Saving money in manufacturing and fabrication is becoming more important than ever as the economy worsens. As business conditions go downhill, it's often the little things that can be done that could be the difference between a company surviving or failing.

We have several articles in this issue that talk about ways to work smarter that could help welding shops to save money and, especially with banks being colder than a Minnesota winter, several of these ways to work smarter don't always require more money, but they do need imaginative thinking.

In our Shop Stories you can read about Kreator Equipment & Services Inc, a welding shop in Orangeville, Ontario, that had the help of its equipment distributor to develop a way to get twice the welding capabilities on a job site as it could before. It's true that Kreator bought new equipment to boost its welding capacity, but it's also true that the shop is wringing every last penny it can from the equipment it has, and it is only able to do that because of the ingenious thought that went into putting the right equipment together in a unique way.

Or, you can read about Arctic Snow & Ice Control, a snow plow manufacturer in Bradley, Ill., that uses robots in place of the skilled welders that the shop can't find to crank out nearly seven times as many welded components for its snow plow as it could make manually.

That article makes it clear that you need to be methodical and use common sense when you select your welding equipment.

With proper planning, a shop can start off small and, as it grows, it can make it easier on itself by adding equipment that goes together with its original equipment and develop equipment modules that increase capacity geometrically, instead of adding capacity in single units.

Looking at the feature article on selecting gas tungsten arc welding equipment is a place to start to develop the kind of business plan — based on equipment — that would help a shop to be more efficient and profitable.

Once equipment issues are settled, the smart-working shop manager will look at finding a good strategy to make sure that his shop is using consumables in the best ways.

Squeezing money out of consumable use might require doing things differently than a shop has done before, and metal-cored wire could provide advantages.

As the article on page 12 says, the technology and manufacturing techniques used to make metal cored wires have advanced to make metal cored wire more effective and less expensive than before. Maybe, if your shop used metal cored wire before and doesn't today, it is time to take another look at those products to see if they now offer savings that they didn't previously.

It's human nature to make a rut for ourselves and to stay in it, and it's easy to forget or to overlook old techniques and new products that could make our jobs easier and our profit greater.

Taking that step — to become creative and to try something new — is tough, and it takes work. But these are tough times and, if you listen to the economic gurus, things are going to become tougher before they get easier, so this looks like the right time to make some tough decisions and get to work on them.

In the end, you are only putting what you know about welding to work to help your shop survive and prosper no matter what is going on in the rest of the world.