Top 5 in 365—Articles about shop management

Paul Gintner, BTD Manufacturing’s president, isn’t upset when he sees hundreds of customers’ parts on shelving in the warehouse. The fabricator’s stocking program for its OEM customers has played a key role in the company’s growth in recent years. Photos courtesy of McCann Advertising Photography, Eden Prairie, Minn.

The last installment of “Top 5 in 365” showcased the five most-popular articles on thefabricator.com published within the last year about safety. Previous installments have focused on bending and folding, laser cutting, arc welding, assembly and joining, automation and robotics, consumables, cutting and welding prep, finishing, manufacturing software, materials handling, metals and materials, and plasma cutting. This post is about the shop management category on the website.

Shop management encompasses everything from strategic planning to the nuts and bolts of statistical process control. Whether you're an executive, manager, or supervisor, you'll find articles about overcoming challenges and struggles just like yours. Here are the top five articles about shop management published on thefabricator.com during the past year.

5. Lean manufacturing in the job shop: 5 steps to building a value network map
Approach provides alternative to value stream mapping

Some lean tools … don’t work so well in job shops’ high-mix, low-volume environment. A job shop has various customers that order different quantities of different products that all have different lead times, routings, bills of materials (BOMs), outside vendor operations, and due dates. TPS concepts like line balancing, level loading, right-sized machines, and single-piece part flow can be extraordinarily difficult or impossible to achieve, at least if one goes by their traditional definitions and uses. In particular, a lean tool borrowed from TPS that’s difficult, perhaps impossible, to adapt to the custom fabrication environment is value stream mapping (VSM). Because this tool—intended to highlight and help prioritize improvement opportunities that will eliminate waste and shorten lead times—does not work in any job shop, industry really needs a viable alternative.

4. Black Hills Metal Fabrications welcomes the makers
In an attempt to grow the business, a small fab shop in Rapid City, S.D., opens its doors to would-be fabricators

“Makers” emerged as a term in the mid- to late 2000s to describe the crowd that embraced do-it-yourself technology, such as robotics and 3-D printing, that used to be found only in large manufacturing facilities and academic institutions. These folks had emerged from high-tech companies and the “hacker” culture, and they were creating their own products. Eventually the movement embraced old-school, hands-on activities, such as metal- and woodworking as well. Today these makers all have one thing in common: They like to work with their hands and create products that they can call their own.

James Krause, an owner of Black Hills Metal Fabrications, Rapid City, S.D., had little interest in this maker movement until a couple of years ago.

3. 5 steps to successful career path management
What does a good career in metal fabrication look like? The question shouldn’t be ignored

But fabricators avoid talking about career paths at their peril, particularly in these times of poaching and record low unemployment. Finding talent has always been a challenge in this business. It stands to reason that holding on to talent should be a priority. As Mark Ernst, principal at Artesia, Calif.-based Ernst Enterprises LLC, explained, managers won’t always succeed, but a process still should be put in place.

Charting an employee’s course in an organization—so-called career pathing—seems difficult mainly because it requires accomplishing a few not-so-easy steps first. What are those steps, exactly?

2. Why collaboration is critical in metal fabrication
Two shops exemplify how connected the industry really is

Washington Metal Fabricators, a custom sheet metal fabricator in Washington, Mo., west of St. Louis, and Max Weiss, a 35-employee rolling shop in Milwaukee, both evolved significantly over time, starting with niches that grew. The two companies live in different parts of the metal fabrication web, but they experience the same benefits, like not being tied to a single industry, and challenges, like having to meet short lead times, juggling diverse customer demands, finding good people, and breaking into new markets.

1. One fabricator’s blueprint for growing its business
Putting itself in a position to grow with its customers and new opportunities has earned BTD Manufacturing The FABRICATOR’s 2018 Industry Award

Only 12 years ago The FABRICATOR covered Detroit Lakes, Minn.-based BTD Manufacturing’s growing business. The fabricating company, which had its start as a tool and die shop back in 1979, was investing in tube cutting and bending equipment back then to serve the recreational and utility vehicle markets. It was a large fabricator that was making plans to grow even larger.

In 2017 BTD reached $200 million in annual revenue for the first time. That’s more than the $191 million in 2016 revenue that it reported as part of this magazine’s FAB 40 list last year and a big leap from the $150 million in 2011 that it reported as part of the 2012 FAB 40 list, the first year the company participated in the survey of large fabricating companies in the U.S. The company has been on an aggressive growth streak in recent years that’s not really been duplicated by competitors.

Next up? Stamping.