Iowa industries have forum for their future

Iowa metal casters have come together several times in the past year and are creating a roadmap to their future. Their route is not of steel and sand castings, but rather is one of networking and visioning with support from Iowa Industries of the Future (IOF) partners.

IOF has developed with administration from the Energy Bureau of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources and management from the Center for Industrial Research and Service (CIRAS, part of Iowa State University Extension). The Iowa Energy Center and University of Northern Iowa’s Ag-Based Industrial Lubricants Research Program, Metal Casting Center and Recycling and Reuse Technology Transfer Center all provided technical expertise.

Metal casters hope to introduce technology into some labor intensive jobs in their foundries and advance their workers with technological skills through their work with IOF.

"Iowa Industries of the Future is giving us a forum to look at the future -- five, 10, 20 years down the road," said John Brackin of John Deere Foundry. "We are identifying current needs and finding that whether the shop is four or 400 people, many of our needs are the same."

Brackin and other metal casters have recognized several issues, including the challenge of finding and retaining qualified employees, the market pressures from southeast Asia and Latin America, a need for cleaning-room automation and a diminishing supply of proper scrap metals.

"Through the process of becoming ‘lean manufacturers’ we have reduced salaried people, eliminating the folks that did our research and development. Individually we don’t have resources to get this work done," Brackin said. "IOF gives us the ability to look at these issues and find solutions as a team."

Phil Bruno, of Sivyer Steel, sees the networking between the metal casters and the leadership organizations as the key element of IOF.

"It is important for us to get the right information at the right time from the right people," Bruno said. "With their help we can focus our efforts and resources for the future in the priority areas, which will help us prepare our work force for tomorrow and make us more competitive in the global market."

According to Brackin, "Those of us in metal casting look with shielded eyes at our industry. We don’t know what other industries are doing, but ISU and UNI do. Through these discussions, ISU brought us technology information from another industry, technology that we didn’t know existed. They helped us make a connection that is a solution to a problem."

Tim Sullivan, a CIRAS field specialist and Iowa IOF program manager, called IOF a true partnership between public and private sectors. "The industry has articulated its vision. Now we are finding knowledge and industrial technology resources at ISU, UNI, Ames Laboratory, etc., for solutions that already exist, and are providing research when there is no known answer."

Industries of the Future was initiated at the federal level to boost industrial efficiency and productivity in nine identified industries. Iowa’s initiative began with the metal casting industry and will look next at visioning with the agricultural industry.

Detailed information about the federal and state programs can be found at the IOF Web site.

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