Industry > US & World Business Conditions

ISTMA 2007:
Industry Trends From Around the World plus the "White Night!"

By Harry Moser, Chairman, Agie Charmilles and President, ISTMA Americas
and Egon Jaeggin, President, Numerical Precision, and Vice President, ISTMA World.

Reprinted from the NTMA RECORD, September 2007.

Joensuu, Finland, was the site of the ISTMA (International Special Tooling and Machining Association) triennial World Conference. The ISTMA Regional Meetings, ISTMA Board Meeting and Members Assembly were held June 9-10. Two days of presentations to 170 Conference attendees was followed by a day of local plant visits. The presentations were mixed, with some that were highly useful and others too abstract. Shop visits in Finland and Estonia gave us an insight into how the high wage European countries are adapting to globalization and how the European emerging markets are adapting to the strong Euro and rapidly rising wages. On June 14, 20 participants toured St. Petersburg, Russia and Tallinn, Estonia. St. Petersburg’s palaces and churches were incredible. Estonia was charming. The Finns, led by Pekka Tuunanen, were great hosts and very organized.

Thanks to Les Payne of CTMA (Canadian Tooling and Machining Association), the Americas Regional Meeting went smoothly. The ISTMA Board Meeting was more eventful. Joaquim Menezes (Iberomoldes, Portugal) previously President of ISTMA Europe, was elected President.  The Statutes of ISTMA were significantly changed, including a new management structure. Egon Jaeggin (Numerical Precision, Wheeling, IL) was elected ISTMA Director and ISTMA World VP from the Americas. Harry Moser (Agie Charmilles, Lincolnshire, IL), was elected ISTMA Director and President of the Americas branch. 

Twenty countries presented on their current business conditions, threats and opportunities.  Business was at least good in most countries, ranging from soft in Canada and U.K. to booming in India, China and Russia. Problems are also fairly uniform, especially the lack of skilled workers. A summary of individual country reports is available at http://us.gfac.com/industry/us_worldbusinessconditions. Many formal country reports are at the “Meetings/Joensuu 2007” page of the ISTMA website, which is accessible with an ISTMA password or by clicking on “ISTMA” after entering the NTMA members only website.           
The new ISTMA web based service, titled Terminology, is in Beta test. This service provides consistent terminology for use in cross-border tooling contracts.

The 30 Conference presentations focused mainly on the automotive and telecommunications industries and tool and mold shop optimization. A presentation on composites and composite tooling for aerospace was especially timely given the impending launch of the Boeing 787. Several of the papers are posted at http://us.gfac.com/industry/papers. All will be posted on the ISTMA website. Several of the papers had useful ideas for structuring a mold or die shop to compete in today’s global market. 

Joensuu industry is well developed, partially because Perlos, a key mold supplier to Nokia, had its main tool room there. Accordingly, several of the shops were quite high end with the most modern equipment: HSM, EDM and automation. All of them are using software developed in America. One of the smaller moldmakers, Greenfox, was implementing a strategy similar to that recommended in one of the Conference presentations. The strategy calls for simplifying the design of small molds so that customers can order from a “menu.”  In fact, Greenfox’s brochure looks like a burger chain menu!

Group dinners in Joensuu each night were typically good buffets including many salads, a variety of herring preparations and several entrees. The last evening was on the highest point of Finland, a two million year old granite mountain from which we watched the “midnight sun” over a beautiful lake. It was close to “white night,” just eight days before the summer solstice.

The tour to Russia included all of the attendees from NTMA (Jaeggins, Mosers, Razzanos, Stevensons, Sustars) and CTMA (Les Payne and Horst Just) plus couples from Croatia, Italy, Germany and Switzerland. The Russian border crossings took two hours getting in and three hours getting out. The palaces were incredible. Imagine five or six different Versailles in one city! The Hermitage is one of the top art museums in the world.

Tallinn, Estonia was R & R after Russia. Very friendly people in an historic walled city. We visited three shops, the best of which were more modern than most U.S. shops. The biggest problem is labor shortages and 40-50% wage increases in three years compounded by the strengthening Euro.

An ISTMA Board Meeting is planned in Asia, probably India, in late 2007.  ISTMA 2010 will be held in Canada. NTMA will keep you informed of these excellent opportunities to learn about new technologies, global markets and competitors!

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