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Premiere Issue, 2005 Precisely Canadian is produced by the Canadian Machine, Tool, Die & Mould Federation, a Cooperative Initiative of CAMM, CTMA, CPMA and the Mould Makers Council of CPIA.
The Goal of the Federation
is to Address as a Unified Force the Issues Common to Each Member
Association.
Table of Contents
Canada’s MTDM Industry Structures For SuccessED BERNARD Congratulations fellow MTDM colleagues, or should I call you champions. If the tooling industry were a reality show, those of us still in business would be considered the fittest, according to the rules of survival. Until now, we have qualified by outmaneuvering many of our competitors. According to statistics of last June by the United States Department of Labor, over one third of tool and die shops in the U.S. have gone out of business since 2000. Last fall, Matt Coffey, then president of the American National Tooling and Machining Association (NTMA), told guests at an Export Development Canada meeting that since the year 2000, over half of its 3,200 members had vanished. The primary reason was a bankruptcy. Fortunately, the casualties have been much less in Canada, so far. But, just imagine how things might have played out, if the exchange rate with the States had decreased a few years earlier. The tables could have been turned on us. As the majority shareholder of Bernard Mould, I’m all too aware that as MTDM “warriors” we are fighting on numerous fronts simultaneously. Here is my short list, prioritized, of our battles. Compare the list to your own.
The really good news is that there are champions within our governments that understand the value of our sector, and who are sincerely trying to help us. And, it seems that, as with other crisis, the ability to communicate is our greatest asset. It is extremely important then for us to work with our representatives to develop solutions. Here’s why: Thanks to our friends at the Canadian Consulate in Detroit, the Ontario Ministry of Economic Development and Trade, and Industry Canada, to name just three, a Great Lakes Manufacturing Council has been formed. At a recent council forum, quite a few useful statistics were presented. For example: The population of the Great Lakes Region in 2003 was 28.4% of the U.S. total. Ontario’s gross product manufacturing exceeds that of any Great Lakes state. We, the tool makers, need to appreciate our importance to the national economy of Canada as well. (However,) the events now taking place in our MTDM industry are not cyclical. The many changes are without precedent and require your participation to preserve our standard of living that we have come to enjoy, and expect for ourselves, and for our children. Do your part. Get involved with your associations. Become active on committees. Invest in the “Initiatives for Automotive Innovation.” Join with your manufacturing colleagues to work with federal, provincial, and municipal governments, and our educational partners, to make the changes that we need, in order to not just survive but to prosper. I’d like to hear your comments and would like to know if you have other concerns on your list that I’ve overlooked. Through your Canadian Machine, Tool, Die and Mould Federation, (the Federation) we can address these concerns as a large, unified group. Your feedback and help will be significant to our success. With everyone’s support and involvement we can outperform rivals. Make the decision to attend the meetings of a Federation’s member association; call an association board member or staff to let them know you are interested in getting involved. I believe that our Canadian culture gives us an advantage to pull together in ways that can’t happen in other countries. Protect your investment and get involved.
Industry Acceptance Shows CPTC Grads Are Well TrainedThere’s over a ten-year track record of success for the Canadian Plastics Training Centre (CPTC). The Toronto-area facility, now affiliated with Humber College, has been providing the plastics industry in Canada with highly trained staff since 1993. Industry acceptance of the grads from its relatively new Mould and Die Design Program reinforces the value and need for the centre. Within six weeks after graduating, 50% of the students had jobs.
The program requires a full academic year with two semesters. As a postgraduate certificate, applicants must have a mechanical engineering degree or diploma. They may be accepted if they are certified as either a mould maker or tool and die maker.
Students come to the program with work experience in design or from an area of manufacturing. The program has turned out to be very attractive to foreign-trained graduates in mechanical engineering who are looking for Canadian credentials to help move into the professional job market in Canada.
The program teaches future designers the fundamentals of design for injection mould, blow mould, extrusion die and hot runner systems. The focus of the program is on injection moulds. To round out a student’s training, additional courses are offered in plastic materials, processing, product design, mould materials and machining.
Industry Leaders Recognized by CPIAIn early May, the commitment of three individuals to Canada's plastics industry was recognized by the Canadian Plastics Industry Association. The awards were part of an innovative luncheon that included briefings on key topics affecting the plastics industry and the association’s Annual General Meeting. Anton Mudde, president, Baytech Plastics in Midland, Ontario, received the CPIA Leader of the Year Award. Faris Shammas, former vice president, Industry Competitiveness at CPIA, was presented with the CanPlast Award. Shammas is now a senior advisor, Manufacturing Sectors, with the Ontario Ministry of Economic Development and Trade. Finally but by no means last, Robert Schad, Husky Injection Molding Systems Ltd., honored many times for his broad range of interests and business success, was presented with the 2005 Life Achievement Award.
Launch of NSERC/GM Canada Industrial Research ChairFunding from General Motors of Canada, the Science and Engineering Research Canada (NSERC), the Canada Research Chairs (CRC) and École Polytechnique will provide Professor François Trochu and his team with more than $3 million over the next five years to develop and help commercialize new technologies for moulding lightweight composite materials that are in high volumes that are cost competitive for the automotive industry. General Motors will contribute $1.25 million, while NSERC and the CRC will contribute $1 million each.
One of the main objectives of the new Research Chair will be to demonstrate the industrial feasibility of a new flexible injection moulding process known as "Polyflex" which was developed by Dr. Trochu and Edu Ruiz, a new faculty member at École Polytechnique. It is anticipated that Polyflex will provide a radically innovative and cost-effective way of overcoming many of the deficiencies currently associated with composite manufacturing.
"Polyflex permits a highly controlled increase in the manufacturing speed of thermosetting polymer panels reinforced by continuous glass or carbon fibres," says Professor Trochu. "Many different parameters can be controlled, most notably the flexibility of the mould wall and the temperature of the resin. Polyflex will enable the manufacture of more complex and better-integrated parts. The challenge is to accelerate the development of this new injection technology to eventually compete with currently existing processes involving metal sheet stamping."
Series Production Tooling Takes Advantage of DMLSDirect metal laser-sintering (DMLS) has been used since 1995 to produce rapid tooling. The method is increasingly used to create series production tooling. As a layer-manufacturing method, the technology offers such benefits as fast, automatic operation, an absence of tool path generation or electrode design, and the possibility to integrate conformal cooling channels for optimized tool performance.
The range of applications has increased to cover methods for batch-size, optimized manufacturing in all phases of the product life cycle.
An example for the successful application of DMLS comes from the service bureau FIT. The service bureau was able to offer fast development and economic, small series production of a complex joystick steering system for a construction vehicle. The joystick assembly consists of 15 plastic parts as well as electronics, mechanics and switches.
The requirements were:
For one of the plastic components, FIT decided to produce the 5,000 parts directly on a plastic laser-sintering system with polyamide material. For the other 14 components, injection moulding in PA 6.6 GF30 was required. For these cases, FIT built the tooling using DMLS.
To produce the complete tooling for the parts within just a few weeks, it was necessary to optimize both the tooling concept and the workflow. Each cavity was therefore designed so that a minimum volume of material had to be laser-sintered.
Indeed the total volume for all tools in the project was just 3.1 litres. The cavities were mounted directly onto the tooling plates instead of inserting them into machined pockets. (FIT calls these "onserts" as opposed to "inserts.”)
By choosing laser sintering as a production method, FIT was able to reduce the costs for this project by 50% over conventional procedures.
Asian Show Presented Research InitiativesThe Association for Manufacturing Technology used IMTS last year to present the research efforts of several organizations that might otherwise go unnoticed by manufacturers. A similar approach was used at the recent ASEANPLAS trade fair in Singapore. With official support from Singapore’s A*Star Plastic Moulding Task Force, an ASEAN Plastic Technology Showcase brought together ten companies and three research institute. Highlights of the showcase include:
Accessing Canada's SR&ED Tax Incentive Program Gets EasierFor many years, Canada’s tool, die, and mould makers’ high level of technical sophistication was sufficient to maintain their global competitiveness. Research programs and facilities were generally ignored, or not needed, with the common perception that excessive paperwork was a turnoff. Now that many countries have a MTDM industry, there’s a pressing need to attain even more of a unique status.
One solution is through the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency’s SR&ED program which offers the potential to recoup more than half of your research efforts.
But there’s the concern for that paperwork. Well, for the past three years, led by the Candian Plastics Industry Association, representatives from CAMM in Windsor, CTMA in Cambridge, the Mould Makers Council of CPIA, Toronto, and Quebec mould makers, have worked with the agency to produce a three-part "Plastics Materials, Processing, Equipment & Tool Making" guidance document. This document clarifies the application of the SR&ED legislation and associated regulations for the plastics and MTDM industries.
The first part of the document was finished in the spring of 2004 and deals primarily with issues that concern plastics processors. Numerous examples help understand the program.
The second part of the document, Section 5, deals with moulds, tools and dies. A CPIA/CRA task force, chaired by Tom Meisels (FGL Precision Works Ltd.), wrote this section. Two Quebec mould makers made important contributions and George Iato (DBM Reflex), Andre Rochette and Sarah Bégin (Rocand Inc.) helped publicize the work in Quebec.
The information in Section 5 has been carefully arranged so that it is easy to understand. These general principles can be applied as well to other SR&ED projects involving larger items, such as equipment or other products that would also normally be sold when development work is successfully completed.
The task force is now updating the examples and showing how to answer the new questions in the recently revised CRAT661 form.
A third task force has started work on the final section of the guidance document. This section will focus on continuous processes, and will deal with issues such as validation, feasibility studies, prototypes and continuous improvement.
As a Canadian business you can claim many of the costs incurred for SR&ED during your fiscal year. These costs could include:
Some work, such as market research or quality control, does not qualify.
Time to Evaluate ‘Doing’ the EuroMold ShowThe success of the Canadian presence at EuroMold 2004 last fall is an encouraging starting point for companies that are well aware of this annual event in Frankfurt, but so far somewhat reluctant to take advantage of the opportunities from the show. This year’s EuroMold takes place November 30 to December 3.
The three primary Canadian organizations that participated in the 2004 event were the Canadian Plastics Industry Association, the Canadian Machine, Tool, Die & Mould Federation, and Industry Canada.
When you do go around EuroMold, it will quickly become apparent that the show attracts many companies that are anything but “large.” Many smaller companies are quite keen to show off their special expertise to an international audience.
Canadian exhibitors described the show as a “write business” event and company brochures attracted strong attention. EuroMold is then a show that should be considered as an important approach to expanding your markets.
Compact Mould President Explains What It Takes To Be a Global PlayerCompact Mould Ltd. of Woodbridge, Ontario, carries out a wide range of capabilities in extrusion blow moulds, stretch blow moulds, injection stretch blow moulds and injection blow moulds. It's easy enough to make up a long list of your capabilities but another matter when it comes to being able to provide those capabilities with a high degree of expertise.
"We maximized those capabilities by adding two plants to complement the Toronto facility: a plant in the United States and then a plant in Mexico. Our physical presence in North America gives us first-hand access to our markets," says Miguel Petrucci, company president.
"The three plants also give us a high degree of flexibility in that we can move workloads around to even out the demands on equipment and personnel, and obviously accommodate our customers' deadlines."
"The facility in the States started in 1987; the Mexican plant not long after the implementation of NAFTA. Each plant operates under a slightly different name but most of the ownership resides in Canada."
What's been the biggest change for the company and its markets over the past five years?
"Well, first, a lot of amalgamation of our customers has certainly been evident, as has the number no longer in business. As for Compact, I'd say that the three plants have become more independent. Each plant has a manager who reports directly to me."
"We've found as well that it was more effective to not respond to problems, or concerns, with a knee-jerk reaction. The fluctuation of currencies is a very obvious example.”
"As for all of that 'off shore, low-cost competition,' I think certain plateaus, levels of stability, must be in place before we can undertake a proper evaluation on how to deal with this issue. Right now, the issue of low-cost competition is too volatile to implement a specific approach."
What are some of the hurdles Compact had to overcome to achieve its current status?
"We really didn't have a master plan to achieve our current status. It's been more of a constant improvement in various areas. To acquire long-term customers, and suppliers, means you have to have an extensive background in your field. You also need to evolve, from a shop, into a business. However, that shop mentality is always very important so that you don't completely loose it."
How has your relationship with your customers changed? Are you, for example, interfacing more with the end-user?
"With the shorter lead times, there's a lot more interfacing with customers and even with the various software/web programs, it's still very helpful to be close to the customer. As we grew, acquiring new customers, we made sure as well that our high level of customer service was still a priority."
"Smaller accounts are the largest percentage of our customers, but I'd say most of our volume comes from the larger companies and there's certainly a difference in the way you communicate and deal with the two."
"Sometimes, with larger companies for example, you are not just dealing with more people. You are dealing with a hierarchy of people very concerned about the smallest detail. The process of communicating with the larger company can sometimes be far more formal. The smaller owner/manager accounts base most of their decisions on what makes business sense and what is more practical."
How important are the company's equipment and technological skills for its success?
"It really comes down to how you go about making a mould, not making the mould. You really don't need the latest technology to do the job. At Compact, we let a new technology settle down a bit before we consider acquiring the equipment.
"However, in the United States, depreciation rates have encouraged the purchase of new machinery more so in the last year. And, it is true; a piece of machinery can be out of date in five years. Maybe the time will come when one year is the lifespan for certain machinery, depreciated in one year."
How do you ensure your personnel can maximize the capabilities of their machinery?
"We do a kind of ramp up process in which we start the new employee at a lower level of skills and then move forward. We have been working with the Humber College for skilled personnel and I think we could get more help from them if we came up with a kind of blueprint on what the industry needed."
In your niche, what process or technology seems to offer the biggest gains to produce tooling faster, and with a high quality?
"Having the 'latest and the greatest' is really not the answer. To achieve that competitive edge means having systems in place. The output from one function shouldn't be held up by another function in the mould building process."
How much of an educator is Compact in advising a moulder on the technical merits or viability of a product?
"Our relationship with our customers has been to see how we could help them improve their success and profitability. So yes, we are very proactive on how we can best advise in the overall process."
Compact has participated in a number of Canadian pavilions at various trade shows over the past ten years. What was the initial motivation to use a Canadian pavilion?
"I went to the K show in Duesseldorf in 1983 where I visited the Canadian pavilion. I saw a few colleagues who asked me why I wasn't exhibiting. Eventually we were exhibiting at the K, NPE, Plast-Ex and Plast-Imagen on a regular basis."
"For a while we exhibited on our own but found there was more value to be part of a Canadian pavilion. There really are advantages to show off your capabilities with others. You are perceived as part of your country's industry. Exhibiting with others gives you a certain kind of credibility and a team effort mentality and satisfaction, and being part of a much bigger interest - our industry, Ontario, Canada .... Not just your company."
How has this participation in the Canadian pavilions affected your business then?
When you exhibit at a Canadian pavilion you find you are looking at new business opportunities far beyond your own geography. You also realize you are part of a global village. Having a presence within a Canadian pavilion is a big help then in stepping into that global village."
But why exhibit at all, when you have a website?
"The web for us at least is really not the 'latest and greatest' way of bringing in business. We might get a request from a potential client but we first need to know who is contacting us. We want to know something about the person and company making the inquiry."
If you were to offer advice to a company that wanted to improve its competitive status, what would you talk about?
"Very, very briefly, I'd suggest ensuring your internal systems were in order; get your measurement capabilities in order; and, certainly, know where you made or lost money. Procedures and organization are just as important as your company's technical skills and you need to make this part of your day-to-day life, and make improvements each day. "
Is a status, as a small company, a limiting factor in competing globally?
"From the perspective of Compact, we really aren't a small company. So placing your company on some kind of scale in terms of its size is really a relative matter. How big are your competitors for example? So, for what we do, we can consider our company large; for the world stage we are 'small' so we need our plastic mould associations and trade shows to carry us 'globally'."
Has the ISO standard helped the company to compete globally?
"We have in the Toronto plant an ISO 9001-2000 which is updated every year. The truth is we really haven't been using it as a marketing tool. Most of the value is internal. With this international standard we can engage in continuous improvements which makes us 'better' positioned to compete and understand global opportunities or global competition."
Is funding still a major hurdle to overcome?
"We've been at this game for 26 years and find Canada better than other countries to tap into capital. A while back, the Federal Business Development Corp. was an active player in helping you bring in new equipment and that was a major help for Compact at the time."
Are sales agents in other countries rather tricky to manage? Is it better to have someone dedicated to you?
"Our experience is that selling moulds is different so using a sales agent is difficult."
One final question, on the Brand Canada Program. Some of the pavilions by different countries are rather basic. How so then is the Canadian pavilion?
"Over the past three years I believe, the federal government has used a Brand Canada Program that provided additional funds to enhance the Canadian pavilions at the international shows: Plast-Imagen 2002, NPE 2003 and K 2004. We had the use of the Brand Canada logo that helped identify our strengths. There was also a lounge that helped encourage visitors to actually stop and discuss their project with you."
"All in all, our Canadian pavilions have been very professional, on par with the booths you see at the major suppliers, and perhaps better because we are sharing resources, people, space, logistics etc. Plus our people and the other companies act as if we are representing our industry and country, not just our company."
"The high quality of your image (due to the Brand Canada Program) definitely helps establish your presence and capabilities to the global village and should be continued."
Great Lakes Manufacturing Initiative Now a Firm RealityThe Great Lakes Manufacturing Forum held in early March brought together over 300 individuals and organizations from across the Great Lakes region. The overall goal of the event was to build a foundation for regional collaboration on issues important to the future of manufacturing. A Council for Great Lakes Manufacturing has been created to carry forward the Forum's agenda. Note that:
One observation stands out from the Forum: that the manufacturing “storyline” is out of date and there is a need to redefine manufacturing as part of the knowledge economy.
The summary concerns four areas: image, workforce, innovation and border and logistics. Ultimately, findings from the Forum relating to these areas will drive the work of the Council for Great Lakes Manufacturing.
Keep in mind that the Council for Great Lakes Manufacturing concerns all players in the TDM industry and will be of value to all as well. It is not just a Windsor/Detroit-area concern.
Last WordAt last, the premier issue of the Federation’s newsletter, Precisely Canadian. It’s a good name for your newsletter, quickly telling your suppliers and customers who you are.
Out of all the many changes that have and still are taking place to your industry, I think the biggest change is the fact you now operate as a business, not just a shop.
Much of the content of Precisely Canadian will help fulfill that overall theme, obviously with a focus on the issues addressed by the Federation.
As you went through the newsletter, you came upon the Initiatives for Automotive Innovation. Horst Schmidt of Build-A-Mold has been one of the pioneers in bringing forward IAI and gave a very understandable explanation of its benefits the other night to members of CPIA's Mould Makers Council. Now it's your turn to advance the initiative to the next phase.
I see managing and delegating as two key attributes to being a business owner. But so is having a presence in your industry beyond your shop.
As Ed Bernard says, “get involved.” Waiting for others to fix the problems won’t work. There are just too many challenges and issues to address.
Shortly after you receive this newsletter, you’ll also be able to read it again from the Federation’s website, www.mtdmfederation.ca. A database will hold all issues so you’ll have a resource specific to your interests.
Just as this copy was being written, a notice came in about Plante & Moran's North American Mould Manufacturers Benchmarking Survey. You are encouraged to participate and if you do so before the end of June you will receive the results at no cost.
You will find the survey at www.plantemoran.com. It's good for you and it's good for the Canadian industry as part of North America.
While you are on the Internet, check out ExpoPlast in Montreal this fall. It's a CPIA event. You will also find details on the upcoming Chinaplast show.
As you can see this is a newsletter that is industry supported. Try the links from the ads.
Now it’s time to start the next issue, due July 12. In total, there will be five issues of Precisely Canadian this year.
Oh, to have additional key managers receive this newsletter use this link: www.mtdmfederation.ca/newsletters.
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Disclaimer: All information in this publication
is accurate to the best of our knowledge. |
