Someday, the auto industry will be thriving again – designing and building exciting products, and selling lots of them. Until then, we get to watch them grope and stumble their way through reengineering, reorganization, and re-identifying themselves.

This is more than spectatorship; it’s self interest: Metalcasters supply a lot of components to automakers.  More important, automakers are some of the highest-volume producers of castings.  

A year ago that point deserved some inquiry, because the three domestic automakers were beginning their restructuring programs, and the unanswered questions were all out in public.  There are various objectives to these restructurings — cost savings, of course, but also product quality, technical innovation, brand management, and other hard-to-quantify elements of large-scale manufacturing.

Where is metalcasting in all this? General Motors decided to go all-in for its casting operations, outlining about $200 million of new capital improvements for its plants in Bedford, IN, Defiance, OH, and Saginaw, MI. Its emphasis seems to be on product development and quality control.

Ford is going the other way, closing metalcasting operations in England and Windsor, ON, and slating the Cleveland Casting Plant for shutdown. Its emphasis is on cost control, but also product development: Ford is notably undecided on its future engine designs, but being uncommitted may give it more flexibility in that area — and more purchasing leverage.

Somewhere between these two approaches is Chrysler Corp.

The maker of Chrysler, Dodge, and Jeep vehicles has been slow to reveal a strategy about its metalcasting operations, but now we have a hint based on emerging reports of a $60-million plan to lease production space at Chrysler’s Kokomo, IN, transmission plant to Linamar Corp. Linamar makes a wide range of automotive components, for engines and drivetrains, and as well as other industrial markets. A similar strategy is being hinted for Chrysler’s casting and machining operations.

Workers at Kokomo would remain Chrysler employees, but their salaries and benefits would be “subsidized” by Linamar, which would get to implant itself further into the Chrysler supply chain. Some parts produced by Chrysler employees would go into Chrysler vehicles, though not all. Some may be intermediately handled by other Tier 1 suppliers.

Chrysler, which in various ways is taking the auto industry’s most unorthodox restructuring approach, is especially focused on cash conservation: CEO Robert Nardelli, has said the organization must cut capital spending and focus resources on “the parts of cars that influence consumer purchases and perceptions.”

Metalcasters and their advocates may interpret some insult from that particular point, but Chrysler’s management concept is intriguing. It may be ideal for that organization. It may be a valuable opportunity for one or more metalcasting organization.

More to the point, this prospect shows again that there is no single formula for success. Let’s hope each strategy works out for the automakers — and especially for the metalcasters that are such an integral part of what they do.