SUCCESS STORY: Manufacturer moves beyond autos

By Jo Mathis

Laurie Moncrieff was working at IBM back in the early 80s when she watched the number of employees drop from 15,000 to 1,500.

she saw the same thing happen to the textile and furniture industries. So when she moved back to Michigan in the early 90s to join her family’s tool and die business, she was shocked by what others failed to see.

“I said, ‘What are you guys thinking? You can’t just sit back and rely on auto!’” recalled Moncrieff, owner of Schmald Tool & Die Inc. in Burton. “They thought I was crazy. People always want to resort back to old habits. And that’s not a good thing to do in this market. It’s all about change.”

In 2007, Moncrieff formed Adaptive Manufacturing Solutions (AMS), a group of 16 small businesses with Michigan headquarters that offers clients one-stop shopping for manufacturing and tooling needs, and works together to bid on large projects.

Last fall, her efforts paid off in a big way.

AMS and one of its partner companies, Burton Industries, a tool and die manufacturer in Genesee County, won a $6.8 million defense contract to build assembly equipment for U.S. Army smoke grenade production at Pine Bluff Arsenal in Arkansas.

“It’s a very positive step in the right direction for us,” said Greg Johnson vice president of business development at Burton Industries. “We’re a company that’s been doing largely automotive work for the last couple of decades, and there just isn’t the volume of work in the industry that there used to be. So like many people, we’re trying to diversify our customer base.”

Applying for large contracts requires extensive time and work that small businesses acting alone may not be prepared to handle, said Moncrieff, who tried it on her own for five years without success.

In addition, she said, a conglomerate allows smaller companies to act as one large company and go after non-automotive markets such as medical equipment, alternative energy, aerospace and military.

“The reason for the success with AMS is that a lot of the significant contracts take five or six companies working together to bid on,” said Moncrieff, who is hoping for success securing several other multi-million dollar contracts.

Moncrieff believes small companies must get past that fear of working together, and realize that their competition is from out of state – and the country.

“It’s a different mindset to think you’re working with folks you may have competed against in the past,” she said. “It’s a difficult thing for people to get past. They’re used to keeping to themselves and not wanting anyone else to know what they’re doing.”

“You don’t have to worry about your neighbor across the street. The bigger competition comes from other countries and states that are looking at creative ways to get the work to their state.”

AMS has won other government contracts, but the Bluff Arsenal award is its largest. Burton Industries will be the lead company on the new defense contract, and Sterling Heights-based Indicon Corp. will provide electrical components and services as a partner in the project.

Burton Industries’ Johnson had to lay off a handful of workers last summer. He hopes that when the design stage is finished and the company is ready to build the assembly line for those smoke grenades, he’ll be able to hire everyone back.

The contract proved to him that there are more opportunities than he once realized.

“You don’t have to be 100 percent committed to the automotive industry if you don’t want to,” he said. “We chose to diversify. We had the opportunity to get a real nice contract with the government, and we’re definitely hopeful it leads to more.”