German car industry upswing drives mould shop expansion

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Sometimes bending on price can be a mistake

That kind of outlay means the shop must be doing well, but like most businesses that have survived more than four decades, it has been forced to sometimes be tough and sometimes adapt, Kellermann reported. Said to be one of the first shops to make 2-component moulds, she noted that her tools are guaranteed for 1 million shots, but that doesn’t mean they crumble after exceeding that mark. “Some are at five or six million shots,” Kellermann said.

Such proven quality can still fail to provide dominating leverage during negotiations with customers. The car industry has become a major source of heartache for many die and mould shops recently, but Kellermann said for toolmakers, knuckling under to demands for cutting cost from any customer is the wrong path.

Learning good things about tooling thanks to a bad year

Even though the expansion indicates the current environment is proving favourable for the Bavarian shop – order books are said to be full through September – things have not always been so rosy this century, the boss admitted. When 2004 turned out to be a rough year, the company decided it was time to expand into another sector: tool repair and alterations. Since then, the shop has worked on “a lot” of Portuguese tools and a few from China, Kellermann noted. This has not only increased the shop’s income, it has also offered the house’s toolmakers a glimpse into other technologies and designs. Now, some of the tools it makes in the Franconian countryside wind up in far-flung locales such as the world’s biggest toolmaking nation, China.

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