Precision metal fabrication needs more exposure to those outside manufacturing

simonkr /E+ / Getty Images

Beth Paretta, owner of Paretta Autosport, delivered a talk with an inspiring coda. A keynote speaker at the Fabricators & Manufacturers Association (FMA) Annual Meeting, held Feb. 28 through March 2 in Las Vegas, she described how she got to where she is today as the owner of Paretta Autosport, a mostly female Indy car team in a male-dominated arena. She described how her pit crew trained—jacking up a car, changing four tires, tearing off a windshield, and refilling the fuel tank—working toward an industry benchmark of six seconds.

“When our driver pulled into pit lane. Everyone was watching. Would it [our female pit crew] work? It was a proof of concept. Would they succeed or be an abject failure? Were they able to do it in six seconds? No. They did it five.”

I’m not a race fan, so after her talk I jumped online for context to see an Indy pit crew in action. The team stands at the ready, posed in such a way to minimize the distance between their hands and, with the car in position, the task in front of them. Then a ballet on steroids commences as tires are swapped and fuel is added before the driver (Simona De Silvestro, in Paretta Autosport’s case) heads back to the race. Ever the manufacturing geek, I saw the whole thing as a kind of metaphor for modern precision metal fabrication, with all its complexities, challenges, and—too often overlooked—the simple joy of working with others, not as an insignificant cog in a massive wheel but as an integral part of a cohesive whole.

When I saw that pit crew in action, my mind immediately drifted to manufacturing cells I’d seen in various fab shops, with a blanking center feeding brakes and hardware. The cells’ teams streamlined changeover on the laser, punch, and brake in their quest toward single-piece flow and optimal throughput.

Paretta launched her team in 2021 to lead diversity initiatives across professional racing, to reach more women and minorities, to widen the net to attract new talent and broaden the audience. She spoke of reaching people earlier in their lives, considering the fact that kids often start forming their career expectations as early as 10 or 12 years old.

Paretta landed in racing and automotive thanks to being exposed it; her father tinkered with a 1930s-era Model A. “I can trace my entire career to a single VIN number, the one on a 1952 Ford pickup,” she said. Her father spent years restoring it, and she still takes it on weekend drives today.

Yes, the metal fabrication business, like manufacturing overall, has an image problem. But more than that, the industry suffers from lack of exposure. People see sheet metal and plate parts every day and don’t give them a second thought as to where they come from.

Outreach is part of the equation; that’s the mission of FMA’s charitable foundation, Nuts, Bolts & Thingamajigs. But fabricators also need something to sell that younger generation, with safe, clean, organized workspaces governed by lean principles and pragmatism. When everyone acts as a team and thinks about the big picture, from quote to cash, people become more integral to the operation. That’s what makes metal fabrication so attractive, but it’s also what makes it so challenging when it comes to skilled labor. When people don’t engage or even show up, the situation can head downhill in a hurry, a bit like an Indy car pit crew missing their marks.

Teamwork was incredibly evident during the first morning of the event, when meeting attendees visited Precision Tube Laser in Las Vegas. There, CEO Jordan Yost, 40, spoke to the tour group flanked by youthful staff members and a collection of precision equipment, including (of course) a tube laser, a flat sheet laser (complete with a conveyor-based parts offloading), and several high-end press brakes, including one with automatic tool changes. The entire place exuded a teamwork vibe. No piles of work-in-process. No obvious bottlenecks to flow. No silos. No BS. Let’s just work together to get the job done.

“Just as much as cutting material is our business, educating customers is our business,” Yost said, speaking to attendees, “helping them understand what the possibilities are, and what we can do to achieve them.”

Beth Paretta, owner of Paretta Autosport, was a keynote speaker at the Fabricators & Manufacturers Association (FMA) Annual Meeting, FMA

Yost never spoke of the typical metrics like inches per minute or parts per hour—just ideas, alternative ways of processing, customer problems and solutions, and the criticality of quick delivery. And sure, Precision Tube focuses on rapid-turn work; it isn’t a production facility.

But like Paretta in the automotive business, Yost entered precision tube and sheet metal as an outsider. Just seven years ago he was in the car rental business. He sold his companies and went to work for a friend’s fab shop that had trouble sourcing cut and formed sheet and tube. From that serendipitous exposure eventually sprang Precision Tube Laser.

In Indy Car, broadening exposure and promoting diversity have pushed racing in new directions and opened the business to new levels of talent. The same could happen in precision metal fab through friends and social media. Precision Tube Laser happens to have more than 50,000 Instagram followers, many of whom are asking questions, discussing problems, and interacting. That success didn’t come after decades in the sheet metal arena either.

Business-savvy people are noticing just how good a business precision metal fabrication can be. And as Yost has proven, they don’t need years of experience to find success.

The 2023 Fabricators & Manufacturers Association (FMA) Annual Meeting was held Feb. 28 through March 2 in Las Vegas.