AEC Extrusion Symposium

September 21-23, 2010

Hyatt Regency O'Hare

Chicago, Illinois

Education: Combined and AEC Extrusion Symposium Sessions

Combined Sessions (Tuesday, September 21)

AEC Extrusion Symposium Sessions (Wednesday, September 22 and Thursday, September 23)

Combined Session:

R&D Panel Discussion and Luncheon

Tuesday, September 21

Noon - 2:00 p.m.

(open to those registered for the Aluminum Association's Annual Meeting or the full Aluminum Week program)

Moderator: Dr. Warren H. Hunt, Jr., TMS Executive Director

Panelists:

Resource Recovery and Recycling – Responsibilities, Opportunities, and Challenges for the Aluminum Industry

Diran Apelian, Director of Metal Processing Institute, Worcester Polytechnic

The aluminum industry seeks to leverage resource recovery and recycling as a sustainable competitive advantage over other materials. While significant progress has been made in this area, the industry faces several challenges including upgrading versus downgrading of scrap via recycling, designing recycling processes that are more energy efficient, more alloy compositions “designed for recycling”, and incorporating life cycle analysis during the design stage as well as end of life dismantling incorporating a “cradle-to-cradle” philosophy in product design and development. This presentation will provide a perspective on these developments with a special attention to meeting societal challenges of the 21st century.

The Future of Anodizing: The First Commercially Available Nanoscale Coating

Dr. Jude Mary Runge, President of CompCote International, Inc.

Nanotechnology is the marketing buzzword for the 21st century. For more than 80 years, the anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) has had a special niche because it imparts engineering properties of improved corrosion and wear resistance to the aluminum substrate. More recently, the unique, highly ordered, self-assembling nanoscale structure of AAO has been studied and characterized, revealing interesting semiconductor properties. It is an excellent template for metallic nanostructures that are useful in various applications, making the future promising for producing anodic oxides on aluminum and aluminum alloys.

Light Metal Age Review of Recent Aluminum R&D and Aluminum's Competitive Edge in the Materials Race

Dr. Joseph Benedyk, Editor for Light Metal Age and Research Professor of Mechanical, Materials & Aerospace Engineering at Illinois Institute of Technology

Current trends in light metals R&D selected from recent archives and future publishing plans of Light Metal Age -- The International Magazine of the Light Metal Industry -- are reviewed. Light Metal Age has been publishing news of aluminum, magnesium, and titanium industry developments since 1943. This review focuses on aluminum and aluminum alloys and their applications in such important markets as automotive, aerospace, and B&C. Important process developments in aluminum extrusions and mill products that may give aluminum an edge over competitive materials are briefly mentioned.

Keynote Breakfast

Wednesday, September 22

7:15 a.m. - 9:15 a.m.

Featured Speaker: Ronald D. Elving, Senior Washington Editor, National Public Radio (NPR)

Enjoy breakfast while hearing the latest news and views out of Washington D.C.—including a timely assessment of the midterm elections—from political analyst Ron Elving. As Senior Washington Editor for NPR, Elving directs coverage of the Capital and national politics and is frequently heard as a news commentator on NPR. He also writes the weekly NPR website column WATCHING WASHINGTON.
Author of the book, Conflict and Compromise: How Congress Makes the Law, Elving came to Washington in 1984 as a Congressional Fellow with the American Political Science Association and worked for two years as a staff member in the House and Senate before joining Congressional Quarterly in 1987.

AEC Extrusion Symposium Sessions:

General Session

Wednesday, September 22

9:30 a.m. - Noon

AEC Town Hall Meeting
This popular “sound-off” session returns! The idea is to solicit and encourage ideas on how AEC can help your business thrive. Council leaders will field questions and comments from the audience, including suggestions on how to make the programs of AEC indispensible to you and your operations. Come prepared to share your thoughts, observations, and inspirations.

Supplier Take 5 Presentations
This popular mainstay from the former Management Conference features select AEC Supplier Members each taking five minutes to brief members on new and improved products and services for the aluminum extrusion industry. These presentations offer a preview of the exhibits featured at the Aluminum Marketplace. 

Participating companies include:

• Zenergy Power Inc.
• CASTOOL Tooling Systems
• WEFA Cedar Inc.
• Vapormatt Ltd.
  
  

Increasing Our Industry Presence—Knowledge is King

Featured Speakers: Morris Binder, InfoQuest and Rick Merluzzi, Pennex Aluminum Co.

For the past three years, the AEC Business Development Committee sponsored an InfoQuest customer loyalty program for interested members. To date, opinions have been gathered from over 1,000 customers served by 25 different AEC member-manufacturing locations. The data that has been collected has become the foundation of an AEC database against which individual member results can be compared and contrasted. That same data is also available for comparison against InfoQuest’s international database, which is comprised of thousands of customer responses, gathered on behalf of clients operating in over 100 industries in 77 different countries.

The fundamental criterion measured by the InfoQuest process is twofold. First, respondents are asked to consider their supplier’s performance in by responding to 43 different questions and statements which collectively touch on all key areas of the business relationship. Second, after reviewing each of those elements, the respondents are then asked to indicate their overall satisfaction – all things considered – with their supplier. Response options range from Totally Satisfied to Totally Dissatisfied. That measurement of overall satisfaction has been proven to be the single most important element of customer loyalty, as well as current and future revenue performance.

In addition, with neural net analysis, a form of artificial intelligence, the process identifies and ranks the elements that contribute to overall satisfaction. Industry wide, three performance areas account for 83% of the drive towards increased customer loyalty.

Economic Outlook for 2010 and 2011

Featured Speaker: William Strauss, Senior Economist and Economic Advisor, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago

The “Great Recession” of 2008 and 2009 appears to have ended around the middle of 2009 with significant impacts on the economy. The economy experienced outsized losses in the housing, manufacturing and jobs. Yet, what should be a robust recovery is not expected. Consumers are saving at an increased pace, limiting the growth of consumer spending. Credit conditions, while significantly improved from last year, remain relatively tight and will act as a headwind to growth. Mr. Strauss will look at the performance of the overall macro economy with specific attention paid to key economic sectors and indicators.

Closing General Session

Thursday, September 23

8:30 a.m. - 11:40 a.m.

PIVOT POINT: How the Competition Between China and America is Determining Our Future

Featured Speaker: Michael Colopy, Foreign Affairs Expert

A game is both cooperation and competition: cooperation to compete under an agreed rule set and competition to gain and hold the winning edge wherever possible under the terms of participation. The economic game between the U.S. and CHINA is a serious match well under way: one team helped make the rules and controlled access to much of the resources; the other agreed to join the game but finds decisive advantages in loopholes, unenforced rules, and shifting circumstances that tilt the field. In fact, the appearance of cooperation has been a tool used by the big newcomer, China, to gain major competitive advantage over the original rule makers, the United States and its allies. China’s style of play is reshaping the global trade environment in which U.S. businesses must compete to survive. This presentation will discuss how the new phase of competition evolved, where is it headed, the relative strengths of each side, and what the U.S. must do now to protect its interests.

Double–dip or Slow Climb…Key Issues for Extruders

Featured Speaker: Blair Stewart, Metal Bulletin Research

It’s important for all businesses to have a view of the economic environment. Blair Stewart of Metal Bulletin Research (MBR) will discuss the current economic climate and prospects for recovery with the goal of helping to determine how aluminum industry companies should position their businesses going forward. Stewart will also present forecasts for global and North American primary aluminum supply, along with a timely and topical discussion on billet supply. Working capital and credit availability will also be covered for a well-rounded discussion that focuses on key topics for extrusion businesses.

Blair Stewart is a seasoned veteran of the aluminum industry having held positions in various departments of Consolidated Aluminum, including rolling, primary, extrusions and recycling, until the company was sold to Ormet. He then moved to JW Aluminum, a small rolling mill that he helped grow into a five plant, multi-product private equity holding, selling the company three times along the way. His financial background trained him well for buying, trading, and hedging prime and scrap aluminum. When he retired last year it seemed perfectly natural to lend his talents to Metal Bulletin. Mr. Stewart is currently contributing the North American Sheet and Plate analysis for MBR’s Weekly Market Tracker.