Last night, the CastExpo’08 show floor was a mess. Less than 24 hours until the metalcasting masses were to flood in, the aisles between booths were bare, and crates lay open and strewn about.

The exhibitors were a lot closer to being ready for throngs of casters than it seemed. Today, with surprisingly little last minute preparation and scuttling about, they had in place the most technologically advanced metalcasting equipment available in the world. The machines on display were clean, quiet (relatively speaking) and running in top condition. In addition to their products, the metalcasting industry suppliers provided elaborate seating areas, stages, rotating marquees and even video games.

Could your facility look like CastExpo tomorrow? Right now, the U.S. metalcasting industry is like the exhibition floor on the night before the show opens. CastExpo has bare stone floors; our facilities have a thin veneer of grime covering every surface. CastExpo has unfinished exhibits; our facilities have processes we just haven’t gotten around to optimizing.

It seems like there’s a lot of work to do, but by doing just a few things to improve the look, feel and workflow of our facilities—institute a documented cleaning regimen, perform routine maintenance to keep old equipment running like new, eliminate bottlenecks as soon as they’re discovered—we can get ready by the time our customers come rushing through the doors.

There’s no time to waste. Your show starts tomorrow.

In a recent visit to a metalcasting facility, we asked our tour guide if the company was sending anyone to CastExpo this year. His answer was yes, and we exchanged our impressions of the first CastExpo we each had attended. The metalcaster described his amazement at the extent of technology exhibited on the show floor. For someone used to seeing equipment smeared with the unavoidable grime of day-to-day operation, years into its service, the show was an eye-opener. Metalcasters often describe their job as “playing in sand all day,” but it downplays the technological edge of the process.

The metalcasting process has been around for thousands of years, and by simple description—pour molten metal into a mold, wait for it to solidify—it’s fundamentally the same. So we forget that our industry, with roots in the foundation of mankind, is still a modern industry that is constantly affected by advancements in science and driven by cutting edge programming. Our industry is nearly as old as dirt, but it maintains its relevance. Events like CastExpo remind us of its magic, too.

Is this a trend? We’ve spotted two well-known retail manufacturers featuring the metalcasting process in their marketing material.

Golf club maker Ping cast its golf club manufacturing operations, including its investment casting facility, in a costarring role in a new television ad alongside professional golfer Lorena Ochoa, who is the number one ranked golfer on the LPGA Tour. You can see the TV ad here. In another ad on the website, Ochoa is reading a letter from a customer in front of wax investment trees.

Ping’s Dolphin Precision Investment Castings, Phoenix, Ariz., which is shown in the advertisement, is in the process of installing two titanium vacuum casting lines in addition to its current investment casting capabilities. It estimates the lines will be in production by Fall 2008.

Rolex also is in the production-in-advertisement game. A marketing video on their website shows shots of molten metal poured into molds as part of the precise process of creating the luxury watches. The video is featured here.

A lot of effort is spent by our staff to show the benefits of the casting process to casting purchasers and designers. Castings are often behind the scenes, and part of our job is to connect the behind-the-scenes part with the end-result. Metalcasting facilities do the same with their customers and prospective customers.

But how often do you market your casting process to your employees? They are the ones making the part. Do they know what it’s for? Do they know why it is being cast rather than produced in another manufacturing process? Maybe that elevator part isn’t seen by office workers going to the 10th floor, but the molder in the casting facility will know it was partly due to his effort that the elevator car has the ability to stop safely at the correct floor.

In the past couple of weeks, the editors here have visited metalcasting facilities in Ohio, Ontario and Arizona. Each facility communicates with its employees in various ways, whether it is through weekly meetings or television feeds in the break rooms with company announcements. These avenues are prime opportunities to show your employees how a casting will be used in the real world.

Today, many metalcasters still refer to themselves as foundrymen and to their plants as foundries. The problem is that when a group of casting buyers was asked what images came to mind when they heard the term foundry, they responded with: “dark, smoky, dangerous, fire, flames…”  Not exactly peaches and cream. Is this the image you want your customers to have when they think of you?

We need to move, as an industry, to the terms "metalcasting facilities" and "metalcasters" as much as possible. We’ve been using those terms for years in the magazine. Similarly, metalcasters should consider calling their products engineered cast components rather than castings or metal castings. We need to begin to focus on our process and the capabilities of our process because this is what sets us apart and labels us as unique to our customer base. We need to train our customers to think of us as high-tech manufacturers producing engineered products, so we can begin to eliminate the commodity buying mentality of our customers that is killing our profit margin.

MODERN CASTING currently is developing a series of stories about the effects of climate change legislation pending in Congress. The details of the legislation can get confusing, but a recent plan by a regional organization makes the whole thing easier to understand.

As is detailed in the first installment of the MC article (“The Climate Is Changing”), the Senate is considering several bills that would limit the amount of carbon dioxide manufacturing facilities can emit. If the facilities exceed the prescribed amounts, they’ll be penalized. Probably monetarily.

According to a New York Times article, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District in San Francisco wants to cut right to the chase. The organization can by state law institute a regulation that would charge businesses several cents per ton of carbon dioxide emitted.

It will be May 21 before we learn whether the San Francisco group exercises its legal right, or whether the court presents a challenge to that right. For now, what we can take away from this is a microcosm of the debate on Capitol Hill. You pay for what you emit.

The metalcasting business is full of fire, smoke and sparks, which makes for good pictures but doesn’t necessarily paint the industry in a good light, particularly when it is covered in the media. However, many metalcasting facilities do a good job of using their local newspapers to show a different side of what they do.

Pennsylvanian metalcaster John Wright Co., part of Donsco Inc., is a prime example. The company is the top business story today on Lancaster Online,an online news source from several newspapers in the Lancaster, Pa., area. The article extols Wright Co.’s efforts to be environmentally-friendly, focusing on sand and metal recycling, the company’s conversion to electric furnaces, and the valuable products produced on its shop floor.

Going green is a sexy article topic right now, and metalcasters have been recycling from the beginning. Now’s a great time to lift the dark and smoky veil on the industry to reveal a lean, modern business producing complex, engineered parts.

Every year, we are faced with new regulations and laws from our government that make it harder to do business. We fight them through proper channels, but ultimately we must play on the field in front of us.

We can’t say the same about our government’s choices of suppliers, as we must try to alter that field. Whether the government is local or federal, and whether the product is a manhole cover or a transmission case for a tank, we must demand that our government purchase its goods from domestic suppliers.

Recent articles on New York City buying manhole covers from India and Airbus winning military aircraft orders over Boeing have focused the spotlight on this issue, and we, as manufacturers, must continue to push it on all levels of government. It is just as important to our economy for every Anytown, U.S.A., to buy domestically as it is for New York City.

If we want to turn around the slow decline of U.S. manufacturing, we need to regain all of the business of our biggest customer—our local and federal government. Take the time to ask your leaders how their purchasing decisions are made; it is worth the effort.

How bad could the car market be? According to a recent New York Times article, “Dismal Year Is Forecast for Car Sales,” the answer is: worse than we thought.

Common sense told us that the current economic downturn would cause car sales to take a dive. Now the numbers are starting to trickle in, and the Big Three American automakers are corroborating the stories we’ve heard about a lack of consumer confidence. People simply aren’t buying cars.

In addition to the low numbers reported so far this year, the auto industry has weathered labor disputes, and metalcasters have seen work stoppages as a result. But what we haven’t seen, judging by Bill Vlasic’s reporting, is the bottom of this fall.

Even carmakers’ conservative estimates at the outset of the year were too high, Vlasic writes, citing industry forecasters that have cut their estimates to fewer than 15.5 million vehicle sales in 2008.

Vlasic consoles his audience with the notion that incentives for car buyers should be plentiful, but this will be little consolation for an audience of metalcasters, even those who don’t serve the automotive industry.

The word innovation gets tossed around a lot in business, but keeping innovation in focus is difficult when you’re in the day-to-day grind of meeting customer orders. The result is that a majority of a company’s innovation comes from its suppliers, but if you’re relying on your suppliers to provide your only source of innovation, you’re missing the pearl in a bag of marbles.

A press release that came across our desks earlier this week reminded the editorial staff that many of the best innovations come from people within an organization. In the release, L A Aluminum Co. recognized one of its employees, Scott Solomon, for originating, creating and implementing a device that allows a molding operator to install multiple threaded steel inserts into a mold simultaneously. Previously, each insert was place in the mold one at a time, forcing the operator to expose himself to an 800F mold for several minutes while placing between 5 and 36 inserts. The line produces castings on fuel cells for military and commercial use, accounting for 15-20% of the company’s annual sales. The new device improved the efficiency of that line by 30%.

L A Aluminum awarded its employee with $500 and proudly sent the word out about the accomplishment.

How are you encouraging your employees to innovate?