EMMA: Expanding Markets
for Expanded Metals

When metals executives talk about threats from foreign competition, most point fingers at low-cost-labor markets like China, India and other developing countries. But Ian Thompson, director of operations at Niles Expanded Metals, Niles, Ohio, believes his industry faces a more serious threat from the booming and aggressive expanded metals industry of Europe.

“There are massive opportunities, but if we don’t do something about it, those awkward British people and Germans will come and do it for us,” said the U.K.-born Thompson, who worked for one of Europe’s larger expanded metals makers before joining Niles.

Thompson and other executives in Chicago for the Expanded Metals Manufacturers Association annual conference offered their perspectives on this niche market during an Oct. 22 roundtable with Metal Center News.

Unlike in the United States, where the expanded metals industry has been stagnant, the industry in Europe has taken significant market share from perforated metals in the last decade by identifying potential applications and aggressively targeting end-users, architects and engineers. “I spoke to over 200 people in engineering industries based in the states,” said Thompson. “Ninety-six percent of them—senior technical engineering people in a vast range of industries—had never heard of expanded metals. But probably 100 percent of them, when you talk to them, could see potential applications for it.”

Thompson estimates this latent potential for new expanded metals demand in the United States at nearly $300 million. “You’re not going to win it all, but in reality there must be 10, 20, 30 percent that’s open for potential attack. Twenty percent of $300 million is a lot of money.”

If the domestic industry does not get a piece of this new business, Thompson is certain European manufacturers will. “We’ve got to find ways to stop that from happening,” he said.

Industry veterans agree that finding new applications is paramount to expanded metal’s success, and they already see progress. “I sense a rejuvenation in the industry. We’re not going to have to beat each other up on the existing markets, but rather create new markets that are going to take us forward into the future,” said Rod Miller, president of Spantek Expanded Metal, Hopkins, Minn.

Helping its member companies develop those markets is one of EMMA’s chief duties. But unlike other industry associations, the current version of EMMA is still in relative infancy.

The organization existed for several decades until it dissolved in the 1980s. It reformed in 1996, but only after the industry had suffered significant market share losses to perforated metals and plastics.

Additionally, other markets that had been mainstays of the expanded metals base had disappeared. The most obvious example was the home satellite dish market, which dried up when technology made the giant, metal dishes obsolete. That development hit a number of companies particularly hard. Recognizing when an old market has run its course, and finding a new market to replace it, takes some foresight.

“There’s always something to take it’s place—there’s always a warning when a product cycle is dying out—but if you’re so busy, you don’t have time to research it,” says Lynn Underwood, vice president of sales for Midwest Expanded Metal Inc., Waconia, Minn.

“A lot of small businesses are so busy taking care of business, they don’t have time to take the blinders off,” agrees Rick Bahner, president of Expanded Solutions, Oklahoma City.

Rather than fighting to simply improve their slice of existing markets, the executives are hoping to create a bigger pie by tapping into new applications. Among the most promising is fencing, where chain link has been the dominant product.

Chain link fencing is an ideal material to keep honest people out or dogs in, the EMMA members concede, but when it comes to keeping “bad people” out, expanded metal is superior. Tests have shown that expanded metal fencing offers greater security because it is more difficult to penetrate, and as a non-raveling product it’s easier to erect. Expanded metal fencing is finding a home at airports, rail yards and utilities, where security has had increased urgency since the terrorist attacks.

EMMA also hopes to revitalize the architecture market, where expanded metal products were favored for more than 70 years, utilized in building facades and surrounds, interior panels and room dividers. But their use slowly fell out of favor to other materials. Today’s greater variety in terms of shapes and configurations and the flexibility of materials (most any metals, including stainless, aluminum, copper and steel can be expanded) gives the organization hope that it can regain traction with architects and specifiers.

“Architects will create markets for us. They’re our friends,” says Jim Quinn, corporate product director of Alabama Metal Industries Corp., Birmingham, Ala.

Expanded metal manufacturers realize that developing new markets is primarily their responsibility. Though the service center sector remains the industry’s largest customer base, the EMMA members don’t expect service centers to serve as their marketing arm and do all the heavy lifting.

They prize service centers’ role in the supply chain, however.

“Historically, they provide a valuable function,” Quinn says. “They’re a sales multiplier for any mill, and that’s what we are. A mill.”