Modern Forge Companies is a leader in the forging industry, offering close tolerance, near-net forgings, and finished components from Carbon, Alloy, Stainless & Tool Steel.

Founded in 1914, the company was initially known as Modern Die & Tool Company, a part-time business for its owners.

Modern Forge Companies has served the industry for over 100 years to bring a complete approach by offering the base forging and any machining or value-added components to meet the dynamic consumers’ demands for more line-ready products and services, quality, and customer services standards.

Greg J. Heim, owner, and president, of Modern Forge Companies, in his interaction with Manufacturing Technology Insights, mentioned the journey of the 107-year-old family-owned business in this space.

They have been a supplier for the aerospace and defense markets, supporting the military directly through both world wars through the current times by providing the prime defense manufacturers both on the aircraft and armament sides of the defense markets.

Modern’s approach to the defense market is similar to how they’ve approached all their other customers.

Further, they focus on engineer-driven solutions, high levels of customer service, and a comprehensive manufacturing approach where they provide the base forging and any machining or value-added components or services.

Many of their key customers are looking for their top suppliers to manage the supply and deliver more line-ready products and services.

In an exclusive interview with us, Heim also provides deep insights into the multiple facets of his company.

What are the pain points or challenges, according to you is the defense industry facing today?

Today, the two pain points are raw material availability and manufacturing lead times.

As the raw materials market and manufacturing supply chains are all trying to increase rapidly after a very slow 2020, everyone is struggling.

We’ve been forced to be flexible in looking for raw material and working with our sub-tier suppliers to ensure we have an adequate supply.

We are also communicating daily with our customers to minimize any disruption.

Additionally, labor availability is a concern across manufacturing space in general, but in heavy manufacturing in particular, trying to add capacity with labor has been a challenge over the past six months.

Though we are trying to move forward, raw material availability and skilled labor availability have been the challenges we have faced while trying to meet the resurgent demand.

Would you mind elaborating on your company’s approach to understand the challenges and provide capabilities accordingly?

I would say we try to take a collaborative approach with our customers as best as possible.

So we’re now meeting with them over zoom weekly, as needed to understand their forecasts because their forecasts are changing weekly.

Providing our customers with solutions and options, wherever possible in this sort of environment, has been the key to servicing our customers.

What efforts does the company make to ensure that you continually aim to expand and modernize while remaining committed to the quality and services that the customers expect?

Over the last ten years, we’ve spent a considerable amount of money on both technical expertise as well as equipment to expand our capabilities in a variety of materials from inconel, aluminum to titanium. to be able to offer our customers in the aerospace and defense markets what they require from their top suppliers.

We’ve invested to be able to service them across a variety of material categories and also in select areas of automation so that we can supply the capacity of the products that our customers expect

To be able to offer our customers in the aerospace and defense markets what they require from their top suppliers.

Over the last ten years, we’ve spent a considerable amount of money on both technical expertise as well as equipment to expand our capabilities in a variety of materials from inconel, aluminum to titanium, to be able to offer our customers in the aerospace and defense markets what they require from their top suppliers.

So we’ve invested in being able to service them across a variety of material categories and in select areas of automation so that we can supply the products that our customers expect consistently with a high level of quality while also managing relatively small batch sizes.

Can you mention a case study to show how the process works in helping the clients attain their goals?

In one of the instances, we partnered with an existing supplier to redesign a component for the air force.

This was a high replacement item with some well documented failure points that had been in production for over 40 years.

So we worked with this defense supplier and the air force directly to look at design options and failure modes for the forging and the entire assembly and came up with a solution over the course of multiple years that will deliver a much more robust forging and weldment for the air force.

According to you, are the other aspects other than the long industrial journey and commitment to quality that drive your company ahead of the other players in the space?

I would put down two points and elaborate on one that you mentioned we’d been a supplier to this industry for generations, and we’re committed to it.

Our customers know that we’re committed to it based on our investments and how long we’ve been a diligence supplier.

The other point that I’d explicitly mentioned around quality and in services while we take every effort to avoid any quality imperfection is that Modern is known for reacting when there is an issue and taking a stand for our product and servicing, jumping through whatever hoops we need to do to make sure that our customers are supported with quality products and on time and dropping everything that we need to do to support our customers.

As the president and the owner of the company, how do you steer the company towards success through the profound industrial experience you possess?

While talking to our customers and salespeople, I try to listen to their pain points in the industry. We often try to ask what more we can do, which has helped us as some of our largest customers have pulled us forward into specific areas that would have been difficult to enter otherwise.

Being a long-term customer requires listening and then investing in the right people and resources.

Hence, what we’ve spent and how we’ve built out the organization shows that the management and ownership are committed to achieving and maintaining our industry position.

This helps to drive the culture as people see where you’re putting your investment and time, which further reflects our priority.

What does the roadmap hold for Modern Forge Companies in the coming months, after navigating the challenges of COVID-19 in the past year?

The ride over the next 12 months is going to be a roller-coaster as aerospace and defense ramps back up in an environment where the rest of the economy is already accelerating rapidly.

So aerospace and defense manufacturers need to compete with other industries for raw materials and people.

It’s going to be challenging to support the increasing demands that we see coming.

However, that’s part of the value that we hope to deliver for our suppliers and customers by being able to navigate through this reopening period that this market has never been through before.

Going from zero to a hundred miles an hour over a relatively short period will be a challenge.

The suppliers that can deliver in this environment will be set up well in the long term.