Reassessing Your Business

The new year brings so many new things. New projects you suddenly find yourself tasked with, for example. Heralds of renewal that land on your desk with a solid thump — or a SWOT. Suddenly the holidays are truly over and the work ahead of you comes quickly into something resembling focus.

Reassessing your business is important. I expect there are some people out there who truly look forward to rolling up their sleeves and wading through the nitty gritty of how things get done and how to make them better. But, for most, taking stock of where you're at means putting the brakes on everything that is currently in motion — often a tricky task in the busy world we live in.

But when we get over the initial inertia, it shouldn’t be that hard. The truth is if you’re doing it right, then you’re constantly taking stock and reassessing. Now it’s simply about organizing the thoughts you’ve likely been setting aside for a moment with a nice little “roundtuit.” (Please tell me everyone’s grandfather handed them one of these little wooden coins that had a trite phrase about doing some important thing or another when you get a round tuit — and now you have one...)

So we’re all here together in the early months of the new year taking stock, making plans, assessing our business. And as I dig into PF’s own challenges and opportunities, the more I’m thinking about the challenges and opportunities that the finishing industry itself faces. And I have to say, you guys... it’s pretty exciting.

The past few years have been hard, yes. But they have also set us up for so many new areas of business to explore. Yes, I’m going to talk about EVs again. During the course of working on this issue — one with an automotive focus — I’ve had numerous conversations with finishers and suppliers who are optimistic about the work ahead. The increase in production of EVs presents a whole new set of challenges for automakers, and the industry hasn’t fully converged on the solutions. There is so much collaboration and innovation happening right now — and OEMs and their suppliers are open to it.

Several stories in this issue discuss the opportunities this new era of innovation and collaboration is creating for coaters and finishers:

• Our February cover story is about Milwaukee-based Advanced Plating Technologies who, over the years, has pivoted its 75-year-old family-owned metal finishing business to a surface engineering and design collaboration focus.
• We dig deeper into the kinds of opportunities finishers can expect in a feature story discussing EV-targeted solutions from MacDermid.
• This month’s On the Line interview column hears from experts from MKS’ Atotech brand and the ways they’re working in the EV space.

Today’s age of opportunity isn’t confined to the automotive industry. There are so many new technologies within telecommunications, medical and aerospace that are evolving by leaps and bounds and there is a constant need to rethink and reassess the way we do things.

The finishing industry has often been called a mature industry — one filled with family companies that have done things the same way for decades. But when you look at the sheer amount of things that must be finished — that require some sort of coating for protection and/or performance, and when you consider the constant pressures of changing regulatory policies and environmental and sustainability concerns, then you begin to realize the sheer amount of work and innovation that goes into constantly improving the surface finishes that impact our lives every single day. 

The finishing industry is evolving. Finishers are exploring and adopting new equipment to improve repeatability and profitability. The jobs that finishers do on the shop floor are evolving with the adoption of automation and shop solutions. The need for finishes will never go away. Our industry is vital to the way our society lives in the world, and it will evolve and keep reinventing itself.