Inside SMI

CASMI president Tony Pesaresi and Gene Huber Jr., SMI president. In December 2022 SMI announced the cancellation of the 2023 Metal Engineering eXpo, scheduled for Sept. 12-14 in Las Vegas at the South Point Hotel and Casino. The announcement came after a November agreement made by SMI and the Chicago Association of Spring Manufacturers, Inc. (CASMI) to combine their trade shows in 2024.

The joint CASMI SpringWorld and the SMI Metal Engineering eXpo will be held Oct. 2-4, 2024, at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, Illinois.

“In light of the agreement to combine the shows, we made the decision for the good of the industry to cancel our show so we can put all our energy and resources toward the event in 2024,” said SMI President Gene Huber Jr.

At a joint presentation titled “Challenges We’ve Seen…As an Industry” for the November CASMI meeting in Oak Brook, Illinois, CASMI president Tony Pesaresi and Huber announced that CASMI and SMI had reached an agreement to combine their trade shows.

Pesaresi and Huber, who are third-generation leaders from Winamac Coil Spring in Kewanna, Indiana, first talked about the challenges facing the industry such as labor and material shortages along with the tough decisions springmakers have had to make regarding asset allocation. They concluded their remarks by discussing the perceived value in the industry of the two trade associations. Huber and Pesaresi said that one of SMI’s strengths is in its technical education and information, and for CASMI it is the trade show.

SEPTEMBER 12–14, 2023 • LAS VEGAS

Technical Director Rick Gordon (left) was available at the SMI booth to answer questions.

SMI’s executive committee met during SpringWorld and are pictured (l-to-r): Dave Deerwester, The Yost Superior Company; Don Jacobson III, Newcomb Spring; Gene Huber Jr., Winamac Coil Spring; David DeVoe, Plymouth Spring; and Bert Goering, Precision Coil Spring.

SMI President Gene Huber Jr. talks with visitors to the SMI booth at SpringWorld.

Pesaresi and Huber said it made logical sense to combine the strengths of the two associations into one trade show for the good of the industry where SMI provides the education and CASMI provides the venue. They said the combined event will be “one of the most distinctive experiences in the industry putting CASMI SpringWorld and the SMI Metal Engineering eXpo together in one place, at one time.”

SMI was scheduled to host the next ISO/TC227 meetings Sept. 14-15, 2023, in Las Vegas, Nevada, in conjunction with the 2023 Metal Engineering eXpo. SMI will continue to host the meetings with a date and location to be announced soon.

SMI serves as the technical advisory group to the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) for ISO/TC227. The role of the U.S. delegation is essential to ensure that the interests of American spring manufacturers, designers and consumers are represented in international standards development.

Exhibitors who reserved space for the eXpo will receive a refund for any payments made.

SMI Executive Director, Lynne Carr, is pictured with (l-to-r): Dennis Backhaus, Jim Maronde, and Mark Theis of Spiros Industries.

In addition to the beautiful surroundings of Orlando, the SMI annual meeting will feature three presentations to help you grow personally and professionally. The annual meeting will take place from April 22-25 at the Waldorf Astoria, a Disney property. SMI has negotiated an outstanding room rate of $199 per night that is good three days before or after the annual meeting. Complete registration details will be forthcoming soon.

Grow Your Business Charles E. Gaudet II, CEO and founder of Pursuing Profits, will provide his perspective on the rapidly evolving economy in his presentation, “Growth Today and Tomorrow: How to Charles Gaudet Create Sustainable Growth in the New Economy.”

Gaudet says, “We’ll discuss how buyers have changed, how to outshine your competition to win more deals (even if you’re more expensive), and the framework for generating sustainable growth right now.”

The author of “The Predictable Profits Playbook: The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Dominating Any Market and Staying on Top,” Gaudet is also the host of The Beyond 7-Figures podcast.

Gaudet has been an entrepreneur since the age of 4, created his first multimillion-dollar business at the age of 24, and is credited for developing strategies that have helped many clients achieve “Fastest Growing Company” status.

Learn more about Gaudet at predictableprofits.com. The Power of Potential Thomas D’Eri has dedicated his career to unleashing human potential by creating organizational systems and culture that empower people to grow. D’Eri is the Thomas D’Eri co-founder and COO of Rising Tide Car Wash, an organization that employs over 90 individuals with autism in a successful car wash business.

D’Eri’s SMI presentation is titled “The Power of Potential.”

The Rising Tide Car Wash in Parkland, Florida, isn’t average in any way. When D’Eri and his father John bought the location in 2013, it was struggling. Now it’s one of the highest-volume washes in Florida. Its employee retention rate is five times that of its competitors. It has spun off into a second location that was immediately successful. Both locations are quite profitable with a third location that just opened in July 2022. 370,000 cars a year drive away sparkling. Rising Tide has become a media darling, featured on “The Today Show,” “NBC Nightly News” and in magazines including Entrepreneur, National Geographic and Forbes.

The Rising Tide Carwash has a unique mission: D’Eri and his father wanted to create employment opportunities for workers with autism. Like 1 in 44 Americans, D’Eri’s brother Andrew has autism, and was facing lifelong unemployment. So, the family set out on a mission to wildly expand professional opportunities for people like Andrew, starting with one car wash. Rising Tide’s workforce is roughly 80% on the spectrum, 20% neurotypical.

D’Eri explains that you might think that Rising Tide has been so successful because people have celebrated its social mission. “That’s true, but the mission alone doesn’t explain the excellence that permeates every aspect of the business: service quality, customer experience, teamwork, management and organizational design.” D’Eri says you’ll find Rising Tide has the edge when comparing any aspect of its operation against other businesses. During his presentation, D’Eri will tell the inspiring, surprising reason why: The excellence isn’t in spite of their unusual workforce, but because of it.

D’Eri will explain how Rising Tide built a thriving business by developing highly accurate hiring practices, designing the work environment to empower all of its team members, developing managers who care enough to coach and building a culture of accountability and psychological safety.

“The audience will leave my presentation understanding how Rising Tide has integrated all of these practices into an operating system that drives real business results and also mitigates the perceived risks and challenges of employing neurodivergent talent,” explains D’Eri.

Be Inspired by Former Astronaut Story Musgrave, M.D., a physician and retired NASA astronaut, will share his inspiring life story. He has six graduate degrees in math, computers, chemistry, mediStory Musgrave cine, biological physics and literature and has been awarded 21 honorary doctorates. He was a parttime trauma surgeon at Denver General

Hospital for the duration of his astronaut career.

Musgrave was a NASA astronaut for more than 30 years and flew on six spaceflights. He performed the first shuttle spacewalk on Challenger’s first flight, was a pilot on an astronomy mission, conducted two classified DOD missions, was the lead spacewalker on the Hubble Telescope repair mission and operated an electronic chip manufacturing satellite on Columbia. He was the lead communicator in mission control for 25 missions. Today he is a producer/director of multimedia, a landscape architect, a heavy equipment operator, an artist/ designer/engineer with Applied Minds Inc. and a professor of design at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. Story also performs multimedia presentations on the topics of design driven innovation, personal and professional development, operational excellence, human performance, reliability, quality and safety.

For more information on the 2023 SMI annual meeting, visit smihq.org.

Tom Little, Sales Manager, Apex Spring and Stamping

SMI has a team of experts, who speak the language of springs, ready to assist you. It could be a metallurgy question about fatigue life or corrosion. Or perhaps you need help with a spring design and the use of materials when manufacturing springs.

In addition, our team can call upon the resources of the SMI Technical Committee who collectively represent hundreds of years of springmaking experience.

April 22-25 SMI Annual Meeting Waldorf Astoria, Disney Property Orlando, Florida smihq.org

April 15-19 wire and Tube Düsseldorf, Germany wire-tradefair.com tube-tradefair.com

Oct. 2-4 SpringWorld/Metal Engineering eXpo Donald E. Stephens Convention Center Rosemont, Illinois casmi-springworld.org metalengineeringexpo.org

Pictured (l-to-r): Dina Sanchez and Lynne Carr. SMI would like to thank Dina Sanchez for her 14 years of service to the association. She resigned in November 2022.

Sanchez started work at SMI in 2014, serving as part-time administrative assistant and as assistant editor for Springs. She was a strong presence at all SMI meetings and trade show events and the person on the other end of the phone that many members interacted with. During the pandemic, she coordinated interchanges between members looking for wire.

“Dina was invaluable to me over the last 14 years. All SMI has accomplished would not have happened without her knowledge of SMI, contribution to our membership and unwavering support,” said Lynne Carr, SMI executive director. “She will be missed by me and so many others. I wish her well.”

“It is extremely hard to bid Dina farewell,” said SMI president Gene Huber Jr. “Her literary talents, organizational skills, attention to detail and buoyant attitude made her a real asset and assistant to Lynne in the director’s role. She will be missed, and we wish her well wherever she ends up.”

“Dina was an invaluable member of the SMI magazine team,” said Gary McCoy, managing editor of Springs. “I always appreciated her attention to detail and ability to see things I didn’t always see. As the editor I received a lot of the praise for our publication, but I have always viewed the magazine as a team effort and Dina was a valuable contributor to the work that took place. She will be missed.”

The SMI Vanguard group met in-person during SpringWorld 2022 in Rosemont, Illinois, to discuss ideas and network. Adam Jacobson of FENN/Torin chairs the group and said it was great to gather for an in-person discussion during an important industry event.

The group recently changed its name to Avant-Garde and describes itself as: “Bold, daring, forward-thinking, radical. We are a group of SMI members bringing innovative and experimental ideas to shape the future of SMI and the springmaking industry. We exist to serve the needs of the emerging and future generation members and ensure that content and conferences evolve to meet the needs of emerging leaders and nonowner participants. We are an inclusive group, welcoming diversity.”

Jacobson says the intent of the group is to open the gate to the SMI community and ensure that new members are welcomed, embraced and positioned to grow into future leadership roles within SMI.

SMI’s Avant-Garde group gathered to discuss future plans at SpringWorld 2022.

Jacobson said the group has been meeting virtually each month and recently agreed to organize a series of roundtable presentations.

“The roundtables are designed for the Avant-Garde group but are open to all members of the spring industry,” said Jacobson.

Evan Rodgers of Gifford Spring has volunteered to handle the logistics in setting up the online meetings. The first roundtable was held Dec. 7, 2022, and led by Alex Melnikow of Midstate Spring on the topic of retaining employees. In January, Joe DeVoe of Plymouth Spring was scheduled to facilitate a 2023 business outlook discussion.

The next roundtable will be held Feb. 14, 2023, and presented by Cullen Olson of IDC Spring. Olson will facilitate an open discussion about effective methods, opportunities and challenges of integrating and leveraging ERP systems with spring manufacturing processes.

For information on Avant-Garde and how you can participate, contact Jacobson at 860-308-6732 or adam.jacobson@ fenn-torin.com.

The U.S. was well represented at the 2022 ISO/TC 227 Springs meetings held virtually again, out of an abundance of caution. The meetings were planned to be held in Hangzhou, China.

More than 28 participants from 10 contributing participating-member countries (China, Germany, Italy, France, United Kingdom, United States, Japan, Malaysia, Thailand and India) were present via WebEx for working group 3 (WG3), working group 4 (WG4) and the plenary sessions. SMI technical experts bring many years of manufacturing experience to the ISO/TC227 working groups 3 and 4 which are currently developing two standards.

SMI serves as the technical advisory group to the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) for ISO/TC227. The role of the U.S. delegation is essential to ensure that the interests of American spring manufacturers, designers and consumers are represented in international standards development.

The U.S. delegation was led by Tom Armstrong, retired chairman of Duer/ Carolina Coil. Participants included Al Mangels, chief technical advisor, Lee Spring; Tom Featherstone, general manager, Liberty Spring; Gene Huber Jr., SMI president and executive vice president, Winamac Coil Spring Inc.; and Rick Gordon, SMI’s technical director.

The WG3 is responsible for the devel- conjunction with the 2023 Metal Engiopment of the new ISO standard “Springs neering eXpo. A new date and location — Measurement and Test Parameters – for the meetings will be announced soon. Part 2: Cold Formed Cylindrical Helical In summary, Armstrong said, “I look Extension Springs.” WG3 met Sept. 23 forward to September when we will where draft comments were reviewed. hopefully be able to again share social The next draft of the standard will be interaction and in-person meetings. The prepared for the final review step - past three ISO/TC227 virtual meetings Final Draft International Standard have been a challenge because of the (FDIS) stage. Fabio Visentin from Italy pandemic. It is because of the personal is the convenor (project leader) for this relationships developed during prior instandard. person meetings that enabled great prog-

The WG4 is responsible for the devel- ress to be made in the working groups. opment of the new ISO standard “Springs The virtual ‘business only’ meetings have — Measurement and Test Parameters — gotten the necessary jobs done, but I look Part 3: Torsion Springs.” Draft comments back fondly to when the meetings were were reviewed Nov. 9 and 10. A revised much more!” draft of the standard will be prepared for Huber added that even though the the next review step. Wang Decheng from only meetings he has attended have been China is the convenor (project leader) virtual, he has thoroughly enjoyed the for this standard. interaction with the numerous repre-

Technical comments for the working sentatives from the many countries. He groups were provided by Mangels (WG3, also added that hosting the meetings in WG4), Featherstone (WG3), Huber person this year “will be a great honor (WG4) and Gordon (WG3, WG4). Most for those of us from the United States.” of the U.S. comments were accepted by Anyone interested in participating in the working groups. According to Arm- the ISO standards process should contact strong, “The contributions to this stan- either Rick Gordon at c.richard.gordon@ dardization effort by these individuals is gmail.com or Tom Armstrong at tgarmvery much appreciated.” strong@outlook.com.

The status of these projects will be reviewed at the next ISO/TC227 meetings, originally scheduled for Sept. 14-15, 2023, in Las Vegas, Nevada, in Below: A screen shot of the representatives attending the plenary session.

SMI spring design training sessions continue to be well received by both members and non-members. SMI presented its third new course for 2022, 206 — Snap Ring (Retaining Ring) Design, virtually on Sept. 15, 2022, with favorable reviews from student attendees.

In addition, SMI presented 304 Springs — Dimensioning, Tolerancing and Testing advanced training module at SpringWorld 2022 in Rosemont, Illinois. SMI Technical Director C. Richard Gordon taught the class and said students were happy to be able to attend an inperson class.

To date, 585 students have participated in training sessions for SMI’s four basic modules, 201 Compression Spring Design, 202 Extension Spring Design, 203 Torsion Spring Design and 206 Snap Ring Design along with the two advanced level modules 301 Springs — Fatigue and 304 Springs — Dimensioning, Tolerancing and Testing. 2023 Training Schedule Class

304 Dimensioning Tolerancing and Testing

206 Snap Ring Design

201 Compression Spring Design

202 Extension Spring Design

203 Torsion Spring Design

206 Snap Ring Design

201 Compression Spring Design

202 Extension Spring Design

203 Torsion Spring Design Date

Thursday, Feb. 16, 2023

Thursday, March 16, 2023

Thursday, April 20, 2023

Thursday, May 18, 2023

Thursday, June 15, 2023

Thursday, Aug. 17, 2023

Thursday, Oct. 19, 2023

Thursday, Nov. 16, 2023

Thursday, Dec. 14, 2023

The first in-person spring design class in three years was held during SpringWorld 2022.

The SMI Technical Committee plans to introduce two new courses in 2023: 205 — Beam, Torsion Bar and Constant Force Spring Design and 207 - Strength of Materials and Spring Material Manufacturing. Dates for these offerings will be announced at a later date.

SMI’s training program consists of three fundamental, seven basic and four advanced spring design training classes. Fundamentals courses were developed with new hires and non-technical staff in mind. Basic classes are designed to meet the needs of production and technical staff, including engineers, designers and inspectors. Advanced courses address a higher level of expertise for engineers, designers and other technical staff. The SMI technical committee has been working to develop these programs.

Two fundamentals training modules, “Spring Fundamentals” and “Overview of Springmaking Materials,” are available to the public on the SMI website: www. smihq.org. SMI member feedback for these modules has been very favorable.

Courses are organized as focused, real-world spring design training programs, combining basic spring design content for each spring type with practical hands-on use of SMI’s Advanced Spring Design 7 (ASD7) software.

Classes benefit students by increasing their spring design knowledge and benefit their company by having an SMItrained associate as part of their team.

For more information and to register for classes, visit smihq.org/page/ spring-design-training-program.

Spring design classes provide students with hands-on training and interaction with the ASD7 software.

strip: cold rolled high carbon/pre-tempered spring steels, coated, low carbon stainless, copper based alloys and aluminum ultra-narrow width, close-tolerance slitting edging: round, square, semi-round, deburred, custom, etc. oscillate (traverse) and ribbon wound coils ISO 9001: 2015 certified 43 years servicing the industry

tel. 847.537.2881 toolkinginc.com Wheeling (Chicago), Illinois 60090 USA

SMI regularly surveys its members to help them understand how they are doing relative to others in the industry. Confidentiality is important when SMI conducts each survey. No company data is ever shared with SMI members or SMI itself.

Here’s the schedule of surveys for 2023 and into 2024. Key Business Trends

(regular and associate members) First Quarter 2023

Second Quarter 2023

Third Quarter 2023

Fourth Quarter 2023 Survey Sent

April 6, 2023

July 6, 2023

Oct. 5, 2023

Jan. 5, 2024 Responses Due Results Sent

April 14, 2023

July 14, 2023

Oct. 13, 2023

Jan. 15, 2024 April 15, 2023

July 15, 2023

Oct. 14, 2023

Jan. 16, 2024

Salary (every other year — regular member contacts)

2023

Wages & Benefits (every other year — regular member contacts)

2024

Annual Market Summary (regular member contacts and prospective members)

First mailing by SMI

Email from SMI

Email follow up from previous recipients by Mackay Research Group

Published cutoff date for return

Industry Report to SMI

Individualized Reports to SMI Members Survey Sent

Oct. 1, 2023

Survey Sent

Aug. 6, 2024

Survey Sent

April 1, 2023

May 4, 2023

May 25, 2023 Responses Due Results Sent

Oct. 30, 2023 Nov. 30, 2023

Responses Due Results Sent

Sept. 9, 2024 Sept. 20, 2024

Responses Due Results Sent

May 29, 2023

July 15, 2023

July 30, 2023

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SMI members receive priority placement for their product, company, personnel and events announcements in the magazine. Your news releases should be roughly 50 to 100 words and may be accompanied by color photos (high-resolution .JPEG photos at 300 dpi preferred). Send to gary@smihq.org.