Business View Magazine | October 2019

78 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE OCTOBER 2019 “Those two facilities are something not many people in the area have,” Rob notes. “We’re trying to fill a niche. A lot of jobbing foundries produce 1 to 100 parts. A lot of production foundries produce 30,000 parts per part number or more. Not many of them are doing anything in between. In the next five years, we’d like to put ourselves in a position of supplying those 3,000 to 10,000 low-production parts for all kinds of applications in automotive, as well as more intricate aerospace-type parts.” In addition to being family-owned and industry- driven, Wolverine Bronze Co.’s professional partnerships are a key factor in their achievements. “We’ve formed an alliance with Anderson Global, located in Muskegon Heights, MI, and ASK Chemicals in Columbus, OH,” Richard explains. “Anderson Global builds foundry tooling for production foundries, which is used in the development foundry, as well as low volume tooling that we use in other areas of the foundry. ASK Chemicals adds technical support to the development foundry and brings much experience in process development. The combined abilities of the alliance allow us to develop the most robust and optimized production process in a reasonable time frame and at an efficient cost.” “But our biggest asset remains our people,” Richard reaffirms. “We’ve been in the foundry business now since 1918, when my grandfather came to Detroit to work in the foundry industry after his discharge from the U.S. Army. Everybody in the Smith family, and that includes our employees, are tuned into the foundry. We’ve got sand in our veins, as we say. The Smith family is honest, hard-working. We’re working on the fourth generation in this business. It kind of speaks for itself.” PREFERRED VENDOR n ASK Chemicals www.ask-chemicals.com ASK Chemicals is one of the largest suppliers of complete solutions and tailor-made consultation services for the foundry industry. The core of our company’s activity involves manufacturing all foundry consumables required for the production chain as well as providing optimum technical services in order to perfectly adapt our products to the processes on the customer’s premises. Our wide product range contains binders for all core manufacturing processes, coatings, additives, feeders, filters, release agents, metallurgical products including inoculants, Mg treatment wires, inoculation wires and pre-alloys for iron casting. Core production and prototype development as well as a wide range of simulation services round off what the company has to offer.