Bufab hired Johan Sandberg as global business development director and a new member of executive management. Sandberg will start in January 2019, replacing Urban Bülow, who relocated to the U.S....
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“The automotive and equipment associations work hard,” stated Vanessa Sciarra, VP for legal affairs and Trade & Investment Policy for the National Foreign Trade Council. “They are your best friends.”

STAFDA president: One lesson from competing with Amazon and other major players “is the idea that we win when our customers win, or Mr. Bezos’s now famous mantra ‘it is all about the customer’.”
Bossard already announced partnerships with three 3D printer manufacturers in early 2018, when the Bossard Group took over the representation and distributorship of these companies for the Swiss market.

“Before acquiring KLX, Boeing was starting to invest in ways to be more integrated with customers’ parts stocking operations as a step to achieve this,” writes Lee Ann Shay of MRO-Network.com. “KLX already is doing that by being integrated in customers’ shop floors day to day through its bin stocking programs for OEMs, airlines and MRO.”

Sales and hiring increased during the month, while customers expressed uncertainty about future orders due to U.S. tariffs.
Sean Baird, president and owner of Hampton Roads Fastener & Construction Supply Inc. in Virginia Beach, VA, is the new president of the Specialty Tools & Fasteners Distributors Association.
Carmen Vertullo and Rob LaPointe co-founded AIM Testing Laboratory. The primary focus of AIM is consultation, training and testing of fasteners and related products. Product offerings include technical guidance, specifications...

Offsite construction is on the rise and Bill Sisto predicted to the Specialty Tools & Fasteners Distributors Association that contractors will partner with prefab companies.

Nearly five months after the U.S. imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, fastener manufacturers continue to receive “inconsistent” responses from the U.S. Commerce Department related to exclusions requests, according to the Industrial Fasteners Institute’s Washington representative Jennifer Baker Reid.

The FIN Fastener Stock Index bounced back in the third quarter of 2018, rising 9.2% after declining 0.4% in the previous quarter.

Back in the early days of XL Screw, communication with overseas suppliers was with teletype machines, unreliable phone service plus multiple stop, smoke-filled flights to Japan. Reflecting on the changes in his 46 years at XL, Bob Sachs cited increased efficiency through technology.

The biennial Wire trade show in Germany has long dominated the fastener machinery exhibitions. Wire Düsseldorf noted passenger cars contain more than 1,000 screw connections – 300 of them in the combustion engine – and some 1,000 springs.

The seasonally adjusted September FDI (55.8) decelerated in September, “still strong in absolute terms but nonetheless meaningfully lower for the second straight month,” according to R.W. Baird analyst David Manthey.
Vanessa Sciarra of the National Foreign Trade Council will speak Tuesday during the October 30 - November 1 International Fastener Expo in Las Vegas.

Founded in a Detroit garage in 1967, Prestige Stamping operates a 100,000 sq ft facility in Warren, MI, to produces high-volume, tight-tolerance washers and similar small stampings.
It is Lawson’s sixth acquisition in 36 months. The 2017 acquisition of the Bolt Supply House at $40 million was the largest.
Third-quarter net earnings more than doubled, buoyed by U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum.
Fastenal warned that “challenges remain from inflationary pressures and new tariffs on Chinese-sourced goods.”