Plastics firms have new friend

        Milacron Inc. has launched an independent manufacturing consulting business aimed at the nation's 12,000 plastics processing firms.

        Called Concentric Custom Services Inc., the new company, headed by William J. Gruber, is aimed at plastics processing plants with sales of $100 million and under and with a few hundred employees.

        Those types of processors typically fall under the radar of the large national consulting firms, said Mr. Gruber, former president of Milacron's Ferromatik North America, the injection molding business.

        The new company doesn't supply or specify equipment. It's focused on helping processors lower their costs and improve profits by offering employee training, preventive maintenance and other services. The new approach reflects Milacron's greater emphasis on providing services to customers.

        Mr. Gruber said Concentric, which offers site-specific services via an a la carte menu of pricing, envisions revenues of $100 million within five years.

        The company has affiliated with more than a dozen service and material handling providers to provide consulting services. Concentric is operating out of Milacron's corporate headquarters at 2090 Florence Ave.
       

AK Steel plant gets safety honors again

       AK Steel's Middletown coke plant has been named the industry's safest by the American Coke and Coal Chemicals Institute for the fourth time in five years.

        The Middletown coke plant won the award in 2000 after employees completed the year without a single OSHA recordable injury, an industry first. The coke plant has extended its injury-free record to 29 months.

        The Middletown steel maker last week also said it is expanding its alliance with Nippon Steel Corp. for development of cold-rolled electrical sheet steel products. The relationship will allow the companies to develop more technical exchanges through sharing resources and research.

        AK and its predecessor, Armco Inc., have shared information with Nippon Steel for more than 50 years.
       

Manufacturing recovery lags

       Orders for machines that cut and form metal declined in March from a year ago, two industry trade groups report.

        Machine tool consumption totaled $182.7 million in March, down 42 percent from the $315.8 million reported in March last year, according to the AMT — Association for Manufacturing Technology and AMTDA, American Machine Tool Distributors' Association. The March total, compiled from reports submitted by participating manufacturers and distributors, was up 6 percent from February's $172.3 million.

        For the first quarter, estimated sales declined 35 percent to $513.6 million from $792 million in the same three-month period last year.

        The trade groups said the numbers support the view that manufacturing isn't seeing the recovery experienced by the full economy.
       

Cincinnati Machine wins $4 million order

       Cincinnati Machine in Oakley has won a $4 million order from Heroux-Devtek for a double gantry metal profiling system to produce components for the Bombardier RJ 700 regional jet.

        Cincinnati Machine, a unit of Unova Co., said the system equipped with two gantries sharing 218 feet of rails will be installed in the company's Dorval, Quebec, plant this fall.

        Contact Mike Boyer at 768-8494; fax 564-6991; or e-mail mboyer@enquirer.com.

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