While many shops shy away from or are trying to diversify out of automotive work, MKM embraces it with open arms and is not afraid to invest in new technology to win more of it.
The shop specializes in precision turning, and by 2009, expects that automotive work will grow to 50 percent of its sales.
As a Tier 2/Tier 3 supplier, MKM machines a variety of automotive parts, including camshaft nose pieces, brake parts and fuel components. It provides parts to nearly every major automaker, domestic and foreign.
The family-owned business was started 53 years ago by James D. Moore as a one-man shop in a coal-bin house near a railroad yard. It has grown to occupy a 280,000-sq-ft facility in Jeffersonville, Ind.
Basic machine work for some well-known businessmachine companies, such as IBM, launched the company and sustained it through the 1960s and 1970s.
In the early 1980s, MKM entered its second generation of family ownership when Rob Moore took over.
In 1986, under Rob's leadership, the shop invested in rotary-transfer machines – it still has about 31 Hydromats – and dove into high-volume production runs.
The shop’s automotive work increased since then.
Concerning the loss of automotive work to China, Dan Peterworth, president, said: “In our opinion, the China issue has run its course. More work is coming back because U.S. companies are realizing that even though the piece price may be less, overall total costs aren’t. There are longer leadtimes and issues concerning quality, work-in-progress and logistics.”
