The metal fabrication segment is hot, declares my guest, editor-in-chief Dan Davis in this illuminating episode. He attributes robust growth to reshoring, supply chain shakes, and infrastructure projects. However, labor challenges loom large. Automation and collaborative robotics offer solutions to maximize constrained workforces. Davis spotlights laser cutting’s expansion enabling fabricators to nimbly meet changing customer demands. He advises deploying automation across the production process from cutting to finishing to accelerate throughput, enhance cash flow, and free humans for higher-value work.
Unfortunately, the sales and marketing front-end lacks comparable technology adoption. Davis encourages fabricators to modernize here too, applying account-based, personalized digital outreach. He suggests consulting “digital crumbs” people leave behind online to identify prospective buyers’ problems and appeal to them individually. Ultimately fabricators must know what they want to make and for whom. With strategic segmentation and technology investments in production plus marketing and sales, metal fabrication firms can gain control and cultivate the specialized book of business they desire.
About Dan Davis:
Dan Davis is editor-in-chief of The Fabricator, the industry’s most widely circulated metal fabricating magazine, and its sister publications, The Tube & Pipe Journal and The Welder. He has been with the publications since April 2002. He has written about U.S. manufacturing trends and issues for more than 30 years.
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