I had the opportunity to be a fly on the wall at a recent casting purchasing roundtable, and boy was it eye-opening. I knew metalcasters were passionate about castings, but these ladies and gentlemen have put as much thought into the metalcasting industry as anyone. Following is a look at a few things they had to say.

On industry capitalization:

• “Most industries that were at 90% of capacity would be capitalizing like crazy.”
• “With the recent industry growth, why are metalcasters not embarking on modernization?”
• “I was recently in Brazil. They are recapitalizing and becoming competitive.”
• “Metalcasters think, why capitalize for 5% ROI when the buyers are making several times that.”

On a lack of capacity:

• “There isn’t a capacity problem if the relationships exist.”
• “We don’t get responses to many of our requests for quote. The only way we can ensure we get the castings we need is if we have relationships already in place.”
• “Many OEMs are forced to look outside the country because of a lack of capacity.”

On surcharges:

• “Some metalcasters want to start surcharging for sand. You can’t surcharge everything that is variable. If you do, what’s the point of a base price?”

On foreign sourcing:

• “Foundries need to think of new ways to add value, like vendor-managed inventory, to gain on their competition. This is the type of stuff that drives us back across the pond. “
• “Most domestic sources have no appetite for taking control of the whole supply chain.”
• “Tooling prices are increasing rapidly. Some metalcasters may need to move this in-house to become more competitive.”

—Shea Gibbs, Metal Casting Design & Purchasing Managing Editor