Aerospace Companies Land in Michigan for Industry Summit
Leaders of some of the world’s top aerospace companies gathered in Michigan for the 3rd Annual AeroOne Summit organized by the Aerospace Industry Association of Michigan. Held in Rochester, Michigan, the collaborative 3-day event drew more than 300 attendees including aerospace thought leaders, OEMs, suppliers and academia.
Michigan Aerospace Companies Address Workforce Retention and Productivity
Barron Industries, a Michigan-based manufacturer of precision machined castings, was among the 152 companies participating from 13 states. President/CEO Bruce Barron was a speaker on the Voices of the Sub-Tiers panel which addressed workforce retention and productivity. Barron said his company takes advantage of government assistance programs to provide partial funding of professional development for more than half of its workforce of 80 employees.
“Being a small business, it’s hard to train really well because you don’t have the staff for it,” he said. “So being able to take advantage of programs offered by the State of Michigan allows employees to see a path forward,” he said.
Barron said another key to his company’s success is the ability to differentiate itself from competitors with vertical integration.
“There were 9,000 foundries in 1979 and there’s only about 2000 today,” he said. “But there’s even fewer that are performing CAD engineering services, additive manufacturing, complete CNC machining, assembly, coating, bar-coding and packaging. We’re a one-stop shop which saves our customers from needing multiple suppliers…it’s really rare and that’s why we’re scaling that up.”
Barron Industries also participated in one of three aerospace roundtables in which participants were asked to collaborate in solving specific industry problems. Led by Airbus, the roundtable addressed the challenge of meeting record breaking production rates to match growing demand in the aerospace industry.
Production Rates Rise to Record Levels
“We’re responding to the industry’s needs by investing in new facilities and technology to increase capacity,” said Barron. “We’re building it so they can come to us.”
This latest 20-thousand square foot addition is Barron’s fifth expansion in its 40- year history. Starting out as a 13,000 square foot foundry, the company added 28-thousand square feet in 1990, a 12-thousand square foot CNC machining facility in 1998, another 12-thousand square foot addition in 2008, and a new 10-thousand square foot building in 2019.
Barron Industries was founded in Oxford, Michigan in 1983, but the Barron family has actually been in the metalcasting business for more than a century. What began in 1923 as a Detroit iron sand foundry producing castings up to 60 tons, has evolved into a global manufacturer of precision investment castings and machined components for aerospace, defense, space, automotive, energy technology, telecommunications and other commercial industries.
Throughout its history, the company has striven to constantly innovate and meet the needs of its customers, employees and community. Ahead of its time, Barron Industries implemented Industry 4.0 in 2003 when it installed a cloud-based ERP system that fully integrated and automated all business functions. Barron says that innovation will continue to be the company’s focus for the future.
“Like the first century, innovation will continue to be our focus in our next hundred years,” he said. “It’s exciting because of all the technology that’s available to increase speed of production while reducing cost, and we’ll remain in the forefront of technology in our industry.”