New Year’s resolutions for metal formers

With the start of 2021 near, it’s a good time to take stock of where your manufacturing company is and resolve to support employee and technology growth. Getty Images

It’s finally the last month of 2020. Most of us will be glad to see it gone. New Year’s Day isn’t a real milestone, though. Our current problems with COVID-19, politics, and economic uncertainty will continue. But as citizens, families, and businesses, we can lead our local communities to a healthier and more optimistic future.

Now is a good time to review our opportunities, challenges, and priorities. Once identified, we can map our goals and adopt constructive behaviors to arrive at a better place.

Since I joined the family of sheet metal forming professionals, I became impressed with the skill and dedication of our people. I have worked in a number of industries and enjoyed none more than sheet metal forming. New materials and technologies offer much to learn. Our body of knowledge must expand to meet new challenges. Changes in products and interest in reducing greenhouse gas emissions offer each of us opportunities to build better companies and better products.

Following are some suggested resolutions for the new year that can us make ourselves and our industry better citizens and help improve our communities and our business results.

Learn to Listen

The most important skill in both our personal and professional lives is the willingness and ability to listen. Your greatest chance to connect with another person and share meaningful viewpoints comes when you listen quietly and encourage the other person to explain their issue or point of view. Unfortunately, social media encourages our worst impulses. While it can be entertaining, endless name-calling, gossip, and lying is only destructive.

If you want to accomplish something and gain respect for your opinions, experiences, and viewpoints, show respect for those of others. Princeton University offers an easy, intuitive resource on developing your listening skills: https://umatter.princeton.edu/connecting/listening.

Focus on Local

I once worked with a manager whose advice to me was to be diligent in keeping other people’s monkeys off my back. It’s too easy to fall into the trap of taking on “big issue” projects that others are struggling with. Too often, those projects suck energy but return nothing.

We each have an environment around us we can influence for the better. When we work within our environment, with an eye to outside influences, we have the greatest opportunity to make real and meaningful change. There will always be people looking for others to “carry their flag.” As we see in today’s political turmoil, many of us carry a banner for one side or another without really understanding what we are standing up for. As a result, we have a lot of noise, but not enough progress toward cohesive solutions.

You spent years growing your knowledge and experience. Use them to make your corner of the world better, and those around you will benefit, too. This video by Debra Russel offers a good summary of the things we can control and influence (and those we can’t) to bring about the greatest impact.

Try an IoT Project

The Internet of Things (IoT) is an inevitable force that will influence your production and maintenance activities. Eventually, your supply chain will demand some form of IoT integration to encourage timely and efficient production and logistics. If your company isn’t yet actively engaged in implementing IoT, it’s time to start.

If you’re just starting, your project can be relatively simple and affordable. If you aren’t monitoring your tonnage curves on your press, IoT offers a tremendous opportunity to begin. Not only will you learn about your press performance, you’ll also be on your way to discovering the benefits that new data technologies offer your production and maintenance projects.

Introduce a Student to Sheet Metal Forming

The people I met in sheet metal forming not only enjoy their work, they are proud of the skills and talents they offer. In a world where it is increasingly difficult to attract new talent to manufacturing, it is important that we share our enthusiasm with others.

We work in a field that is changing rapidly. New materials are being developed. New forming technologies are needed to form lighter, stronger sheet metals. New information technologies will help us manage our production and maintenance activities. Information integrity and security are becoming more critical to business success and employee safety. There is much to learn.

Each of us should resolve to share our enthusiasm, opportunities and challenges to attract fresh minds and secure a bright future for the production of formed sheet metal components.

Review Your Maintenance and Production Programs

Now is a good time to evaluate your production results over the past year, both successes and failures, to identify where you can make improvements. If downtime or repetitive repairs have become a problem, then review your maintenance program. Too much scrap? The problem could be poor blank geometry, improper forming, or inadequate die maintenance. Many issues can be remedied with greater attention to and additional training in the fundamentals of metal forming and the properties of the sheet materials you use.

The demand for lightweight sheet metal components is expected to grow. Do your goals include taking advantage of this opportunity? If so, it’s a good time to take stock of where you are and resolve to support employee and technology growth.

Have a happy and successful 2021.