How flexibility will shape metal fabrication’s future

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If you’re coming to FABTECH this year and walk the main concourse outside the expo hall at Atlanta’s Georgia World Congress Center, you might hear a mild rumble. Look to your right, opposite the expo hall entrance, and you’ll see a freight train emerging from a tunnel underneath the convention center. Historically, FABTECH attendees in Atlanta have probably taken the train for granted. This year, many might be thinking something else: crisis averted. At this writing, at least, a freight rail strike had been avoided. Still, what other black swan lies over the horizon?

The manufacturing economy of 2022 could be summed up in one word: stretched. Fabricators have reported supply chain challenges since the early days of the pandemic recovery. Today, many can get the raw material they need, but other components and supplies are still hard to come by. One shop told me that they could be shipping more products, but they aren’t thanks to a hardening compound shortage in their finishing process.

In some sectors, the efficiencies of scale have led to consolidation, which during the past few years have created serious supply chain choke points. In recent months, a purchasing manager called me to ask about alternatives for a specific component in a fabricated part. I pointed him to a few sources I knew, but in truth, that purchasing manager faced an uphill challenge. The entire product design hinged on the ability of a particular supply partner to deliver—and that partner now didn’t have the capacity to meet demand. Close partnerships can boost efficiencies and spur serious growth for all parties involved. But as the pandemic proved, they also can create a kind of codependency. For partnerships to work, all parties need to deliver.

Reporters with NPR’s Planet Money podcast have called the 2022 economic condition a vibesession—not a recession, but bad vibes certainly point to one. Jobless rates remain low, companies are reporting growth, but something feels a bit off. It could be the hiring challenges (and not just in manufacturing), soaring energy costs, war. Oil prices continue to fall, but overall inflation remains stubbornly high. Everything feels, well, stretched.

“Does anyone really know what’s going on right now? Usually, a close examination of economic data will yield a fairly accurate assessment, but the problem now is that much of the available data is contradictory.”

So wrote Chris Kuehl and Keith Prather of Armada Corporate Intelligence, Kansas City, Mo., as part of their September Armada Strategic Intelligence System (ASIS) report. Kuehl is also economic analyst for the Fabricators & Manufacturers Association.

With each ASIS report, Armada publishes a chart with year-over-year growth on the Y axis and market strength on the X axis. In September, most manufacturing sectors that fabricators touch—electrical equipment, appliances, machinery, and other fabricated metal products—all are hovering near the center of the chart: not too bad, not great, but OK.

“There are still pockets of strong growth,” the report stated, “but new supply chain challenges in Europe and China are weighing on output.”

What the past several years have shown is just how important flexible fabrication technologies have become. In fact, every shop manager I’ve interviewed over the past year has talked about it. No one talks about how quickly something cuts, bends, or welds. I can’t remember the last time someone quoted me an inches-per-minute stat. They instead show off how quickly a machine can stop and turn on a dime: a press brake changeover in minutes, an automatic laser nozzle change, flexible fixtures in welding.

One exception might be laser welding, where fabricators show just how quickly a robot can finish a joint. But even there, the system’s greatest selling point isn’t its speed. It’s about the secondary grinding and polishing processes laser welding eliminates. Eliminating a process step simplifies the job routing and frees valuable resources, which in turn makes the fab shop even more flexible.

Black swans likely will populate the road ahead. Their appearance might become so frequent that we might stop calling them black swans; they’ll just be a new reality. This is perhaps why so many fabricators aren’t hunkering down and waiting for the next recession everyone seems to be talking about. Instead, many will be headed to FABTECH. They’ll get a glimpse at the railroad adjacent to the expo hall—populated as usual with freight traffic, thank goodness—then head down the escalator to see what’s new. Many will look for technology and software that not only shortens cycle time but also helps them stop on a dime, change direction, and capture market share when opportunity arises.