It is that time of year and the North American Die Casting Association has just completed another successful Executive Conference in sunny Marco Island, Florida at the Marriot Resort.
This meeting is an annual gathering for those in the die casting industry and attendance at the Conference has increased each year since 2009. At this Conference, top management has the opportunity to discuss pertinent issues with their peers and there are discussion forums in specialized areas of the die casting industry.
The NADCA staff put together an outstanding agenda this year which included presenters that cover a wide variety of topics crucial to the industry such as economic forecasts for 2014 and beyond, a Washington DC political update, LME NASAAC pricing, and workforce education just to name a few.
One of the speakers presented survey results of the die casting industry which was conducted by NADCA of its corporate members. There were very interesting statistics presented. I have summarized a few of the overall numbers here:
- 70 facilities reported.
- Ownership breakdown was: 53% family owned; 23% public owned; 20% institutionally owned.
- Of the 70 plants 54 were custom die casters.
- Total number of die casting machines reported: 704.
- The median number of machines per facility was 16.
Another major fact of the survey was that many of the facilities had automated die cast cells with a large percent of the machines in their plants. This is an important fact due to eliminating labor in the process provides higher quality and lower labor costs enabling North American Die Casters more opportunity to compete with offshore die cast plants. As labor increases overseas the competitive edge of those plants will be diminished.
I will be providing more information and data from the NADCA survey on other topics in the weeks to come.
If you have any projects in aluminum die casting please send the files to sales@diecasting.com for a free quote.
By Leonard Cordaro, President of Premier Engineered Products
