2013 State of the Industry: Robert St. Aubin, Bystronic

Integrating this data into the automation of the set-up in both laser cutting and metal forming is becoming the key to producing large numbers of low volume jobs and, when combined with material handling automation, allowing parts to be made without operator intervention, in unattended “lights out” scenarios.

CRITICAL ISSUES
I have the following concerns for this coming year:

• Capacity requirements will shrink with less work available in 2013 that there was in 2012.
• Fabricators will need to find and quote more smaller jobs in the future to maintain their revenue streams. Quicker, more accurate quoting will have to be done and the only way to do this is with automated systems.
• Manufacturers must continue to find ways to reduce their costs. This will require reducing production lead time and eliminating waste in manufacturing.
• Manufacturers will have to differentiate themselves to attract new customers and beat their competitors in very tough markets.

Some shops will thrive in the coming times, some will not. How does a shop assure that they will be among the most successful?

• Fabricators must expand their customer base in order to maintain revenues and work hours. This will only be done by finding new customers or taking work away from other competitors who do work for current mutual customers.
• In order to find and quote more jobs accurately, fabricators will have to automate their entire process, from quoting to programming to set-up to manufacturing. Only if they create consistent manufacturing processes without variations introduced by that most variable of all issues, human nature, will they be able to meet their goals.
• Manufacturers will need to reduce production lead time from the moment they receive and order until they are paid for it. They will have to eliminate waste in manufacturing and do more in less time to assure that they can then do more jobs in less time. They will do this by integrating their entire manufacturing process and treating the movement of data in information as importantly as the movement of material. Efficient data transfer and automating the set-up are the two areas of greatest cost savings for today’s fabricators.
• Manufacturers will have to look to systems that will give them a significant competitive advantage vs. simply growth of capacity. People can no longer replace a machine with one that is essentially the same. They must look at every machine purchase as an opportunity to gain competitive advantage. And they can do this by not buying what they already have, but buying what they don’t have: machines that can do things that they cannot do today.

PERSONAL INSIGHTS
In the coming years there will be shops that barely survive and there will be shops that absolutely thrive. Making the decision as to which shop you will become depends upon your commitment to change to meet the challenges of tomorrow.

Yesterday’s jobs of large numbers of simple parts are gone forever. How will the shops of tomorrow thrive? By positioning themselves to be able to provide their customers with the best possible parts in the shortest amount of time at the least possible price. How will they do this? By looking at every area of their business and managing it on a holistic basis, finding ways to continually take out cost and reduce production lead time. If they can do this, they will be successful in any economic environment.

Bystronic Inc., North America, 200 Airport Road  Elgin, IL 60123, 847-214-0300, Fax: 847-214-0299, www.bystronic.us.