This meeting's topic will be sales and marketing.

Email bob@toolanddiefutures.org or myself (jbrown@lintrio.com) to RSVP

Old Carco sold the metal-stamping plant in Twinsburg, Ohio, to Maynards Industries Ltd. of Vancouver, BC, Canada, but the AP said the liquidation company has been unable to attract new businesses to the site and that it will auction the plant's equipment and other assets after it closes, as scheduled, at the end of the month.

The Twinsburg stamping plant has gone from employment of about 1,000 to less than 300, and all will be laid off except for 77 workers who will stay until the end of July. Like the "old" General Motors Co., which also stayed behind after GM went through a quick bankruptcy last summer, the former Chrysler has sold or is attempting to sell many former assembly plants or other smaller manufacturing operations the new, pared-down Chrysler no longer needs. The proceeds are to be allocated to creditors of the former Chrysler.

Thanks to Bill Visnic from, The Auto Observer for contributing this article.

• "Hostage" Tooling
• Delinquent Payments to the Machine Tool, Die & Mold Sector
• Payments postponed by subjective PPAP terms
• OEMs "double-payments"
• Tier 1 suppliers hijacking payments

It was such a cluster of misleading information, the small family-owned tool shops (and even much bigger shops) being taken advantage of, double-payments, fancy accounting, unbelievable accounts of the games companies would play with tools that had liens on him, and many more diversions and redirects which only made the operating environment for the tooling industry much murkier–and harder to thrive in.

In fact, all of the confusion and a general feeling of being the "little guy" industry meant not planning on having "a seat at the table", was likely the reason this wasn't condensed, quantified, filtered and explained until Craig Wiggins took the bull by the horns head-on.

It was actually this reason in which I agreed to jump on board with his initiatives (rally at the capitol building in Lansing last February to  in whatever way I could since I believed in his vision and drive to make changes for the betterment of this industry.

Wiggins was directly responsible with bringing these issues to the forefront of President Obama's auto task force (Ron Bloom and Co.) as well as the top level of management at GM and Chrysler.  Wiggins, of T&E Capital, was instrumental in reaching out and bringing together Tooling Associations such as the National Tooling and Machining Association, Canadian Tooling and Maching Association as well as the Precision Metalforming Association since almost all of their members were impacted by these issues.

A recent article by Kris Maher of the Wall Street Journal talks about a new movement underway in his article, "Tool Firms Seek U.S. Aid" (full text of article below)

Cash-strapped small and midsize companies that supply critical parts to industrial giants are seeking a $30 billion U.S. loan-guarantee program and pressing General Motors Co. to speed up payments in hopes that other manufacturers will follow.

Representatives of U.S. metal-stampers and tool-and-die concerns, which make machinery and molds that create parts such as car doors and refrigerator bodies, will meet Tuesday with Commerce Department officials and Ron Bloom, the Obama administration's manufacturing czar. They will press for a program financed by the Troubled Asset Relief Program to ease lending guidelines that have frustrated these small companies.

The companies are trying to seize on a proposal by President Barack Obama in February to use TARP funds to boost small-business lending. Many tool-and-die and machining companies have been going out of business because they must pay up front for materials but wait months to get paid by their customers. Adding to the problem, banks have tightened credit.

Roughly 15% of U.S. tooling and machining companies went out of business last year, bringing the total remaining to between 20,000 and 25,000, according to the National Tooling and Machining Association. The group says the number has declined 30% over the past decade.

Administration officials didn't have an immediate comment on the tooling makers' loan pitch.

After the meeting with White House officials, industry association leaders will take their cause to GM in a session expected before the end of March.

GM—controlled by the U.S. government since its bailout last year—is one of the tooling and machining industry's largest customers, and these suppliers hope the car maker will establish an industry benchmark. The tooling companies seek a more favorable pay schedule, getting paid a third when they win a job, a third when work is 50% complete and a third at completion.

Alan Adler, a GM spokesman, said the company is "moving in the direction" of progressive payments to tooling suppliers. "Obviously there have been a lot of suppliers impacted by the economy and our bankruptcy. A healthy supply base is critical to GM," Mr. Adler said.

Tool makers, metal-stamping companies and industrial mold makers provide essential building blocks for nearly every manufactured product, from cars to appliances to gas-drilling suppliers. Most of these companies have annual sales of $5 million to $20 million and employ 50 to 150 workers.

Since the recession began, small and mid-sized tooling and machining companies have faced a harder time getting credit. Even some with solid balance sheets and strong order backlogs have been denied routine financing to meet payroll and expand capacity. Banks focus on 2009 results, a dismal year for the industry, without weighing a company's borrowing history and booked future sales.

Moreover, tooling concerns say, customers who have cash problems of their own have delayed payments beyond 90 days. Delayed payments hamper the tooling makers' ability to obtain loans, leading to bankruptcies.

Wes Smith, president of E&E Manufacturing Co., a metal-stamping company in Plymouth, Mich., and a board member of the Precision Metalforming Association, plans to tell the White House's Mr. Bloom that the administration's use of TARP funds for small-business lending is a good idea but doesn't go far enough. "You've got to get the banks in a condition that they can lend money," he said.

Mr. Smith and others want new guidelines for banks to make it easier for them to grant loans, arguing that capital requirements are preventing many banks from lending.

In some cases, tooling companies say banks have compounded the problem by restricting the amount of business they will do with the customers of tool makers, the big auto-parts suppliers.

"Banks are still very hesitant to loan to people doing automotive work," said Ron Overton, president of Overton Industries, a tooling company in Indianapolis.

Some companies, such Metal Processors Inc., a 54-year-old tooling company in Stevensville, Mich., were healthy before the downturn but are now struggling to survive.

Demand has picked up for the company, which makes tooling machines used by the automotive metal-casting industry. But it is still suffering a hangover from seven of its 25 customers going bankrupt in the past two years.

Now, Metal Processors says it is unable to get additional financing from local banks to buy materials for new jobs.

"We're seeing increases in orders. But my problem is I have no cash," said Russ Reschke, the company's president and chairman of the National Tooling and Machining Association. He said Metal Processors used to do $500,000 worth of business a month but now struggles to do $200,000 a month. He can't pay overtime or afford to hire, so he split shifts with six people divided over three shifts, two per shif. In October 2008 he had 52 employees. Now he has 15.

Slow payments also hurt. Mr. Reschke said he made a tool for a parts company to supply to GM, and it took GM 18 months to pay the parts supplier, forcing Metal Processors to wait 18 months to get paid $190,000.

Tooling-industry officials say car companies made a push about 10 years ago to squeeze costs from suppliers and stopped paying tooling companies until after work was completed.

"They pushed all their costs to the tooling suppliers that are carrying all these costs for these huge automotive companies," said Mr. Overton.

Mr. Overton and others said they believe auto companies will be forced to change their payment practices because tooling companies are in dire shape and many want to move from supplying car makers to other sectors like aerospace or energy. Car makers "are starting to realize that their supplier base is going out of business," he said

With help from the MEDC-sponsored Michigan Supplier Diversification Fund, the 65-person, $15 million Wolverine is finally getting its loan. OMNI is lending $2.5 million while getting $1 million in collateral support from the fund. Wolverine has brought back almost half the 30 workers laid off this year and plans to rehire the rest by summer.