Articles: Industry News

AFS Corporate Member Spuncast Inc. (Watertown, Wisconsin) donated $5,000 to Watertown High School to support its manufacturing courses.

“We are enthusiastic to continue supporting the future of our community, especially since the Watertown community has supported our business throughout the past 42 years,” Don Payne, Spuncast CEO, said according to the Watertown Daily Times.

According to the report, the school has been working to finalize curriculum and select equipment for classes during the 2018-19 school year. and was working to raise $60,000.

AFS Corporate Member General Motors (Detroit) will power its casting operations in Bedford, Indiana, and Defiance, Ohio, with wind energy. The company is buying a total of 200 megawatts of wind energy from wind farms in Ohio and Illinois to power some facilities in Indiana and Ohio.

Albco Foundry (Lisbon, Ohio) has received ISO 9001:2015 certification from AMPLUS Global Associates.

Trive Capital (Dallas), a private equity firm, through its affiliate WDC Acquisition LLC has acquired substantially all of the assets of Wellman Dynamics Corporation (Creston, Iowa) pursuant to Section 363 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. Wellman is an aerospace supplier that manufactures large scale, complex magnesium and aluminum castings for the defense and commercial aerospace markets and other industrial segments.

The sale closed May 7.

AFS Corporate Member Smith Foundry Company (Minneapolis) announced it will participate in the Industrial Manufacturing Technician (IMT) Apprenticeship program, an 18-month long, 3,000-hour program that will build a pipeline of highly qualified and diverse individuals prepared to enter middle- and high-skilled occupations within the manufacturing sector. 

Grupo Industrial Saltillo, S.A.B. de C.V., a Mexican multinational industrial conglomerate serving the automotive market, with a presence in the construction and housewares sectors, announced the consolidation of the three auto parts businesses – CIFUNSA, ACE and INFUN – into one unit named Draxton.

AFS Corporate Member McWane Inc. has purchased Waterman Industries (Exeter, California). Waterman manufactures water control products for water treatment, wastewater, agriculture, rural water delivery, hydro-power and flood control management.  

Shiloh Industries Inc., a global supplier of lightweighting, noise and vibration solutions, completed its acquisition of its Brabant Alucast Italy and Brabant Alucast Netherlands.

The company will double production capacity for magnesium castings with this addition and says it will "become one of the leading global manufacturers of magnesium cross car beams as well as one of the largest automotive magnesium suppliers worldwide."

Accuride Corporation (Evansville, Indiana), a supplier of components to the North American and European commercial vehicle industries, announced that IndustryWeek magazine selected its Rockford Operations wheel end manufacturing facility in Rockford, Illinois, as a winner of the 2017 IndustryWeek Best Plants competition. The annual program recognizes North American plants that are on the leading edge of efforts to increase competitiveness and customer satisfaction. 

AFS Corporate Member Applied Process Inc. (Fort Smith, Arkansas) an austempering heat treatment technology company, is expanding with a multi-million-dollar heat treatment plant in Fort Smith, Arkansas.

The 51,000 sq. ft. plant will house six furnaces and add at least 30 jobs. The plant is expected to be fully operational in the third quarter of 2018.