The PMPA Business Trends Report for March 2014 hit 129, a new high for the indicator of precision machining industry shipments in US and Canada.
67 companies provided data on shipments as well as first shift hours scheduled and sentiment for three months going forward for sales, profitability, lead times and employment.
“The March 2014 PMPA Business Trends Report shows that our precision machining industry has reached a record level of shipments, but sentiments softened across all areas that we measure. While we show positive levels of hours worked, shipments, overtime and profitability, each of these indicators has softened to a less bullish level than in January and February. Our indicators suggest perhaps moderation in demand for our products in the months ahead.”
Read the full report here
Author: Miles Free
PMPA member North Easton Machine Company Incorporated is taking an active role in solving the skilled workforce issues it faces. Jon Holbrook announced last week that North Easton Machine will be receiving $41,500 to help train 25 employees and create job opportunities for 4 additional staff over the next two years. This project is funded by a Workforce Training Fund grant through the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development. The grant program is administered by the Commonwealth Corporation.
North Easton Machine Company is receiving one of sixty-six training grants awarded by the State of Massachusetts. The grants cover employers with training for a combined 4,631 employees and the creation of 453 jobs over the course of the next two years. About North Easton Machine Co. North Easton Machine Company, Inc. an ISO 9001 certified contract manufacturer providing precision screw machine, turned, and milled parts to engineers and purchasers from a wide variety of markets. Founded in 1964, by Donald Holbrook, in the garage of his family’s home, today the business is housed in a 15,000 square foot facility. North Easton Machine Company is a state of the art CNC turning and milling company. 
North Easton Machine utilizes the latest CNC Swiss, CNC Lathe, and CNC Milling machines for superior speed, precision, and versatility. North Easton Machine proudly serves the bio-medical, microwave, high-tech, musical and electronic industries, among others, with an emphasis on high quality products and exceptional customer service. PMPA members are actively engaging their communities to try to solve the skills gap. For info on skills training in your area, check out the PMPA Comprehensive Job Training Database
The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that the SEC Conflict minerals rule violates first amendment rights to free speech.
PMPA was an amicus party on the original filing.
We will keep you apprised as new developments emerge.
Guest post by Frances Brunelle, at Accelerated Buy Sell Blog
I was really impressed with her thinking- and the fact that she offers a solution.
Last week I attended the quarterly meeting of the NJTMA. The new president of the association, Mr. Alan Haveson, asked the audience by a show of hands, how many were in need of skilled workers. Almost every hand in the room went up. As I looked around the room, I noticed that a majority of the business owners were sporting grey, salt & pepper or white hair. Mr. Haveson went on to talk about the responsibility to transfer knowledge to the next generation before it’s too late. That night I enjoyed catching up with some of my long time customers. They all talked about how hard it is to find good qualified machinists. For a few seconds I wondered how the industry got itself into this position. I answered my own question in my head because I’ve read enough books, authored enough articles and been entrenched in the industry long enough to know.
This didn’t happen over night. It was slow and steady. It happened one student at a time, being told that manufacturing was not a worthy profession. It happened in almost every high school across the country, as guidance counselors encouraged other types of careers.
We, as a society, allowed the image of US manufacturing to be tarnished.
We didn’t speak up. We didn’t allow our voices to be heard. We allowed our collective paradigm to shift away from the idea that making things here at home is a good and worthy profession. When did graduating college with a mountain of debt and a degree for something for which one can’t find a job become the norm?
The whole situation reminds me of the story of how DeBeers altered the way many nations looked at diamond engagement rings over 
the course of a generation. In 1967 only about 5% of Japanese women sported a diamond engagement ring. In 1981 the figure rose to about 60%. How did DeBeers accomplish this? The same way they did in every other country, through advertising. Through relentless advertising over multiple media, the rare became the norm and a new paradigm was created for the furtherance of the company’s bottom line.
Are you asking what diamonds have to do with a generation of US students rejecting manufacturing as a viable career? Was this rejection the paradigm of generations past? Of course not! It was slow and steady encouragement and “advertising,” by an industry that would make more money based on student’s choices. Before I inspire a bunch of hate mail, I am NOT saying that traditional four-year colleges are bad. What I’m saying is that we all must keep in mind that the secondary education system is a business that seeks its own perpetuation. Colleges are a business just like DeBeers that have a vested interest in an entire population viewing what they provide as an absolute must. I think that it’s smart to question the “norms” in society. Don’t think so? Where are the jobs today? How many folks do you know have their adult children living with them, because they can’t find employment after college? How fast would these kids find a job if they knew how to program a CNC machining center?
So how do we fix this? We didn’t get here over night, and this won’t be fixed overnight. But it can be a slow and steady storm. An army of people who work in manufacturing and supporting industries speaking, writing, advertising and advocating for the industry. It starts with people like Al Haveson challenging the membership of a State Manufacturing Association to do their part to pass the baton to the next generation. It starts with folks like Anthony LaMastra, former president of the same association, working hard to get a regional manufacturing training center in our state. It starts with apprenticeship programs around the country. It starts with people like Gene Haas making generous donations of machining centers to manufacturing educational programs throughout the country. It starts with other machine tool builders following Mr. Haas’s lead. It starts with people like you going to your son or daughters school to talk about how cool it is to MAKE things.
So many MILLIONS of great minds within the manufacturing community will retire in the next 10-20 years. What can you do to give back after you retire? Will you be a volunteer, a mentor or a writer? How will you help champion the industry once you retire? What would result if this conversation happens at EVERY state manufacturing association? What if it happens at a national level?
What happens if we go “DeBeers” on an entire generation of young people to champion US manufacturing?
We wouldn’t just save our industry; we’d save our economy and perhaps our nation. I will do my part….will you?
Original post here
Accelerated Buy Sell Home Page
I really get annoyed when people tell me to do as they say, rather than as they do.
How about demonstrating leadership behaviors that show us that you are serious?
It is incumbent on all of us to commit to a safer workplace. That means leadership by example. If you wear your PPE out in the shop, your employees will get the message that wearing PPE is important for them too.
As for the safety culture at wherever this photo was taken, well, lets just say that “I’m glad my son or daughter do not work there.”
Please do not try to stage photos like this for fun. but if you have a favorite “Don’t do as I do” Safety Photo, I’d love to share it with our readers.
The Institute for Supply Management’s report on PMI (Purchasing manager’s Index) for March 2014 shows the index increasing from 53.2 to 53.7.
The index remains above 50, indicating a growing economy, and more growth in March than February. This is the tenth consecutive month of expansion in manufacturing according to the index.
However the PMI did not meet the 54.0 consensus forecast. This slower than expected growth in the PMI does not support the theory going around that it was “just the weather” suppressing February activity.
The March report showed slowing labor demand- the ISM employment index dropped to 51.1 from 52.3 in February. This is contrary to PMPA’s Monthly survey for employment which remains strongly positive for employment prospects in our shops.
PMPA’s February Business Trends Report showed that our precision machining industry is maintaining strong sales (with expected monthly variability) and positive prospects going into calendar year 2014. Positive levels of hours worked, shipments, overtime and profitability are great omens for our industry in the quarter ahead. Our indicators show strong prospects for the balance of first quarter 2014.
ISM PMI release
Calculated Risk Chart
Latest PMPA Business Trends
Alan Beaulieu, President and Principal Economist at ITR, recently took a look at the Tax Overhaul Proposal authored by David Camp, Chairman of the House Ways and Means committee. What he reports is chilling for small manufacturers, prospects for employment, and the economy.
Headline Talking Points: A reduction in the corporate tax rate to 25% and a decrease in the number of personal income tax brackets are what you will hear about.
Those pesky details:
- This plan would cause significant tax increases to those currently in the 39% bracket.
- The loss of deductions and a phasing out of the benefit of the lower tax brackets would raise the effective rate to 42% on many higher-income earners.
- The Brookings Institute states that a slice of America would be taxed at up to 60%.
Is your company a pass through tax entity (ie, not a C-Corp)?
Rep. Camp’s plan would place firms like yours at a significant disadvantage in that it would reach into the business income of these enterprises (income after the deduction for owner’s salaries) and make 70% of that business income subject to payroll taxes.
Does your company have a foreign subsidiary or operations? Double taxation may be in your future. Mr. Camp, and others, wants to reach overseas and claim a piece for Washington, and they not only want to tax income but also brick and motor investments.
What ever happened to “Thou shalt not covet?”
Do the folks in Washington really think that confiscatory taxation of the small to medium sized businesses that are the backbone of US employment and engines for growth will encourage hiring and growth after this plan increases their taxable income by 70%? (These businesses employ one out of every four workers here in the U.S.)
I can’t think of a single way that this so called “reform” will encourage growth here in the US. Maybe the recession of 2007-2009 was just a practice round…
Alan’s ITR Blog
Confiscatory Taxes and Photo Credit
PMPA has a contract arrangement with ITR Economics for Business Cycle analysis and reporting for our members.
In cold worked steels, failures can be broadly categorized in two categories. The first, are those nucleated by localized defects- such as seams, pipe, and exogenous inclusions. The second, are those which result from exceeding the strength of the material itself.
The compressive stresses of cold working results in failures by shear along planes 45 degrees to the applied stress. These are known as shear failures. The presence of shear failures in an otherwise metallurgically normal material indicates excessive mechanical deformation. While often the result of tooling issues, conditions which lower material ductility including chemistry, macrostructure, nonmetallics, microstructure, aging, and hydrogen embrittlement have also been implicated in investigations of premature shear failure.
This post will focus on the central Bursts in the product of cold drawn steel, especially from the point of view of a shop making parts on automated equipment.
Ignoring the steel factors that may play a role in triggering the central bursts or chevrons, the role of tooling is usually considered to be the root cause, as replacement of dies typically eliminates the central bursting.
A bar which exhibited central bursting was saw cut lengthwise to show the internal ruptures.
In very rare cases, while machining parts from a bar which exhibits internal bursts or chevrons, the part will separate from the bar in process because of the prior existing rupture. The photo below shows such a part, note the fracture surface on the sides of the stepped down diameter on the part end shown in the photo below.
The following two photos show how the internal bursts could have been manifested in the original bar as well as the parts.
It is difficult to see the defect on the threaded end of the nearly completed part, but this photo does attempt to show that.
In a later post we will discuss more factors relating to central bursting or chevron failures of cold drawn or cold extruded steel.
On Wednesday, February 26, approximately 200 students from five different schools settled into their seats at the Elkhorn Area High School auditorium to listen to four experts and one of their own peers address the career opportunities in the manufacturing industry.
Brian White, President of Waukesha Engine; Hanan Fishman, President of PartMaker, Inc, (a software development company); Mary Isbister, President of GenMet, Mequon (metal fabricator); Mike Reader, President of Precision Plus; and senior, Brad Pearson, (manufacturing apprentice) shared their insights on opportunities the world of manufacturing offers.
According to all four speakers, there is a huge deficit in the number of young people applying for jobs in manufacturing.
Currently, the industry is looking for people skilled in
- Design Engineering,
- Manufacturing Engineering,
- Machinists,
- Welders,
- CNC Programmers,
- Fabricators,
- Machine Maintenance.
White mentioned that top machinists can earn up to $80,000 per year and that every manufacturing job generates four other jobs in other sectors such as health, IT, finance, etc.
Both White and Reader stressed to students to make certain that they are
- Preparing for a career, not just for college;
- To make sure that their advanced education can help them secure a job,
- And to prepare themselves for life-long learning.
They cited the fact that 70% of manufacturing jobs will require education beyond the high school diploma. Fishman backed up this fact by stating that what goes on in manufacturing today has a lot more to do with what goes on above the neck than below. Isbister reminded students that when hiring she looks for highly driven and ambitious job candidates; those who are committed to their jobs. She, along with the Reader, White, and Fishman stressed the importance of soft skills—reliability, communication skills, collaboration, self-motivation, positive attitude, and a willingness to learn.
Senior apprentice, Brad Pearson, spoke of his experience at Precision Plus and his appreciation for the opportunities he has been given by his mentor to learn all aspects of precision-turned component manufacturing
Our PMPA member shops, like Precision Plus, are leading the charge to change the conversation about careers in manufacturing. What about you?
The PMPA Business Trends Report for February 2014 has just been released.
“The PMPA Business Trends Index for February 2014 declined to 118, down about 6%, consistent with seasonal pattern, and down just 4 points from February 2013, and down just 2 points from Average for calendar year 2013.”
The February 2014 PMPA Business Trends Report shows that our precision machining industry is maintaining strong sales (with expected monthly variability) and positive prospects going into calendar year 2014. Positive levels of hours worked, shipments, lead time and profitability are great omens for our industry in the quarter ahead. Our indicators show strong prospects for the balance of first quarter 2014.
All indications are positive for the precision machining industry for the next three months according to our survey and reporting.
What are YOU doing to take advantage of this positive sentiment?
Full report can be found on our website here