CMTS 2009 surprisingly upbeat

While conditions are slowly improving in the North American automotive sector, the Canadian auto parts sector isn’t quite out of the woods yet, according to Linda Hasenfratz, chief executive officer of Linamar Corp., Guelph, ON.

“The automotive industry has clearly had a very, very difficult year

including a wrenching restructuring that has left no company, with any

kind of focus in the automotive sector, unaffected,” Hasenfratz told

the audience during her keynote address at the recent Canadian

Manufacturing Technology Show 2009 (CMTS).  

According to Hasenfratz,  vehicle production should total

approximately 8.5 million units this year, down more than 30% from last

year’s levels which were down 20% from 2007. “The good news is that the

current levels of production that we are seeing are certainly not

indicative of where we should be in North America just based on the

number of drivers that we have. As a result, we expect to see things

starting to come back up and we feel that a good, sustainable level of

sales and production in North America is somewhere between 13 to 15

million units. We’ve already started to see production pick up.”

Obviously, she continues, there has  been a significant negative impact

on the automotive supply base which could become even worse. “We’ve had

close to 50 bankruptcies filed in the automotive supply base this year

and the worry is that it’s not over yet. There are a lot of suppliers

out there that are breaching bank convenants. The banks are not

inclined to loan money to the automotive industry...and there is a

worry that we will see another wave of bankruptcies.”

Despite the economic turmoil swirling around the automotive and

manufacturing sectors, this year’s CMTS was surprisingly upbeat. “We

are stepping up in business this year. I think we have come up

approximately 12% in sales from where we were in May. Things have been

dormant for a while but they are starting to come back,” says David

Toomey, general manager with Seco Tools Inc., Milton, ON. 

According to Toomey, one area of focus at Seco’s booth was highlighting

recent product introductions such as JetStream tooling and the Square 6

shoulder milling cutter. “We’re still focusing on marketing  both the

JetStream tooling and Square 6 milling cutter because we’ve only

started to break the surface with these products. Since (these products

were introduced) things have been slow. However, now that business is

picking up people are starting to see the value in these products.”

At Indianapolis, IN-based Hurco USA’s booth, the highlight was a

display of the company’s five-axis VM10U machining center. The

machine’s integrated trunnion table provides exceptional part

clearances and larger part capacity. The VM10U includes the integrated

Hurco control with powerful five-axis software features that eliminate

redundancy and streamline setup.

Bill Phillips, international sales manager with Hurco USA,

Indianapolis, IN, was particularly pleased with the response from show

attendees to the VM10U machine. “We’ve had a good response. We’ve had a

number of our larger customers in the aerospace market drop by to see

us here who were interested in replacing some of their older three-axis

machines with five-axis machines,” says Phillips.

Likewise, Dan Hannigan, vice president of sales with K&K

Productivity Solutions Inc., Cambridge, ON, also sees signs that

business is coming back. “The economy is what it is but we are starting

to get some good feedback from customers that things are starting to

turn around. There is also a lot more quoting going on as well.”

K&K, which represents Methods Machine Tools in Canada, displayed

the KIWA KH-45 horizontal machining center at the show. According to

Hannigan, a major selling point of the KIWA KH-45 HMCV is that it

features in-the-field expandable tool and pallet technology.

“The 120 tool machine that we are displaying here can be expanded on

the customer’s floor up to 240 tools. The machine comes standard with

two pallets but it can also be fitted with four, six, or eight pallets

on the customer’s floor,” says Hannigan.

At Arlington Heights, IL-based Prima Finn-Power North America Inc.’s

booth, the firm was introducing its new FAST BEND (FBe) bending machine

for the first time in North America. “This is  the introduction of this

machine in the North American market. From CMTS, the machine will be

going down to FABTECH,” says Michael Stock, bending product manager

with Prima Finn-Power. Continues Stock, “What we’ve come out with in

the FAST BEND is a standalone machine that is good at one-piece flow of

a broad variety of parts,” says “Typically with a bending machine, you

spend all day setting the machine up and one minute bending the part

and then setting the machine back up for a different part. With the

FAST BEND, I can set up the machine to bend the same part in 10 to15

seconds.”