KALAMAZOO – Southwest Michigan?s machine tool and die industry will explore the concept of coopetition ? the challenge of maintaining a competitive edge while establishing collaboration ? at a forum called Tool or Die: Saving an Industry, January 10 from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. at the Kalamazoo Regional Chamber of Commerce building. The event is sponsored by Accu-Mold Inc. and Southwest Michigan First.
?The tool and die industry was one of the first to be hit by foreign competition,? said Kellie LaDuke, business retention manager for Southwest Michigan First. ?Michigan was hit especially hard because the state comprises such a high concentration of the nation?s tooling industry.?
The tool and die industry accounts for 7 percent of Michigan?s manufacturing industry and 24 percent of the nation?s tooling industry, said David Martin, president of Accu-Mold. He said that another critical risk factor has been the small size of many of these companies.
?Most of us are small operations,? he said. ?Many employ as few as 15-20 people.?
The January event is the first in a series of local discussions to determine Southwest Michigan?s interest in establishing a coalition similar to the United Tooling Coalition (UTC), a state-wide pilot program formed in June. The UTC was launched through efforts of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, and funded in part by the State of Michigan.
?Coalition members band together to achieve competitive advantages that none of us could achieve alone,? Martin said. Accu-Mold is an inaugural member of UTC.
?It gives us purchasing power and enables us to establish standardized processes that make us more competitive on a global scale,? Martin said.
As a group, a coalition has extensive capabilities for engineering, prototype development tooling construction, and it can leverage cooperative bidding advantages. Martin said the competitive nature of small firms can actually be a significant advantage when competing for bids on large projects.
?Overlapping capabilities among coalition firms enables us to provide capacity as a group that we couldn?t begin to achieve on our own,? he said.
Tool or Die: Saving an Industry will include a presentation on the current state-of-the-industry, with a focus on both local and global impacts specific to Southwest Michigan.
?We have an opportunity to discuss needs and solutions specific to businesses in Southwest Michigan,? LaDuke said.
Martin will lead a discussion on the pros and cons of industry collaboration, based on his company?s experience with UTC. Jill Bland, SMF vice president for business services, will discuss state and local efforts specific to supporting and expanding Michigan?s tool and die industry. Local project initiatives could include a regional tool design coalition, or cooperative service delivery programs like workload balancing.
For more information, contact Southwest Michigan First at (269) 553-9588 or toll free, (877) 553-9588.
