UTC PRESS RELEASE

The United Tooling Coalition Seeks a New Way of Doing Business

Ten of Michigan’s premier tooling shops have come together to form the United Tooling Coalition (UTC).  All told, the ten shops have extensive capabilities for engineering, prototype, tooling construction and tryout for a full range of progressive dies and molds.  The UTC was formed as part of a year-long pilot project funded in part by the Michigan Economic Development Corporation to help build a collaborative business model that would be more competitive in global markets.  Don Jakeway, MEDC President and CEO indicates “We have long recognized the importance of Michigan’s tooling industry.  This grant demonstrates our commitment and support to our most fundamental manufacturing resource.”  Dr. Jay Baron from the Center for Automotive Research (CAR) facilitates the collaboration, and helps provide a conduit to major customer contacts and possible collaboration partners.  In addition to state support, the UTC companies have contributed funds that are being applied to the assessment and implementation of lean manufacturing concepts.  Bruce Knapp from the Michigan Manufacturing Technology Center is directing the lean assessment, training, and implementation at the tool shops.  Knapp notes, “There is a huge opportunity to reduce tooling costs through the implementation of lean methods, and the UTC is motivated to reap these rewards.”

“The UTC shops have identified savings opportunities of up to 35% that can be attributed to the collaborative effort,” says Baron.  The concept of the coalition is that by working together, costs can be reduced through cooperation, rather than simply by lowering quotes through a competitive bidding process.  These savings are obtained through:

• Workload Balancing – supporting each other as backup resources when one company has a bottleneck in their operation.
• Lean Methods – companies identify their strengths and core competencies and focus on implementing lean methods around them, rather than trying to be competitive at everything.
• Functional Build – when a collection of parts from an assembly can be purchased as a unit there are significant opportunities to meet dimensional targets for the assembly rather than each individual component part.
• Product Design – significant product design knowledge that resides in the shops can reduce tooling costs without changing the part from the customer’s perspective.
• Improving Tool Standards – many customers tend to over-design their tools rather than designing them for the intended use, thus driving up costs.
• Economies of Scale – the purchasing power of ten companies for steel and tool components is far greater than any one company.

Michelle Cleveland from the Right Place Program who helped conceive the project commented, “We see the collaborative business model as a means of securing significant tooling contracts, and building strength within our tooling companies to help head off further job losses.”  The UTC collaborative approach is not trying to displace the conventional supply chain relationship for individual tools.  Tools that are individually sourced might still be subject to competitive bids, where the UTC coalition members are still competing with each other.  The collaborative approach realizes the greatest benefits when a collection of inter-related components are sourced as a single order.  In this situation, when no one coalition member can handle the whole order, the greatest synergies of the coalition can be brought to bear.  The UTC is actively implementing cost-reducing initiatives while seeking appropriate opportunities from OEM and Tier One customers.  The UTC coalition includes the following companies: Accu-Mold, Autodie International, Enterprise Tool and Die, Lansing Tool and Engineering, Master Precision Molds, Northland Tool, Northwest Tool and Die, Paragon Die and Engineering, Precise Engineering, Richard Tool and Die, and Schmald Tool and Die.

Contacts:

Dr. Jay Baron, Center for Automotive Research, 734-929-0470

Michelle Cleveland, Right Place Program, 616-771-0326

Jim Donaldson, Michigan Economic Development Corporation, 517-373-0309

Bruce Knapp, Michigan Manufacturing Technology Center, 734-451-4200

David Muir, Paragon Die and Engineering, 616-949-5138

Pat Quinlan, Precise Engineering, 616-897-8977