The machine tool builders and distributors are hurting, but there is some business out there. In September the U.S. Army Rock Island, Ill. Arsenal made a major buy. They bought 15 Haas machines, two sophisticated super-high precision Hardinge lathes, six citizen Swiss CNC lathes and about a dozen assorted machining centers made by Mazak. The preference for American-built machinery strikes me as quite rational. For CNC Swiss there is no American alternative. The Mazak buy can be justified by the Japanese firm’s manufacturing presence in Florence, Kentucky. Military spending for equipment and ammunition is a significant boost for the well-pounded…
Author: Lloyd Graff
Chad Arthur stood in his former office at Arthur Machinery Tuesday with his wife as the auction of the bankrupt machine tool distribution firm he had built into a $80 million dynamo droned on. Haas, Doosan and Star lathes and machining centers, which had been his premier lines, were selling to the highest bidder. Bob Arthur, who had started the business with the Miyano line after leaving Behr Machinery in Rockford, Ill., two decades ago, was attending the sale but keeping his distance from his son. The big ARTHUR MACHINERY sign lay upside down in front of the building entrance. A…
Bob Atherton of RACO Industrial Corporation recently passed away at 82. In the rough world of used machinery dealers Bob always stood out as a gentle but indefatigable player. His company continues under the leadership of Jack Boescher who worked with Bob for many years before buying into the firm. **************** We hear that exhibitors are dropping like fall leaves from the upcoming EMO Milano show in Milan, Italy. EMO has always been a magnificent opportunity to display wares and meet and greet, but this year it is more a conclave of woe. Hard to imagine, but the European market may be more horrible than…
By Lloyd Graff Today is a day I’ve pointed toward and dreaded. It’s a day I’ll be relieved to look back upon. Today is the one-year anniversary of my heart attack that almost killed me. If you’ve read my stuff in Today’s Machining World you know my story. Feeling really crappy after a two-week vacation of feeling crappy, my wife Risa drove me 50 miles to see my doctor in Evanston, Ill. He looked at me, listened to my heart, and said, “Lloyd, you are in heart failure and I’m wheeling you to the emergency room right now.” A stent,…
By Lloyd Graff Two icons of American mechanical ingenuity I encounter every day are my Bridgeport Mill and KitchenAid mixer. It struck me that their fortunes are going in different directions. This last weekend, just a few days after the announcement arrived that Hardinge Corporation, which owns Bridgeport, is cutting back production at its flagship Elmira, New York, plant, the new movie about chef, Julia Child, Julie and Julia, made its debut. Julia Child loved her cobalt blue KitchenAid, and it now resides at the Smithsonian museum in Washington. More than any other personality, her warmth and unflappable style popularized…
Hydromat of St. Louis is suffering through a soft spell and has let about 35 people go from its peak employment. But a sign of the times is a fresh notice on the company’s Web site looking for new people. They need a design engineer, a draftsman and an electrical control integrator. I also heard through the grapevine that Bruno Schmitter, the head of the company, would like to buy a couple of CNC lathes to make more components in-house. There is a strong rumor that Pfiffner in Switzerland has a severe cash flow problem and that company founder, Mr.…
Have you ever lost out on a big contract when your price and service were clearly better than the competition, but the buyer had a grudge against your old management? Whether in the business world or a myriad of other venues, fairness and logic are often trumped by emotional bias. Milton Bradley is an outfielder for the Chicago Cubs, who signed a three year $30 million contract during the off-season. He is having an awful season, batting 80 points less than last year. I have watched a lot of Cub games this season and observed Bradley’s batting closely. One of…
I talked to Bill Becker a University of Illinois professor who has gone into business with his children building mini wind turbines for city dwellers who have access to moving air. Becker answered the phone when I called his office on the North Side of Chicago. He says people are calling from all over the world to inquire about his vertical axis turbines which look more like modern sculpture than energy generator. Becker’s low cost generators cost $15,000 to $20,000 depending on the size. His bigger one has two alternators and a smaller version one. They hook directly into the…
Tony Dungy, the coach of the Indianapolis Colts, and Lovie Smith, coach of the Chicago Bears, are close personal friends who talk to each other at 5:00 a.m. every Monday morning during the NFL regular season. They are also the this year’s two Super Bowl Coaches. The parallels between the management styles of the first two black coaches to run teams in the BIG GAME are suggestive of important shifts in business management at this point in American history. Dungy and Smith are both soft spoken, religious, Christian men. They deflect personal notoriety and celebrity and both continually praise their…
One of the great things about doing this magazine is finding out that people actually read it, and some even like it. I received a call from Paul Ikasalo, the manufacturing manager at F.H. Peterson of Stoughton, Massachusetts. Paul liked my Swarf piece in November when I declared my self-exile from the email world. He called me at 708-535-2200 and on my cell phone (708-380-8530) to say hello and endorse my email boycott. He hates the sterility and pollution of web messaging. We had a hearty conversation for twenty minutes discussing the business approach at his sixty-person job shop near…