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International Mold SteelHarnessing the knowledge of mold and die solutions

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INSIDE

PRICE. It’s the mainbuzzword in the service center industry—at least among companies that sell com-modity products.The employees at Florence, Ky.-based

International Mold Steel, however, aren’tconcerned about price. They’re con-cerned about solutions. “Everything wesell is more expensive than the productswe compete with,” says Thomas Schade,executive vice president. “We don’t sellgeneric commodity products like D2 coldwork die steel.”The company’s history goes all the way

back to 1975, when Daido Steel Ltd.,Nagoya, Japan, introduced NAK55 to theJapanese and southeast Asian plasticsmoldmarket. “It quickly became the most pop-ular pre-hardenedmold steel in thosemar-kets,” says Schade. “NAK was introducedto the North American market by Metal-Source [an Alco StandardCo.] in 1982. In1986, Alco soldMetalSource to U.S. SteelSupply Co.”

In 1991, the company was bankrupt,Schade notes. “At the time of the bank-ruptcy, I was manager of marketing, spe-cialty steels. Daido asked how to keep thesales ofNAK growing, and I sent a businessplan for IMS.”InternationalMold Steel opened a sales

office in Houston in 1991 and moved to a2,500-square-foot facility in Erlanger, Ky.,in 1993 after Okaya USA bought the ma-jority ownership. “We built our current30,000-square-foot facility and moved inJune 1997,” Schade says. “Here we carryall our own inventory and do all our ownprocessing. The original team consisted offour key MetalSource employees: PaulBritton, who currently serves as nationalsales manager, mold products; RussBowen, who spun off to his own businessfour years ago,Molder’sWorld, which spe-cializes in one of our technical products,Porcerax; Ernie Beutel, who retired in2003; and myself.”Starting out, International Mold Steel

focused its attention on the plastic and

International Mold Steel adds valueby providing solutions to customers

Modern Metals® August 2008 Photos: Glenn Verde

BY LAUREN DUENSING

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August 2008 Modern Metals®

rubber mold markets. “We carried onlypre-heat treated grades in hardness rangesof HRC 29 to 33 and 38 to 42,” saysSchade. “We then approached the coldwork die steel market in 2001 with a sin-gle grade of steel, DC53, that outperformsmost, if not all, the generic grades, such asA2,D2 andM2. This grade has succeededbecause it has allowed customers to re-duce die fabrication time, extend die lifeand simplify their lives by only having tobuy one grade of steel.” The company isalso involved in the aluminum die castmarket with Toolox 44 for general appli-cations and “two grades from Daido[DH21 andDH31-S] that are used in spe-cialized applications requiring exceptionalstrength to avoid cracking.”

In-house knowledgeAs the company grew, it discovered themost important part of selling non-com-modity mold and die steel is having theknowledge to back up the product. “Wesell on the service side and get involvedwith the application,” says Britton. “Wedon’t just take orders and sell steel—wesell mold and die solutions.”“We’re a relatively small company in

personnel so it’s important that each per-son is technically up to speed,” saysSchade. “In the case of Paul, I’ll put himup against almost any rubber mold engi-neer in the country. Nick Tarkany [na-tional salesmanager, die products division]is the chairman of the tool and die divisionof the PrecisionMetalforming Association,and, again, when it comes to die design,I’ll put himup against anyone in the coun-try.” Another member of the staff with asimilar amount of expertise is Mike Buck-ley, sales engineer. Schade notes, “He hasyears of experience designing plastic in-jection molds, in addition to the hot-run-ner business.”The inside sales staff is equally knowl-

edgeable. “Most companies’ philosophy isthat inside salespeople wait for the phoneto ring and take the order,” Schade says.“Eighty percent of the technical questionsthat come in never get past Colleen andher inside sales staff. They answer them,and they answer them correctly.”“We actually get involved with the cus-

tomer and get to know the customer and

the application,” says Colleen Corcoran,inside sales manager. “That helps us tomove the process along, but it also helpsour outside sales, as well as our managers,to be able to peg that as an important call.”The staff’s knowledge is so compre-

hensive that many customers considerthe employees to be an extension of theirown company. “Paul coined the phrase,‘We don’t sell steel; we sell mold and diesolutions,’” says Schade. “Our sales effortstarts with engineers, and one of our firstquestions is: What are your problems?Wethen set out to solve those problems. Ofcourse, our goal is to solve the problemwith the proper application of one of oursteels. But more than once, if there’s an-other company’s grade that’s more appro-priate for a particular situation, we’llrecommend the grade and the source tothe customer. In addition to the grade, we

also will work on hardness selection, ma-chining and heat treating.”“When a customer feels that you’re an

extension of their engineering staff, that’shigh praise,” says Britton. “There aretimes when a customer will call us look-ing for a certain grade of steel, and we’llsend them in a whole different direction.”Britton says even if International Mold

Steel recommends a grade it doesn’t sell,the customer “gets the information fromus, they view us as the resource and ninetimes out of 10, we’re the first phone call.”

An international reachAnd those phone calls are coming in fromaround the world. The company’s closepartnership withDaido gives it a leg up onthe international market, but as Schadenotes, “We canwalk into any internationalcompany and solve any problem with our

INTERNATIONALMOLD STEEL’S INTERNATIONAL REACHMAKES ITSWEB SITE,www.imsteel.com, an important resource for customers. “We get inquiries fromall over on a regular basis,” says Thomas Schade, executive vice president. “Alot of people lean on it as a technical resource.”The company’s Web site also sells solutions by offering discussion forums

and a technical center, which provides answers to commonly asked questions.Paul Britton, national sales manager, mold products division, says thediscussion forums “get a lot of hits and are very active. We try to update themon a weekly basis. Most of the questions are answered, and they seem to bewell received.“We don’t sell commodities; we sell solutions,” he notes. “One of our main

solution drivers is the quality of our steel. We try to teach people more about oursteel. It’s a learning experience for both our customers and us, and that’s whywe use the discussion forums that way.”Since their inception, the forums have been an informal place for customers

to learn more about International Mold Steel’s products. That’s still the case,but recently the forums have received an upgrade, in addition to bettersecurity. “These forums are relatively new,” says Nick Tarkany, national salesmanager, die products division. “We’ve been using them off and on, but wehaven’t gone out full-fledged to advertise them. We’re at the point now wherewe’re ready to do that. Your questions are welcome, the security is great andwe’re moving forward.”

Modern Metals® August 2008

steel. We’re close withour European andJapanese distributors,and we’ll share informa-tion with those interna-tional companies . . . Ifsomebody calls us andhas a problem in China,we can have technicalservice in the languagethe people understandin a matter of hours.”Corcoran says the

company also receives “quite a few leadsfrom Europe and India. We eithertackle that ourselves and ship from thislocation or we have a European distrib-utor that we work closely with. Betweenthose two, we’re extending ourselves inevery direction.”Another aspect of the company’s inter-

national network comes through its part-nerships. “Daido is an equity partner in thecompany,” says Schade. “Our relationshipwith SSAB [Oxelosund, Sweden] is rapidlybecoming closer than vendor-customer.”In addition, he says International MoldSteel considers HE&M Saw a partner, asthe company exclusively uses its saws.“As the volume forDC53 grewout of our

capacity, we partneredwithAlro Steel [Jack-son, Mich.] as our first, and largest, distrib-utor,” he says. “The customers in theterritories they serve benefit from their ex-cellent service. We supply Alro with tech-nical support. We’ve entered into similarrelationships with Lindquist Steels in NewEngland, Southern Tool Steel in theSouth, Hudson Metals in the West andTitus Steel in Canada.”

Cost savingsInternationalMold Steel is always lookingfor the next solution, whether through anengineering discovery or a new grade. “Weselect grades that Daido produces that be-come popular in the Japanese market be-cause they dramatically outperform thegeneric grades,” says Schade. “We test themachining, grinding and polishing exten-sively, both in-house andwith selected cus-tomers. When we’re comfortable that thenew grade, even though the initial acqui-sition cost of themetal is somewhat higher

than the grades we compete with, will,through reducedmachining and grindingtime and extended tool life, reduce ourcustomers’ tooling cost per part, we intro-duce the grade. The testing also allows usto be technically proficient and fully capa-ble of showing our customers how to ben-efit from the unique features of the steel.”Customers benefit from a one-source

supplier. “Our customers don’t have toworry about inconsistent quality frommul-tiple supplying mills,” Schade notes. “Werecently added our first two grades not pro-duced by Daido. They are Toolox 33 andToolox 44, produced by SSAB. We putthese grades through the same extensivetesting.When they surpassed our expecta-tions, we decided to carry them. Due tothe uniquemanner these steels are manu-factured, only SSAB can make them.Again, we have the advantage of single-source reliability and quality.”The quality of International Mold

Steel’s products can result in enormouscost savings for customers. “We had a rub-ber mold customer that was using a gradeof stainless for his mold cavity plates,” saysBritton. “They were cracking and break-ing just about every week, and they werecosting him about $3,000 per week to re-place. We switched him to a DC53, andhe actually paid 10 percent more than the440 stainless.” Britton says that because thecavities stopped breaking, the customerwas able to use less rubber and hold tightertolerances, and his scrap went down.“Spending 10 percent more on steel forthat one part saved him $1.2 million in ayear in tooling and scrapped parts.”That’s not the only customer who’s

saved a bundle. Another replaced a blade

that was being imported from China witha DC53 blade with a coating on it. “Theywere paying $186 for this blade, and wecharged them $415,” Britton notes. “Theysaid, ‘Accounting is never going to go forthis.’ Their production cycle on the Chi-nese blade was lasting two hours, and thenthe blade would be dull. Our blade lastedsix days. It ended up saving them about$53,000 per year in blades.”What customers learn from working

with International Mold Steel is that theup-front cost ofmaterial doesn’t need to bethe deciding factor. “The key is teachingcustomers not just to look at variables A, Band C but to look at A through Z,” saysTarkany. “Look at the starting cost and thebottom line. Our steel will save money onthe bottom line.”And that bottom line is what matters to

customers. “I had a customer tell me yes-terday, ‘That’s the way we’ve done it for 80years, and we need to change,’” saysTarkany. And that customer has come tothe right place looking for a solution.“We’ve found the people that we end up

doing the most business with are the for-ward-thinking people, who are alwayslooking for new and better ways to dothings,” says Schade. He notes that even inthis tough economy, “they’re all busy. Thepeople who are beating their heads againstthe wall saying, ‘We do it this way, we’vealways done it this way, and we’re notabout to change because we’re comfort-able’ are the people that are struggling.” �

International Mold Steel Inc., Florence, Ky.,800/625-6653, fax: 859/342-6006,www.imsteel.com,e-mail: salesdesk@imsteel.com.

0

200,000

400,000

75 80 85 90 95

600,000

800,000

1,000,000

NO.O

FCY

CLES

STRESS AMPLITUDE

DC53 (63 HRC)

D2 (61 HRC)FATIGUE STRENGTHWhen compared with tool steel grades,

such as D2, DC53 provides superiortoughness and fatigue resistance.

Source: International Mold Steel

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Reprinted from Modern Metals® August 2008 Copyright Trend Publishing Inc.