Suppliers face need for new approach
Chris Vander Doelen
Windsor Star
AUBURN HILLS, Mich. - Just as Detroit's Big Three are remaking themselves to resemble Japanese companies, machine, tool, die and mould-making companies will have to learn to love lean manufacturing in order to survive, one of the industry's leading suppliers says.
Yet a lot of Windsor and Detroit's top MTDM companies "don't want to hear" what they could be doing differently to make themselves more efficient, says Tony Pekalski, president of Auburn Hills based Single Source Technologies Inc.
Five years into "the crunch" that has seized the segment since China stormed into world markets, bankrupting dozens of weaker, smaller and undercapitalized firms on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border, most companies are willing to invest in new equipment and training in order to stay competitive.
But too many of them are ignoring two of the three main components of success, says Pekalski, a former mould maker whose SST Inc. now equips tool, die and mould companies and teaches them how to compete internationally.
Technology is only one leg on the tripod of success, he said Wednesday during a tooling trade show here that attracted about 600 companies from the region. The show continues today.
The other two legs of the tripod are creating mutually supportive relationships - such as those enjoyed between Toyota, Honda and their intensely loyal supply chain - and lean manufacturing.
While tool and mould companies may not be able to remake their relationships with Detroit's Big Three overnight, they can certainly find savings in their operations, Pekalski says.
"There is so much waste internally," he said of most MTDM companies he sees - particularly in the field of two-dimensional cutting processes. Often, companies ignore 2-D cutting to focus on three-dimensional work, he said, throwing away significant savings and cost advantages they could gain on competitors.
Over the past year, SST has taken people from nearly a dozen Windsor-area MTDM companies on tours of Japanese plants to convince them of the benefits of going lean. What they learn usually surprises them, says Keith Kauzlarich, vice-president of the company.
They found "that our machining is equal to or even better than what the Japanese do," Kauzlarich said. "But they're more efficient and organized than we are -- they've much better than the companies in North America. "
Japanese organizational know-how can translate into 95 per cent "up" time for their cutting machines, and eliminates many of the hours wasted in North American shops as tools or moulds sit between operations.
Most Canadian MTDM companies, at least, appear to have recognized the competitive threats arrayed against them and are moving to keep up with the global pack. "The Canadians are so united - they have much greater unity than over here," and higher awareness of the risks, Pekalski said.
Eventually, the entire MTDM industry will turn itself inside out to compete globally, he said. Like it or not, "being lean is being forced upon them," Pekalski says.
© The Windsor Star 2005
