and reform it a bit to move over to electric motors instead of internal combustion engines. That’s the depth of the R&D efforts in the engineering base of this company.”

At the same time, “we have numerous developments in our traditional areas of expertise. For example, we recently released the fastest spring coiler to date, the FUL 26+ 4-Speed, which can feed wire at over 2000 feet per minute, and the FUL 226, which can coil suspension springs of 30mm wire diameter.”

These new developments represent an ongoing commitment that will ensure that, throughout any current or upcoming challenges, the company will remain at the forefront of the industry.

The post Technology Leaders<p class="company">WAFIOS Machinery Corporation USA</p> appeared first on Manufacturing In Focus.

Whether it’s EDSI providing AutoCAD and E-Plan CAD design support or distributing SMC Pneumatics components and assemblies, customers benefit from the company’s years of building knowledge and proficiency in the best methods and systems for producing control panels, pneumatic control panels, and tag engraving, driven by skilled and talented staff.

With the company’s hardware engineering and design currently housed in a 33,000-square-foot facility, EDSI’s customers reap the benefits of cost-conscious discipline without compromise in quality, whether in the electrical, mechanical, or pneumatic aspects.

Servicing the automotive, industrial, robotic, aerospace, military, and medical industries, EDSI’s broad range of electric automation and pneumatic equipment across various industry segments has helped it become a global leader in the industry.

Formed on September 18, 1997, the company started out as System Technology, Incorporated with different ownership, before moving to a new partnership and a new deal.

Design at the core
“We started then as just a design place,” explains President Rock Haas. “My current partner came on in the following year in 1998, and that’s when we started building control panels.” This change allowed the company to expand into performing both design and control panel builds.

“We found our little niche market,” Haas says, “and we expanded it a couple of times and went with more space. And then somewhere along the line, we started building pneumatic panels.”

EDSI then became an SMC pneumatics distributor, followed by moving into building robotic training carts, he adds. “All of those areas have gotten very, very large,” Haas says.

The company provides a number of services, such as building valve manifolds, FRL assemblies, and pneumatic panels, and offers custom pneumatic design complete with the pneumatic print package.

As an SMC Pneumatic Premier distributor, EDSI also supplies an impressively wide range of products including actuators, directional control valves, airline equipment, connectors, vacuum products, industrial communication products, sensors and switches, static control products, electric actuators, chillers, and dryers, all of which can be sold individually or in custom assemblies.

Solutions across industry
“We have a design team that can take a customer’s ideas and transform them into custom, fully-tested, plug-and-play solutions,” says Mike Weiss, Senior Key Account Manager. “We do work for the largest automotive manufacturers, the world’s largest robotic companies, and all tier suppliers to the automotive industries.”

Outside of the automotive industry, the company also supplies the aerospace, food and beverage, packaging, pharmaceutical, medical, cleanroom, car wash, and process control industries, all with an eye to maintaining superior craftsmanship.

Another recent, successful product addition is EDSI Cables, which started last year and allows the company to provide custom cable specialty harness assemblies and custom designed interconnect solutions.

“The addition of our own custom cable shop has helped our customers maintain target delivery dates amid a global supply shortage,” says Weiss. “We’re able to cross our customers’ components—cable bulk and connectors—to in-stock items.”

From its more humble beginnings as a panel-build shop 25 years ago, EDSI has attained a worldwide status making and supplying custom control panels across a wide range of industries, while striving to provide top-notch service from start to finish.

“In the industry, our craftsmanship and quality are second to none,” says Weiss. “This has helped us land and maintain some key accounts for some of the world’s largest manufacturers.”

Powering people
This dedication to quality encompasses everything EDSI does. With its staff, it’s a commitment to keeping the same qualified and motivated people in place the entire time, Haas adds. On the rare occasion that anything goes awry, it is that staff that ensures clients remain fully satisfied.

“When that happens, they’re very good at making things right,” Haas says. “The funnel to the door has been the same since the beginning, with the same people. Because of that, not much slips out.”

The company’s decades of successful devotion to exceptional quality are also due in part to its quality department, which is very strong, Haas says.

EDSI’s full-service machine shop is also a source of pride to the company, manufacturing, modifying, and repairing parts for a wide variety of clients. It boasts highly skilled fabricators and machinists who enable EDSI to consistently meet customer needs most cost-effectively and accurately.

“We don’t advertise or sell this service to customers, but with the machine shop we’re able to keep our business going,” Weiss says. “We’re able to make several specialty pieces for our assemblies in-house. These services allow us to control inventory, costs, and lead times for critical brackets, plates, and custom adaptors.”

Crossing components to in-stock replacement parts is one of the many strengths of EDSI. “We have a team made up of people who are very knowledgeable in the industry and we can find in-stock parts that work for our customers’ applications,” adds Weiss.

The company is always ready to apply its extensive experience and skills in diverse and unique ways. “In the spring, we were asked by the U.S. government to help with the relief efforts in Ukraine,” says Weiss. “We were able to help by 3D printing tourniquets that were sent to Ukraine.”

Challenging the challenges
Of course, all companies experience their share of challenges, and Haas cites the year 2009 as being a particularly difficult one for all businesses across the board. “You know, everybody went out of business, and we didn’t, so we’re pretty proud of that,” he says. “We managed to survive through a rough time.”

Lasting 25 years is an accomplishment all on its own, but a more recent point of pride is EDSI’s current “gigantic” backlog. But, Haas adds, an ongoing shortage of available, qualified labor has made getting through that backlog extremely difficult.

Growth is a good thing for any business but has its challenges, something EDSI is experiencing firsthand. “Currently we’re in 33,000 square feet and it’s getting embarrassing,” Haas laughs. “We can’t walk around much. Every area of our business is tight… We need more space. So we’ve purchased a much larger, 75,000 square foot building that we can move into and have a little more space.”

Housing a department that builds control panels, a department that builds cables, a department that builds training carts, a department that builds robot controllers, and an area that builds pneumatic assemblies, EDSI has simply outgrown its facility.

“All those areas need to be bigger,” he says. “It’s a good problem to have.”

Along with this looming substantial change, the company has several milestones coming up. “There are some sales milestones, obviously,” says Haas. “We have a sales team that’s trying to get business outside of our normal channels, which are robotic paint, sealing, welding, and mobile training carts for high schools and colleges. Those are our normal channels. But we also own a company called EDSI Cables that builds custom control cables and robotic cables. I hope to push that to the same level as EDSI.”

The opportunities are there, Haas adds, prompting a decision to get another sales team and push some of the areas where the company has room to expand. This includes doing more EDSI cables and pneumatics, of which the company currently has several million in stock.

From the top
While the technical staff, sales team, and clients all combine to make EDSI special, when Haas is asked what sets the company apart from similar competing companies, he has the answer ready: “The quality of our product and the people who produce it; our staff have been with us a long time and are dedicated to the goal of producing a quality piece that is second to none in our industry. This dedication has gotten EDSI to where we are today and is the reason we are expanding and growing at the pace we are today!”

A new year usually brings with it resolutions for change, and while EDSI’s growth means changing to a new working space, its commitment over the years to maintaining quality product and people remains steadfast.

“We try to do the right thing and make quality the first thing, and it’s worked out well for us,” says Haas. “Like I said, 25 years and still growing. That’s impressive.”

The post Where Quality and Capability are Second to None<p class="company">EDSI</p> appeared first on Manufacturing In Focus.

Speed—along with what has been described as the most comprehensive modern laboratory in the TPE industry—plays a large part in the company’s globally recognized innovations in thermoplastic elastomers (TPE) and plastic alloys.

Established in 1993, this Broadview, Illinois-based industry (and often, industry leader) celebrates its third decade in business this year. The company is headed up by owner and Chief Executive Officer Tom Dieschbourg; Dr. Prakash Sanjeevaiah, Vice President of Technology; Bill Wrightson, Director of Finance; and Marvin Birch, Vice President of Operations. Dr. Sanjeevaiah took some time to describe to me the nonstop innovation that’s propelling the company.

Although not the biggest, Star Thermoplastics’ product line-up, technical support, knowledge base, and industry expertise are in line with, and often superior to, some of the world’s largest firms in this sector. Material solutions that fit perfectly with customer needs while keeping down costs plays a big role in its value proposition. So does its challenging chemistry prowess. Its innovation drives the scores of commonly available products with which most of us regularly come into contact.

Evolving from a market segment where it had mainly developed styrenic block compounds, Star Thermoplastics now also develops copolyesters, copolyamides, polycarbonates, and materials for crystal-clear products.

The latter lends superior impact resistance and anti-microbial protection to electronic devices such as a famous market-leading telephone cover. The company’s output is highly regarded because, in essence, these plastic alloys and thermoplastic elastomers give excellent elasticity to materials thanks to strong crosslinks that lend improved integrity to the structure of such materials.

Dr. Sanjeevaiah has been an integral part of the company’s innovation for fifteen years. Technology and research have, in the past few years, evolved to such an extent that the field of thermo-plastic elastomers has been significantly transformed in just five years. Benefits from these developments range from a leap in innovation capabilities to more patents, more research and development, and more manufacturing capabilities.

In the past three years, Star Thermoplastics has filed three patents in the United States and two in Canada. Together with a few collaborators, some of whom are suppliers, the company has welcomed several new international projects over the same period. One of these high-profile projects came to the company from Europe.

In this case, Star Thermoplastics unraveled a problem and overcame a sticking point that even one of the world’s leaders in the sector couldn’t manage. Along with the actual project, the company’s startling innovation won new business valued at several million dollars.

Apart from the solution, safety compliance requirements were a significant challenge. The mandate was interesting; for major online retailers, organizing and retrieving inventory is key to running a smooth operation. Therefore, containers—in this case, the boxes in which valuable merchandise is stored—must be durable enough to withstand being shunted around in storage and must comply with safety standards.

Star Thermoplastics was tasked with developing a material to improve the stability and integrity of such packaging units. That included stepping up fire-retardant qualities including high-performance properties that would eliminate potential damage from dispatch and sorting within linear inventory systems in super-sized storage warehousing. The team achieved this impressive feat in just six months—an achievement to be proud of. “It was quite challenging,” says Dr. Sanjeevaiah, modestly.

The research and development and the prototype phase were followed by vigorous testing. At the time, however, no official industry standard yet existed, so this too had to be developed and implemented. It was an arduous process. “Every time we came up with a solution, the goalpost moved. This was a celebratory achievement for a small company like us,” Dr. Sanjeevaiah says.

Once again, the team was able to move at speed without the cumbersome processes typically present in larger organizations. In addition, Star Thermoplastics’ high output of innovations had secured it a significant knowledge base that more traditionally minded competitors could not match. The company also enlarged its resource base by engaging several other international organizations in its mission. This approach proved to be nothing short of genius, and the rest is, quite literally, company history.

In the process, the company took the opportunity to upgrade its facility by adding several new manufacturing lines, and new, sophisticated capabilities, as well as streamlining its processes with the help of automation. While this was happening, its inventory material handling systems were overhauled, as was the blending area in its manufacturing outfit. All this resulted in sharply improved response and delivery times that give its customers a faster turnaround on every project.

For Dr. Sanjeevaiah, the company essentially remains a custom compounding facility exploring a wide range of opportunities in product development, and in investigating and developing the properties new materials require to optimally answer the demands of new products.

It is this pioneering quest to cross the next frontier in elastomer chemistry that has speedily propelled the company, even during COVID-19.

By its very nature, such an endeavor is a committed exercise in trailblazing, creating demand where previously there was none. And, by the same token, solving customer needs faster and more completely than any competitor can.

“In the last six or seven years, we went full-force in terms of diversifying the market itself because, otherwise, we would not have survived the pandemic,” Dr. Sanjeevaiah says. He notes that the company, by questing further and wider than its traditional markets, has more than survived the global economic downturn of recent years.

True to its nimble nature, the company unearthed a rich vein of growth by developing and providing uncommon materials that are typically difficult to source from the larger manufacturers in the field—materials that have properties essential to products like medical supplies, sports equipment and components, pet toys, and more.

Star Thermoplastics has also established itself as an expert in fire retardant grades within the field of sophisticated elastomers, gaining a head start on some of its biggest competitors.

There are several reasons why very few thermoplastic elastomer manufacturers can cater successfully to the medical industry, Dr. Sanjeevaiah tells me. The requirements are plenty and complex due to direct, often internal, exposure to the human organism and biological fluids. Under these conditions, chemical and environmental contamination is a considerable risk.

For this reason, qualifying materials for these sorts of purposes is a lengthy and painstaking process. For Star Thermoplastics, however, these demands offer significant opportunities to improve its quality and to compound research and development across a host of unrelated applications.

“As a company, you need to do better. Our medical grade thermoplastic elastomers have already gone through several audits by medical device manufacturers,” Dr. Sanjeevaiah says. Owing to the company’s visionary and tenacious leadership style, several of its applications will be introduced to the market this year, starting off 2023 with a bang.

One world leader in wearable medical devices collaborated with Star to develop the thermoplastic elastomer elements of a groundbreaking new self-monitoring auto-injection device that assists advanced diabetics in their daily lives.

In this case, Star Thermoplastics developed a specialized elastomer for puncture-resistant needle housing. This innovation allows the device to administer small doses of medication at set intervals through a needle housed in this advanced casing, after which the needle automatically retracts and safely re-seals itself. After two years of testing, the product is scheduled to be released soon, promising to change the lives of millions globally.

Another formulation in its final testing phases, and set for release soon, will be used for specialized tubing in medical drainage applications. The same goes for medical-grade elastomer bags and sheets. “It’s taken quite a long time to get to this point. Looking at 2023 and beyond, we’re more comprehensive today than we’ve ever been in the unique and diverse products we’ve created in the past thirty years,” Dr. Sanjeevaiah says.

In addition, the company has developed an ultra-soft gel resin that is molded in one to two-inch thicknesses used in mattress toppers that are already widely available and thriving commercially. The team continues to push the boundaries of thermoplastic elastomer compound formulation, with leadership steering the company with a simple and effective question: What if there is something more?

Most of its formulations also contain an element of accountability to future generations and society at large. To illustrate, Dr. Sanjeevaiah outlines the kind of material developed for the new telephone case mentioned above. The compound it’s made from can be recycled between five and seven times, without losing its integrity.

“Thermoplastic elastomers have always been on the side of sustainability, even though it’s not being much talked about. One of my objectives is to spread awareness about the inherent recyclability of these products,” Dr. Sanjeevaiah says.

An added benefit of Star Thermoplastics’ work in giving plastic a lighter environmental footprint is its venture into green fire retardants. Old-fashioned fire-retardant plastics were intrinsically toxic. For this reason, some of the most effective fire retarding plastics are being removed from the market.

But thanks to tenacious research, the firm today manufactures green fire-retardant plastics that decompose into benign components like water. One of the company’s most popular products is its food-grade fire-retardant plastic shipping pallet that is now replacing traditional wooden ones.

This is a huge achievement for the packing industry in general, allowing the company to make tremendous strides toward creating more sustainable and environmentally friendly plastics.

“We are more prepared today than ever in our thirty years of existence. In five years, we went from a much lesser figure to a yearly 115 million pounds of blending capabilities and nearly 100 million pounds of compounding capability,” says Dr. Sanjeevaiah.

Star Thermoplastics also created a formula for a flexible and sew-able, yet dense elastomer material used in specialty heavy blankets. This helps those who move around a lot in their sleep to protect their deep-sleep phase by giving their bodies sufficient weight to improve physical stillness. All these chemistries testify to the company’s bigger plan of expanding its range of formulations before further developing hybrid mixtures.

To support this expansion, Star Thermoplastics has invested in a solid team of experts who join the company from fields such as marketing, manufacturing, and medical supplies. In this regard, Dr. Sanjeevaiah sees the firm’s work as a wonderful opportunity for employees to get to know the world of thermoplastic polymers at a level that’s just not possible anywhere else.

With its culture of innovation and reaching out to businesses that can benefit from its groundbreaking research and development, the company will now invest even more strongly in introducing itself to potential new clients.

“We work with anybody who has a creative challenge for us. We are excited about problem solving; we are not a ‘me too’ product developer,” Dr. Sanjeevaiah says.

In this spirit of innovation, expect Star Thermoplastics to continue to create brilliant new materials that never existed before. And as a company at the vanguard of the TPE industry, it stands to wow the world for decades to come.

The post In the Race to Innovate, Slim and Trim Pays Off<p class="company">Star Thermoplastics</p> appeared first on Manufacturing In Focus.

The computer quality-controlled, thermally-fused polypropylene bags, which don’t require liners, are food-grade safe. This is because they are not sewn, and therefore have a zero percent chance of thread contamination. And because they are 30 percent lighter in weight, shipping costs are reduced.

Because of this ground-breaking—and award-winning, with AmeriGlobe, in cooperation with Dow Chemical, receiving the R & D 100 award for the Fusion Bulk Bag—innovation, the company itself is going through a transformation as it transitions from what was essentially a cut-and-sew operation to a high-tech company manufacturing the machines to produce the seamless fusion bags, the product other sewn bulk-bag manufacturers said couldn’t be made.

How it happened
To find out what all the excitement is about, we speak to company President Daniel Schnaars, Sr., and his son, Daniel (Dan) Schnaars, Jr., Vice President. “We’re still pinching ourselves from time to time that we got here,” says Schnaars, Sr.

“We kept it secret for a long time because if you asked anyone in the industry if you could put polypropylene together using heat they would have told you no. I think of the Roger Bannister story. He broke the four-minute mile in 1954, and until then, scientists said the human body couldn’t do it, but now thousands of people have. So we didn’t want the word to get out that there was a way to bond polypropylene. We wanted everyone to keep thinking it was impossible until we were ready to market it.”

He takes us back to 1980 when he began working in the bulk bag industry, and to 1985, when an investor from Houston, Texas had faith in his small start-up and his big ideas. Naming it FlexCon (Flexible Container) Systems at first, he began with a pickup truck and the idea of improving the functionality of bulk bags and by extension, the ability industry to transport products efficiently.

At the time, the industry was still new, having started up in the late ‘70s, with bulk bag manufacturers proving to clients that a five-pound plastic bag could hold 1000 pounds. “It was an alien concept,” Schnaars Sr. says, and while the sewn bags could do the job, they didn’t always do it well. Improving the efficiency and handling of the bags became a lifelong passion of his.

Over the years, FlexCon Systems, now AmeriGlobe, using industry-standard woven polypropylene, an inert material that doesn’t interact with its contents, developed more than thirty patented processes.

Patent success
“In the first two years, we came up with two important patents,” Schnaars Sr. explains. “One was to reshape the top of the bag to be conical, so you could overfill the bag and allow the corners to fill in. Otherwise, the one-cubic yard bags had eight to twelve inches of empty space, no matter how carefully you filled them. But by following mother nature’s rules and the laws of gravity, you could pack in another 26 percent of volume, because this was a flexible bag,” he shares.

“The second patent involved a method of attaching a polypropylene liner to the inside, because the sewing operation creates a lot of issues for the end users, including puckering and needle holes which can result in the product sifting out and allowing moisture and other contaminants to enter,” he explains.

“To overcome those problems, liner bags were introduced, but other companies just put them in loose, creating problems for end users who’d have to deal with seven-foot liners slipping out of the bag and into the equipment that was receiving the product.”

Even with these and subsequent patents that greatly improved the products, all was not smooth sailing in the early years. On two occasions in the first five years, Schnaars Sr. was within hours of announcing layoffs when a sizeable order came in, seemingly out of the blue.

“We never did lay off staff, and I think it was too coincidental not to have been divine help,” he says. “Moreover, we’ve had a lot of insights into product development over the years, and I think the good Lord is looking after us.”

To date, AmeriGlobe has been supplying standard bulk-bag styles, such as U-Panel, circular, and baffle bags, but with the added value of continual innovation. For example, some companies prefer baffle bags to get extra stability, and for them, AmeriGlobe has developed the MegaBase® which has the same stability without the 30 percent cost increase of making a traditional baffle bag with expensive internal baffling. It’s also easier to fill, reducing product sifting and contamination.

Meanwhile, The FreePac ™ with integrated BagPal technology eliminates the need for wooden pallets for shipping and the patented drop-down portion increases its overall stability when stacked, making it more efficient for both shipping and storage.

Although AmeriGlobe didn’t manufacture bags for liquid products in the early days, it has developed a patent-pending FreeStanding Drum Bag that provides the same stability for liquid as a heavier, expensive drum, but at less than two pounds of weight reduces freight costs.

Stateside or offshore?
Schnaars Sr. says that as far as he knows, “we were the only major company that didn’t move production to Mexico in 1995 when NAFTA was signed, and we stayed competitive against the Mexican companies.”

But after the Free Trade Agreement was signed in 2002 and much of American manufacturing moved offshore, primarily to India and China, Schnaars Sr. realized he had to do the same, because of the extraordinary difference in the cost of labor.

“However, we had customers who wanted their bags manufactured in the U.S., and that kept our U.S. factory alive. Those manufacturers consider the higher price they pay for the bags an insurance policy. If there are transportation issues—a dock strike, border closures, a pandemic—they’ll still get their bags.”

Adds Schnaars Jr., “This is an advantage our competitors don’t have. We’re fully in tune with problems our overseas contract plants might have, and when they need help in finding a better way, we can walk into the production plant here where our team’s working, and use a video camera to demonstrate the best way to do it.”

But no matter how innovative the approaches and how excellent the workmanship, the bags which AmeriGlobe produced had one thing in common with all other bulk bags, they were cut-and-sew bags, with their inherent problems. While the work is considered unskilled, Schnaars Jr. says it is in fact highly skilled, time-consuming, and needs intensive training to avoid the potential problems in sewing 1,100 stitches per bag.

Bonding with polypropylene
The solution to these problems is obvious—a non-sewn, fused bag—but it’s something that’s easy to propose and much harder to execute. The notion of a heat-fused bulk bag was not new and many other manufacturers had attempted it but failed. Polypropylene is so inert that there is no good way to bond it, and when they did manage it, they achieved a bond that was only about 10 percent of the strength of the original woven fabric, so no go.

But sometimes the best ideas do come out of the blue. Schnaars Sr. recalls how in 2013 a brilliant engineer they’d hired to build flood mitigation products using polyethylene, began experimenting with ways of strengthening and bonding it, which the company took to the scientists at Dow Chemical.

He describes how a scientist there looked at what the engineer had been doing with the polyethylene, and went quiet, apparently lost in his thoughts. “Then he said, ‘Give me three months, and we’ll do that same thing with polypropylene.’ Three months later, Dow sent us the materials and we tested them. The very first test was successful and that was the birth of fusion in 2014. A whole series of further tests told us it was achievable and feasible.”

These tests are stringent, requiring a performance ratio of five to one from the materials, ensuring, for example, that a bag designed to hold 1,000 pounds can be safely overloaded to hold 5,000 pounds.

And then the company had to solve another series of problems when it set up the first production line in the U.S., an entire 7,500 square-foot room (which has since been modified to be more compact). “The entire process was long, complicated, and expensive, and if someone had told me it was going to cost close to $10 million, I probably wouldn’t have done it,” he says.

“To put that into perspective,” adds Schnaars Jr., we were a company with less than $20 million gross then and gave up all our profits over the last nine years to do this project.”

Since early 2022, the Lafayette plant has been in transition from a cut-and-sew operation to a machine-manufacturing plant where the complex machines with over 1,000 parts are being manufactured for their licensees in four or possibly five countries, including India, China, Brazil, and Mexico.

“We are getting out the word carefully because we don’t want to be overrun with orders we can’t fill,” said Schnaars Sr., noting that two of those lines for one licensee were operational when we spoke in November and that a third one had just joined them on-site where a new building was accommodating the machines. Another line for a second licensee began production on December 1, while equipment for a third licensee is scheduled for May of 2023.

The benefits of fusion
While the development process was long, arduous, and expensive, there are a multitude of benefits to manufacturers of the bags as well as end users.

For example, the process is much quicker and easier. Workers can make the bags in six minutes by folding the woven fabric and sliding it into the heating equipment as opposed to spending more than 20 minutes stitching one bag.

Manufacturers, from bulk food producers to chemical or fertilizer producers, can be confident there is no contamination and no danger of sifting. Shipping costs are less because these new fusion bags weigh 30 percent less than sewn bags. In addition, recyclable bags benefit the environment because the seamless fusion process eliminates the need for liner bags. “Using less of anything is good for the environment,” adds Schnaars Jr.

A big future
Schnaars Jr. believes that in the coming years, AmeriGlobe will be positioned to take over 35 percent of the industry. Currently, the equipment to manufacture one-bag style is on the market, but the goal is to design equipment that will produce all the company’s designs, including the MegaBase®, which poses some difficulty for automation because of its square base.

Still, he’s confident it will be done. “We are David, and we are hiring Goliath to work for us,” he says, referring to the company’s team of engineers. With the new manufacturing facility up and running to produce the equipment, AmeriGlobe will be able to give out more offshore licenses in 2025, but will also continue to manufacture bags in the U.S. “It’s important to us to keep a hand in our products.”

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Axiom Material Handling Solutions (AMHS) joined the Axiom Group of Companies not long ago—and it is excelling. Sister company AXIOM Millwrighting & Fabrication Inc., now Axiom Industrial Solutions, was purchased in 2012 by Joe Sferrazza, Chief Executive Officer and President, and has been in business for over twenty years.

Founded only three years ago and headed up by Mark McGuire, Program Manager, this latest addition to the Axiom group grew to a staff of ten people by the end of its second quarter. By the end of 2021, the team had trebled in size. With a focus on the distribution and e-fulfillment markets, the team manages sophisticated material handling equipment installations. The company counts on a mixed group of millwrights, tradespeople, and in-house trained installers from its large stable of Axiom experts for quality work that stands head and shoulders above the competition.

The company’s customers enjoy prime service delivery with custom fabrication, a dedicated project manager, expert installation and supervision, total robot station layouts for installations, and operational and maintenance aftercare.

AMHS is also proud of being 100-plus people strong, with staff working across North America. As a group of companies, Axiom’s North American presence spans Canada, the United States, and Mexico. Its North American headquarters is in Cambridge, Ontario, and forms part of the international Axiom group. Some of its companies are subsidiaries held by Axiom, while others operate as partners, and this approach has allowed the group to build an impressive and dynamic service network with easily accessible service points.

To stay ahead in the game, service is the company’s main point of difference. AMHS sees its team as its greatest secret to success. “Our trust in one another and the fact that we willingly empower each member of the team—alongside the fact that we maintain a bond of transparency—is important to us. If at any time, somebody feels they are struggling, they can go to somebody else on the team to seek help,” says McGuire.

This approach has been tremendously beneficial. “What stood out about our team during COVID was how we adapted to a dynamic situation. Our willingness to adapt was the key defining feature,” McGuire continues. Instead of closing up shop, this team forged ahead and found ways of bringing projects to fruition and serving customers while following the safety measures the company had in place.

Whatever brief periods of downtime did occur due to market fluctuations around that time were put to good use, identifying any gaps and executing significant upgrades and improvements to facilities, technology, and systems. In addition, the training courses the company introduced on new tools and techniques were complemented with courses in mental health awareness, a timely and open-minded step for reinforcing the company’s positive workplace culture.

This step is very much in line with the company’s original values of taking care of its employees. And the proof is in its staff retention; recently, the company celebrated two employees’ fifteen-year tenures, followed by several employees who will soon be marking ten-year anniversaries with the company. Several people have also been with the firm for over five years, which stands as testimony to how much people enjoy working here.

Axiom works on tremendously large projects that often run for over a year, making the presence and input of long-term staff invaluable. A high staff turnover would be disastrous on such complex projects, which is why the company does everything in its power to take care of its people, McGuire confirms.

“It is a big thing for us to ensure that we have [good staff] retention. It ensures that we can maintain a certain culture, and that we can see people grow within the company and provide them with opportunities within the company to feel challenged, valued and to want to come into work every day,” says McGuire. Fun team-building events are just example of how the company gives thanks to its sterling team of industry experts.

In tandem with its investments in training, the company also took the opportunity to position these new resources in a way that makes its overall operations more efficient. The approach has proved successful, enabling the company to grow its team from fifty in Canada as of August 2022 to an additional team of more than fifty in the United States. “It is a unique opportunity for us to expand across North America and to expand some of our operations in the United States,” McGuire says.

“Within the group of companies, and in AMHS specifically, we are very employee-driven,” he continues. “And we strive to ensure that every employee has the opportunity for growth and training, to learn and to be challenged. That, in turn, creates loyalty for our brand,” he says, pointing out that the company’s wealth resides in its people. “We want to make sure that our employees are treated fairly. It helps people to keep their sanity; it helps to manage stress.”

This is why, at Axiom, people like the idea of the road being long. They get to develop and grow from one position into the next “without the risk of having to manage burnout,” as McGuire says. For this reason, people starting in entry-level positions stand a likely chance to complete three-year projects in higher positions—something the leadership team fully supports. Its leadership team also keeps a close eye on people’s stress and workload levels to ensure that nobody is in danger of burnout.

Another great perk is that the company’s managers benefit from leadership and corporate training via virtual expert coaching sessions. This has brought incredible strength to its teams by giving them the tools they need to perform better. The entire team benefits from being equipped with the knowledge they need to protect and improve overall health and morale and to build resilience.

While the company does not necessarily announce its charitable work, a philanthropic approach underpins the company culture. Axiom team members are well-known for giving generously of their time and effort to help support the much-needed work of many local charities. To this end, the company goes all out to encourage employees in their charitable contributions, in some cases matching staff donations made to such organizations dollar for dollar.

Of course, as world events impact the business landscape, geopolitics and the economic changes that result continue to dictate global material availability and pricing. Along with this, an international call for higher productivity is driving a trend for improved technology. As a result, automation and advanced software have brought about considerable changes to all aspects of this industry. “Automation is increasing productivity, and it is creating new opportunities. We are pretty bullish on that; I do not think that will slow down,” says McGuire. With labour in high demand, all indicators are that he is correct.

Moving ahead, growing and supporting its team is where the company will continue to derive its strength. That includes providing staff with an inclusive, diverse space in which to develop to their best. “We respect this diversity that we see around us,” says McGuire. “And we ultimately use it as a strength because it provides a lot more tools for us to support our employees and build relationships with our customers [while tackling the challenges] that we face.” As online sales and distribution continue to soar, there is no doubt that this company is set to achieve tremendous ongoing success.

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Headquartered in Farmington Hills, Michigan, with additional facilities in Windsor, Ontario (DSC), and Saltillo, Mexico (DSM), the company recently celebrated its thirty-second year in Canada. Here, longstanding relationships and superb results reside in in-depth dialogues, exploring best practices, and ideal outcomes through debate.

Problem solvers
“Design Systems benefits our partners by being in the cost avoidance business. Clients do not need to attempt this type of work on their own. We may not be experts in their products, but we’re experts in finding solutions to their daily issues,” says Aaron Anson, Managing Partner and General Manager. As part of its well-honed service portfolio, DSC is also a full-service engineering consultant and true solver of problems, leveraging advanced planning and program management skills. That typically includes gathering relevant data, analyzing it, and planning the processes that will deliver results.

DSC’s innovation improves its customers’ efficiency and helps firms find the best system sizes for their operations when expanding or consolidating these operations. As a result, investing in the latest technology is imperative. Design Systems prides itself on being so advanced in its field that it was basically fully prepared for pandemic lockdowns, with its teams already accustomed to working at a remove across the vast reach of its operations.

Therefore, when the time came to handle more customers remotely, it was just a matter of reaching for its existing tools and technology to increase online networking capacity.

One such advanced tool is the company’s tried and tested terrestrial 3D-laser scanning suite used to survey and record job site dimensions and SMART factory conversions. While DSC has been employing this method for quite some time, it recently upgraded by adding photogrammetry capabilities to its drones. To use this tool to its full potential, selected staff members must qualify as drone pilots under the Federal Aviation Administration Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems Rule, displaying a sound understanding of the technology and all its finer details including safety regulations, and master the necessary handling skills.

In addition, a Siemens Simulation software suite brings a significant punch to the company’s simulation prowess. DSC can offer virtual commissioning services that can prove out the designed production rates, warehouse operations, or conveyor systems logic before any investments are made in reality on the job site.

The company’s consistent attention to detail and quality care have secured the firm the favour of many an industry leader—many of these having been clients of the company for its entire existence. One such manufacturing customer recently cut the ribbon to a state-of-the-art facility that has been in the making for just over five years. “Every completed project is a proud moment for our team,” says Anson.

Building on teamwork
None of DSC’s accomplishments would be possible without its loyal and skilled team of industry professionals who keep the cogs of this well-oiled machine turning through rain and shine. The average length of tenure of the staff is impressive, with several having been with the company for over twenty years.

To say that Anson is proud of and grateful to his team for their stellar contribution to the company is no understatement. “What makes my staff great is their attention to the customers’ needs. We rely on repeat business. And if our clients do not trust that we are working in their best interest, the partnership suffers. My team is well known for their reliability, dependability, trustworthiness, and timely, quality work,” he says.

DSC’s leaders guide with respect—a respect not only directed toward the individuals it employs but also to the families of those who blow life into its enterprise. There is no question about what comes first in this company; family always wins. People are invited to continue their education, and everyone’s ideas are taken seriously and considered for adoption and development.

DSC also has an impressive capacity for looking toward the future. Every year, it supports the Robotics team, HUBS team #772, at Sandwich Secondary School in LaSalle, Ontario.

“They are consistently a force to be reckoned with in the FIRST Robotics Canada competitions. Participating in local and regional competitions to design robots in a limited timeline, the resulting developed robot is used to complete specified tasks, both remotely and autonomously,” Anson reports.

Faith in the future
The company’s investment in future generations is motivated by its faith in technology and local manufacturing to benefit the community. As COVID-19 exposed the realities of fragile local supply chains, DSC is proud to be a part of the solution by helping to establish the infrastructure needed to return fabrication to North American shores.

Due to its close involvement in the manufacturing market, the company notes strong growth in electric vehicle and hybrid vehicle manufacturing by large, historically strong automotive companies, as well as single-launch brands.

The same goes for all the industries that support such expansion. “There are huge expectations of new jobs and contracts that will bring back a strong financial market for potentially the next decade,” says Anson, pointing out how the natural state of flux in the market will continue to change wherever business happens.

One aspect of these changes is the arrival of well-educated young adults with zero to little experience filling the shoes of retiring mature workers who are taking all their experience with them. The challenge here, Anson notes, is to encourage and establish the same depth of relationships between longstanding clients and the company’s younger arrivals.

“These individuals need to understand that by allowing DSC to do what we do best and allowing their staff to do what they do best, their bottom line will only improve,” he says. Anson believes that cultivating the confidence it takes to communicate the company’s strong brand message and continued dedication to clients is paramount to maintaining trust.

More to come
In terms of growth, DSC is ready and prepared to take on the avalanche of work that currently lends effervescence to local markets. And due to the translatable nature of engineering in processing industries like automotive, appliance, forestry, medical, and food-and-beverage manufacturing, this growth is set to continue for some time.

As it is, the team is forging valuable new relationships that will lead the way to an even more prominent presence in local markets.

To ensure that it moves in tandem with the leading market curve the company is welcoming the future with an equitable balance of bright young minds and seasoned mentors to take DSC forward with heaps of fresh innovation and excellence in execution. While its primary value is firmly rooted in its employees, continuous improvement means DSC saves clients money by working faster and mitigating risk.

Looking toward its evolution, DSC will expand into new areas like the boutique food manufacturing industry, a term Anson is believed to have coined. And by implementing the latest techniques and software in digital data analysis and other technologies to optimize its concept engineering, written specifications for contracted work, designs, drawings, and project management, the company’s future promises to be peachy. Meanwhile, its commitment to conceiving and implementing new ideas and solutions and optimizing existing systems remains steadfast.

In this way, DSC not only meets the future in new ways but also honours its past and the legacy of precision left by the automotive engineers who established it.

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