Familiarizing yourself with the current happenings in the markets and industries you serve is an excellent way to stay on top of trends, challenges, technologies and opportunities—and help to ensure your shop’s long-term success.
So, beginning with this issue (and five more times this year), we have solicited the help and expertise of contributing editor Douglas A. Smock to begin a six-issue series that will examine the mold-related applications and innovations—from both a moldmaker and supplier perspective—in six of the most served industries within our readership: (1) automotive, (2) medical, (3) consumer products, (4) packaging, (5) electronics and (6) aerospace/military/defense.

Doug is currently editorial director of GlobalCPO.com—a supply chain blog—but during his career, he served as chief editor of Plastics World and associate publisher of Modern Mold and Tooling at McGraw-Hill.

His article in this issue reveals that it is gut-check time for tool builders serving customers in the automotive industry. It’s time to adapt or die because business evolution is dictating the development of new business and manufacturing approaches.

He speaks with a number of best-in-class shops and suppliers who are automating and upgrading their equipment, while paying attention to improved business practices, such as lean and improved purchasing control. He also provides some insight from a few automakers on future business prospects when it comes to their mold manufacturing-related processes, approaches, decisions, global strategies, cost cutting measures and collaboration efforts.

We will follow up this article with more industry focus features in the following upcoming issues:

April: Medical
June: Consumer Products
August: Packaging
October: Electronics
December: Aerospace/Defense/Military

If you are interested in participating in one of the upcoming industry roundtables or would like to share some feedback on the first installment of this series, please feel free to contact me at (800) 579-8809 or via e-mail at cfuges@gardnerweb.com.