Anniversary flashbacks shine a light on forward direction for manufacturers

The FABRICATOR magazine and its publisher, the Fabricators & Manufacturers Association International (FMA), celebrate their 50th year anniversary of serving the metal fabrication industry in 2020.

Anniversaries are a great opportunity to pause and reflect on past milestones, accomplishments, failures, and lessons learned. Three of the companies featured in or contributing an article to our soon-to-be-released January/February issue of STAMPING Journal, have earned their place on the “what-doesn’t-kill-you-makes-you-stronger” leaderboard. Here's some background on those companies, and a preview of the articles to look for in that issue:

100 Years of Deep Drawing

For 100-year-old family-owned companies like Larson Tool & Stamping, every year of existence is a year of success.

According to an SC Johnson College of Business (Cornell) article citing Businessweek.com, in 2010 the average life span of a family-owned business was 24 years. About 40% of U.S. family-owned businesses go on to become second-generation businesses; approximately 13% are passed down successfully to a third generation; and only 3% survive to a fourth or beyond.

Larson Tool & Stamping is one of a few stamping manufacturers in a position to take a retrospective deep dive into hydraulic press technology. It does so in “100-year-old stamper grows as hydraulic press technology grows; draws deeper on each successive upgrade.” The article highlights how hydraulic press technology advances over the years have helped it make improvements in deep drawing fire extinguishers and other stampings.

75 Years of Coil Processing

Formed in 1946, Cooper-Weymouth, Peterson also bears witness to the technological advances over the decades. Automation, integration, four-roll feed, zigzag, horizontal orientation, and feeding to a registration mark are some of the innovations that have advanced coil handling and feeds. The company’s article, “Innovations in coil metal processing, press feeding,” delves into the more recent ones.

44 Years of Manufacturing Software

Founded 44 years ago, ERP software company Global Shop Solutions also is a family-owned and -run company. Its article, "How to use IIoT to upscale uptime,” highlights innovations that software has ushered in to provide real-time status checks on scheduling, work sequencing, work-in-process, labor performance, inventory, equipment conditions, and quality checks.

50 Years of Stamping, Fabricating Association

Our parent company, the Fabricators & Manufacturers Association (FMA), was formed in 1970 in Rockford, Ill. In 2020 we looked forward to looking back over our 50 years with a large celebration, but the year turned out to be not such an apropos time for big blowouts. Still, we reflect proudly on our milestones and are humbled by our stumbles.

FMA Communications marks the launch of The FABRICATOR in 1971 and STAMPING Journal in 1989. Along with our other FMAC publications, we have published hundreds of thousands of pages of industry coverage. Our brands broadened the channels we employ to reach our readers, setting up our anchor website, thefabricator.com, a couple of decades ago, and producing our magazines in digital form shortly thereafter. We’ve added electronic communications vehicles and microsites for each publication and enhance stories and tradeshow coverage with videos. The way we publish has changed considerably over the years, but our commitment to delivering the best content to our readers and viewers remains the same.

FMA first co-sponsored FABTECH in 1981 with SME, and then added event partners PMA, AWS, and CCAI. FABTECH is now ranked No. 10 on the 2019 TSNN Top 250 U.S. Trade Shows list.

FMA initiated Nuts, Bolts & Thingamajigs (NBT) in 1990 to fund metal fabrication camps and scholarships.

We moved to our newly built headquarters in Elgin, Ill., at the end of 2016.

We look forward to the next 50 years of involvement in the metal forming and fabricating industry.