Spotlight on the United States of America and Canada

Related Vendors

CUMSA

DIPROFIL Diamantprodukter AB

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WBA Aachener Werkzeugbau Akademie GmbH

Werkzeugmaschinenlabor WZL RWTH Aachen

The wage cost difference between the US (the average hourly wage in the sector is roughly €20) and other markets, which are used as an external workbench, is a source of motivation for companies to relocate parts of their value-added processes to the United States. By strengthening the manufacturing industry overall, the local tool and die industry will have a more important role to play in the future. The training of qualified specialists will be an important factor for the industry's future success. In 2010, the professionals’ average age in the US tooling companies was 52 (compared to Germany: 41). Furthermore, the country lacks programs for the education of tooling-relevant crafts, such as CAM-programming or CAD. Therefore, over the next few years, qualification and training measures and further automation of the production are required. The intermediate to high competency in the tool and die industry and a large market size are largely due to a positive economic prognosis and a high development potential, thanks to extensive investments in the manufacturing sector.

The Canadian tool and die industry is closely linked to the production in the US. Canada’s largest tool and die center is located in Windsor, Ontario and is separated from the automotive stronghold, Detroit, by the Great Lakes. The number of Canadian tool and die companies decreased significantly during and after the economic crisis. While there existed 579 tool and die companies in 2005, in 2012 there were only 464, employing 5,600 people in toolmaking. Large Canadian tool and die companies exist both with a focus on large injection moulds as well as high quality tools for large sheetmetal forming. The production volume in 2010 was €944.70m. 2013 tools worth € 1,037.21m in total were exported.

Tool, die and mould making in Canada

The total export consists of €775.64m of injection moulds, €248.21m of solid and sheetmetal forming tools and €13.37m of die casting moulds, with 75 % of the exported tools intended for the United States of America. Within the imports, Canada registered a total value of €451.89m, split in €240.85m for solid and sheetmetal forming tools, €201.39m for injection moulds and €9.65m for die casting moulds. The Canadian trade of tools with foreign markets for 2014 is illustrated in Fig. 4. The largest trade partners for importing injection moulds are the US, China and Japan. Injection moulds are mostly exported to the US, China and Mexico.

The largest trade partners for importing sheetmetal and massive forming tools are the US (the trade value is almost thrice as big as that of China), China and Japan, while they are exported mainly to US, Mexico and China. Over the last years, the tooling industry has experienced a long phase of consolidation of the tool and die manufacturers leading to a strongly competitive core, which on average produces more complex tools than the average of its competitors in the US.

Depending on the exchange rate between the American and the Canadian dollar, tool and die manufacturers in Canada have an additional competitive advantage. Still, the larger part of the North American investments in the automotive sector is currently made in Mexico and not within the US or Canada.

Additionally, the demand for tools and the number of production facilities make the development perspectives of Mexico for the mid-term look better than those of Canada. However, due to the middle to high tool and die manufacturing competence and a comparable market size to Italy, Canada belongs to the internationally competitive markets with a well-established tooling competence as well as a sizeable market share.

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