News
July 14, 2011
I was recently speaking with another customer of ours, and I heard still more China stories about some of their experiences and the efforts they had made, and some of their results and ensuing decisions.
They had decided that they needed to pursue sourcing some of their parts – both plastic and metal – as well as some of their tooling – overseas in an effort to save money.
Now they did not just do this lightly. They did take a “naïve” approach to this and simply find a firm in China on the Internet and send some drawings and a purchase order over there “blindly.” They searched for companies with the correct capabilities, sought out referrals, found several companies, and then went and visited these companies in China. After having selected the companies with whom they wanted to work, they truly attempted to enter into a “partnership” with them and emphasized that – a “partnership” - in all their discussions. They made all of their technical people available to advise them so as to make sure they got what they were looking for, made several trips, etc. Then they even had representatives from these Chinese companies visit them here in Minnesota so as to see a lot of their technology here, made sure they understood how they were using these components and tooling, and made a real investment in an effort to establish this true “partnership.”
This customer shared two very specific outcomes with me, with which they were very dismayed.
The first was in the area of Injection Molded Tooling that they wanted to have these Chinese companies make for them. The specifications from this Minnesota company were that the tooling must be made from 420 Stainless Steel. Why 420 Stainless Steel? Because they had found, over the years, that if they ran into a situation where they wanted to modify the tooling after it had been made that this 420 Stainless Steel lent itself very nicely to being welded (i.e. build up an area of metal inside of the molding, then machine that area into the exact size & shape of the modification that they wanted to make). This material was good, they felt, for how they wanted to work with this Molding Tooling in the future. One day they tried to do this with one of their tools – weld onto it. And it would not weld. They were perplexed and started to investigate why. They came to find out that this material was not a 420 Stainless grade of material. An inferior grade of material had been used, and had been used on many of their tools, unbeknownst to them.
The second problem they encountered was with a metal part that they were sourcing. It was to be made of a mild steel, nothing really too special, and the part was then powder coated. So the material surface was not showing when parts were received. They were not happy with some aspects of the parts, and they started to go through the basics in checking these parts. The first thing they discovered was that the material in these parts was not even magnetic! It was not capable of holding their test magnet! Clearly it was not a grade of material that matched their request.
And this is with a “Partner” company with whom they had invested a lot of time and effort, not to mention money, at the very beginning of the relationship, and they were not providing product as per the agreed upon, and well communicated, specifications.
This customer of ours has decided, while they are not completely abandoning all of their suppliers and parts/products that they buy over in China, he did tell me that approx. 50% of the metal parts that they had decided to source in China were now coming back to the United States. They had had it!
Bill Remes, Vice President, Sales & Marketing, AmeriStar Manufacturing (
www.ameristarmfg.com)
News
July 10, 2011
If your Aerospace or Defense parts require NADCAP certified finishing, AmeriStar can provide NADCAP certified finishes as follows:
---Cadmium
---Anodized
---Copper
---Chromate Conversion
---Hardcoat Anodize
And the following NADCAP certified services are available:
---Magnetic Particle Inspection
---Liquid Penetrant
---Heat Treating
Contact AmeriStar for further information.
Bill Remes,
Vice President, Sales & Marketing, AmeriStar Manufacturing ( www.ameristarmfg.com)
News
March 23, 2011
The other day I was visiting a customer, and he told me something very interesting about the way he sources parts, and from where.
He told me that he much prefers sourcing parts from the U.S., but he feels a great deal of pricing pressure from his competitors. He knows that they, his competitors, are getting some of their parts that they buy from China. So he feels that he should source some of his parts from Chinese sources and try to save money in so doing.
He prefers the Quality from U.S. Sources, appreciates the must faster Lead Times, response times, and ease in communications.
He sources about $10 million per year in parts, and of that about $2 million (20%) are from Chinese sources. Now this customer of ours is a wonderful gentleman, very kind and gracious, and he really did feel personally bad about that. But I told him that I fully understood and he needed to do what he felt that he needed to do. And we continued with our conversation.
Later as we chatted he told me about a weekly meeting that he has with all his Department Heads, Buyers, Operations Managers, etc. They talk about operations and each week they specifically talk about problems with components – particularly with components that they have outsourced from other companies. And he admitted that, in this meeting, 90% of all their problems with incoming outsourced parts are from parts that they have brought in from China. I was so surprised that I clarified with him to make sure I understood – these parts from China represent only 20% of your incoming volume, and yet they represent 90% of the issues, problems, rework, etc. that you & your managers have to deal with. Yes, that is what he told me.
I asked about how he was able to deal with these issues, these non-conformances, etc. when China is so far away and any rework or resolution would take so long in transit. He said that they, at their facility, with their personnel, have had to set up a rework operation to correct/fix all of these problems internally with these parts that they receive. Really? I was incredulous. And I think he could see that, and he was a little embarrassed by what he had just admitted to me. I did not push further as I did not want to embarrass him, but I still had many more questions that I would have loved to have asked. Who pays for this rework? If they are able to do it, are they able to charge their rework time & materials back to the manufacturer who provided parts that were not to print? Has he ever really “gotten his hands around” the true costs associated with his people doing all of this rework on these incoming parts? Is he confident that he really has the “true cost” attributed to these parts that are causing such consternation & effort within his company? I just left those questions unanswered.
Bill Remes, Vice President, Sales & Marketing, AmeriStar Manufacturing (
www.ameristarmfg.com
)
News
July 3, 2010
In the June 2010 issue of The Fabricator Magazine, the cover story was about fabricators “…who have climbed to the top…” The article, entitled the “Fab 40” was the magazine’s list of “…some of the most aggressive and successful shops in the magazine’s subscriber base.” AmeriStar was most pleased to be included in this list of Top 40 Job Shops!!!
The shops included reflected a wide variety of types of shops within the metal fabricating industry. And they pointed out many of the things that these shops have in common (most of which we are doing here at AmeriStar):
---Investing in new and used equipment to bolster current capabilities
---Strengthening relationships with current customers to see if they (we) could create new business with familiar faces
---Targeting new sales efforts in new markets to diversify the customer mix
---Looking for internal opportunities to root out waste to improve the bottom-line performance when margins were as tight as ever
We are proud of the fact that AmeriStar was included, and we wanted to point out a couple of items:
--that there must be as many as 10,000+ companies that are part of this “Fabricated Metal Products/Job Shops” category in the U.S. that could potentially have been included in this group, but AmeriStar made the top 40
--that AmeriStar is not an Advertiser in The Fabricator Magazine. So rest assured that our inclusion in this article was not based upon any existing relationship with the publishing staff at the magazine.
AmeriStar has been in business for 102 years – since 1908. And we are looking forward to our next 102 years!
Bill Remes, Vice President, Sales & Marketing, AmeriStar Manufacturing (
www.ameristarmfg.com
)
News
March 7th, 2010
AmeriStar Manufacturing Inc., Mankato, Minnesota, is pleased to announce that our ISO 9001:2000 Certification has been updated to ISO 9001:2008, with an Expiration date that is extended to 2012.
AmeriStar, with manufacturing facilities in Mankato and Minneapolis, Minnesota, provides contract manufacturing services for precision manufactured parts (precision stamping, long run or short run, prototyping, tools – dies – and fixtures in-house, laser and waterjet cutting, sheet metal, welding and assembly). AmeriStar is ISO 9001:2000 Certified.
For additional information, please contact AmeriStar at 507-625-1515.
Bill Remes, Director, Sales & Marketing
News
July 27, 2009
AmeriStar Manufacturing has introduced Layered Process Auditing as part of our ongoing Quality efforts.
We have implemented this auditing process to improve our in-place quality system, also to further reduce scrap and rework. The audits will allow us to better serve our customers. AmeriStar utilizes this methodology to improve high risk processes and to generate error proofing techniques. These audits at AmeriStar are completed at multiple levels - by Supervisors, by our Quality Department, and by our General Manager.
These audits are a systemized and organized group of questions which closely examine operations or processes within our company. We focus on areas where there is a high risk of deviation.
John Sacco, President & Owner, AmeriStar Manufacturing
News
July 14, 2009
AmeriStar is pleased to announce the addition of Robotic Welding to AmeriStar's list of capabilities.
AmeriStar has long done MIG, TIG, and Spot Welding, but we have just purchased a new Welding Robot System that will allow us to provide Lower Pricing on most assemblies due to its speed and accuracy. This machine will weld all types of material including Mild Steel, Cold Rolled Steel, Stainless Steel and Aluminum. Material thicknesses of up to 1/4"+. Part sizes of up to 40" x 48" x 36" can be accomodated on this system.
We look forward to working with you and hope you will contact us soon.
John Sacco, President and Owner,
AmeriStar Manufacturing
News
January 10, 2008
Dear Valued Customer:
We at AmeriStar Manufacturing Inc. are most pleased to announce our:
100th Anniversary Celebration in 2008!!
Founded originally in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1908, North Star Spinning (which was our original company name which became North Star Stamping, and then North Star Specialty as we grew) began as a small metal spinning shop providing spinnings to a small group of customers here in Minnesota. Our company has grown and expanded to a North American contract manufacturer, working in the areas of Aerospace, Military, Manufacturing, Capital Equipment, Consumer Goods, etc.
Specializing in the areas of:
AmeriStar’s primary facility (45,000 square feet) is in Mankato, MN, and we also have a manufacturing facility in Minneapolis specializing in Laser & Waterjet cutting only. AmeriStar is an ISO 9001:2000 company and we are currently applying for our AS 9000 certification.
Our “long accumulated” stock inventory of standard form dies & tooling means that, in many cases, you will get lower tooling and run costs from AmeriStar. We pride ourselves on our Quality, and our customer service.
As part of our ongoing 100th Anniversary Celebration this year, you will be hearing more from us at AmeriStar! Thank you for your support.
We look forward to working with you, and hope that you will contact us soon.
John Sacco, President & Owner
AmeriStar Manufacturing and AmeriStar Laser & Waterjet