96 Business View - November 2015
companies can’t do, better and faster than anyone else.
We spend a big part of our time in development and
pushing that envelope of our product line.”
Both Douglass and Suddreth see new markets and new
opportunities for their aluminum products in the years
ahead. “For example,” says Douglas, “agriculture. You
look at a John Deere or a Caterpillar product and they’re
so heavy they can no longer move across our highway
system – there’s so much casting and carbon product
in them. We see that change going on now in aluminum
being a huge part of their components – not necessarily
the base of the machine, but in the seat and boom arms
out in the fields. That’s a huge opportunity in aluminum.”
Suddreth expounds, “As energy prices go up, the first op-
portunity to reduce your energy, especially in vehicles or
anything else is to make them lighter. Anything that goes
in a truck, on a truck, or around a truck, or on farm equip-
ment – if you can lighten it up, you use less energy.”
Other markets beckon, as well. “As we see the change in
lighting to LEDs (Light Emitting Diodes), the opportunities
there are huge,” Douglass says. “Going fromutilizing a lot
of the thin housings and reflectors to LED lights, they’re
able to incorporate the heat sinks that are used in those
in a different way. So we see some real opportunities in
electrical and lighting, both architecturally and mechani-
cally. The landscape looks very positive. ”
In order to respond to the emerging landscape, Alumi-
num Shapes has recently spent $60 million on upgrad-
ing its 1,000,000 square-foot facility, which is already
capable of producing and shipping over 68,000 metric
tons of extruded aluminum annually in a wide range of
press diameters and alloys. While five of the companies
seven high- tonnage presses have been rebuild andmod-
ernized from the ground up, and the company expects to
add additional presses in the next few years, Suddreth
notes.
Aluminum is one of the planet’s most abundant metals,
and products made from aluminum alloys are ubiquitous
MANUFACTURING
