Aug 18 2012
Growth in Metal Fabrication in Uncertain Times
Weakness in the automotive industry, the natural disaster in Japan, the mortgage crisis and rising fuel costs have all played a large part in the instability of metal fabrication companies around the United States. For the past 4 years, auctions were held daily for large machine shops, sheet metal fabrication companies and metal stamping companies. Large corporations like General Motors, Dana Corporation, Caterpillar, Navistar, John Deere, Kubota and others have lost their suppliers because that metal fabricator was focused on a single customer or industry. When that industry took a major hit the fabricator could not survive the downturn. Many other corporations are looking at their supply chain and assessing the health and stability of their vendors to ensure that they can deliver quality parts on time and within budgets. They are also looking to see if their suppliers have the ability to ramp up if the economy picks up and additional demand for their product occurs quickly.
