Sustainability & Management

Hans van Leerdam, AL Solutions SL, Spain

Safety in aluminum extrusion is essential, not only because of high pressures, extreme temperatures, and heavy machinery, but because safety fundamentally depends on human behavior. Most incidents arise from unsafe actions and shortcuts, not technical failures. Building a strong safety culture requires a shift in mindset, led by top-down leadership. Safety must be embedded in how the company thinks and operates, shown through real actions, not just statements. It should be a core value, not merely a priority, as priorities can change. Too often, especially in large corporations, excessive focus on safety KPIs overshadows true safety. This can encourage unsafe behavior like underreporting incidents and create a false sense of control instead of improving safety. When safety is fully embraced as part of the organizational mindset, employees are empowered to follow procedures, wear PPE properly, and report incidents openly. Clear communication, training, and engagement are key to lasting behavioral change.

Grace Asenov, Fastmarkets, United Kingdom

Fastmarkets' low-carbon aluminum price assessments provide transparent, independently verified benchmarks that support sustainable decision-making across the value chain. As decarbonization and recycling reshape the extrusion industry, reliable pricing data is essential for tracking costs, understanding low-carbon premiums and managing exposure to shifting global markets. Fastmarkets publishes global recycled and low-carbon aluminum price assessments, including benchmarks specific to the United States, to reflect the evolving value of lower-emission material. This presentation will examine the key forces influencing aluminum prices in North America, including energy costs, recycled content and trade policy; and how these factors relate to the growing demand for low-emission and secondary aluminum. By linking market fundamentals with sustainability goals, Fastmarkets helps producers, traders and end users make informed choices that advance emissions reduction and responsible sourcing. 

Tony Da Silva, XtruAdvance; Drazen Kostelski and Mohamed Parpia, Ryan, LLC, Canada

Most extrusion plants perform significant experimental development without recognizing it as research. Every die trial, metal-flow correction, speed-temperature optimization, container-pressure investigation, or scrap-reduction experiment is, in practice, a structured attempt to overcome technological uncertainty. In both the United States and Canada, these activities often qualify as R&D for tax incentives and funding programs, yet most extruders fail to identify or document them. As a result, companies leave substantial financial value unclaimed each year. This session will demonstrate how common process-optimization work in aluminum extrusion meets the scientific criteria for R&D, even when performed on the shop floor. Attendees will learn how to distinguish routine production from eligible experimental development, how to document trials correctly, and how to quantify the financial upside. By understanding the research they are already doing, extruders can recover funds, reinvest in capability, and strengthen competitiveness across North America.

Thilanka Hettiarachchi, Savonia University of Applied Sciences, Finland

Continuous improvement (CI) in manufacturing rarely fails due to lack of effort. It often stalls when progress slows despite ongoing initiatives. Many factories display visible CI activities such as Kaizen events, Lean workshops, and performance dashboards, yet overall performance remains flat. This issue often arises because manufacturing systems are designed for control and consistency rather than for learning and adaptation. As a result, improvement efforts are absorbed into routine operations without producing lasting impact. This paper explores how sustainable CI depends less on adding effort and more on adjusting system design. It presents industry examples where aligning processes, incentives, and daily routines with learning objectives led to measurable gains. The key is to reduce resistance, promote collaboration across functions, and build feedback loops that support continuous progress. Long-term success comes from designing systems where improvement becomes a natural part of daily work, not a separate initiative.

Rebecca Robbins, Bonnell Aluminum, USA

This presentation outlines best practices for enhancing safety programs by strategically leveraging leading indicators. While OSHA sets a foundational standard, achieving true safety excellence requires anticipating risks through metrics such as near-miss reporting, inspection trends, corrective-action closure rates, and employee engagement. As Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) obligations evolve, continuous learning, adaptive systems, and modern digital tools, including QR-based inspections and real-time reporting platforms, are essential for improving hazard visibility and data quality. Transitioning from paper to digital processes enables more accurate tracking of leading indicators, earlier identification of emerging risks, and more timely corrective actions. Integrating these practices with innovative technologies and a commitment to continuous improvement empowers organizations to exceed compliance, reduce risk, and foster a safer, more efficient workplace.

Mutassem Daaboul, Mohammed Alsawaf, Mahmoud Salhen, Rasha Othman, and Hassan Eldeeb, CANEX Aluminum, Egypt

High-mix, customer-specific aluminum extrusion operations often focus on localized optimization yet still experience late deliveries and quality escapes. This paper argues that the primary constraint in such environments is not technical capacity or material availability, but decision latency: the time required to recognize uncertainty and force a cross-functional decision. Based on a detailed industrial case study from a building-products customer, the research shows that early warning signals across quality, planning, supply chain, finance, and production were visible, yet execution continued under partial readiness. Information existed, but ownership and decision-forcing mechanisms did not. The paper proposes a practical operating framework built on three principles: treating uncertainty as a stop signal, establishing single-point order ownership, and redefining quality as an end-to-end system property extending to curing, handling, packaging, and logistics readiness. By reducing drift and forcing timely decisions, extrusion operations can shift from corrective firefighting to predictable, on-time delivery in high-variability environments. 

Steve Brenneman, Aluminum Insights; and Eskild Hoff, Hydro Aluminum Metals, USA

Customers who are both willing and capable of making changes to shapes and business processes are ripe for continuous improvement activities with their extrusion supplier. There are several areas that drive cost for extrusion suppliers that can be examined with the customer to work toward improvement. As a greenfield extruder entering the industry, we saw opportunities in the marketplace. Things such as profile design, order quantities, turnaround time, delivery methods and quality standards can be challenged if customers are open to using continuous improvement activities together with their extrusion supplier. Even involving upstream suppliers in the effort can have significant benefits, including reduced waste and more sustainable solutions. This kind of work is difficult but extremely rewarding and creates strong customer loyalty when mutual trust is built. The following case studies will show several examples and the corresponding results of this work. 

Yair Levin, Profal, Israel

This paper examines the significance of efficient and environmentally sustainable recycling of aluminum. It reviews the development of aluminum recycling over recent decades, based on the author's professional experience. While addressing the broader implications of aluminum recycling, the paper focuses on a key contemporary challenge: the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Aluminum recycling is particularly notable for its ability to achieve energy savings of up to 95%! Despite this advantage, most aluminum production today remains primary. Of the recycled aluminum, the majority originates from pre-consumer sources, while only a small share is derived from post-consumer recycling. Post-consumer recycling is especially complex, as it requires effective sorting of contamination from the aluminum profiles. The paper presents advanced recycling solutions developed to meet this challenge, solutions that enabled the author's company to obtain an Environmental Product Declaration (EPD), demonstrating compliance with international standards and achievement of a very low carbon footprint. 

Wojciech Misiolek, Lehigh University; and Craig Werner, Intelligent Extrusion LLC, USA

Partnerships and forms of collaboration between industry and academia are constantly evolving. While both parties need to adapt to a changing world, certain characteristics remain the same. Industry's role is to produce a competitive product, while academia focuses on educating a new generation of specialists and conducting research in the selected field of science and engineering, often working with companies. The authors have reviewed models that address the needs of both industry and academia in successful arrangements. The authors reviewed the concept of the Aluminum Processing Program (AAP), developed by fourteen AEC members and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute to train young professionals entering the aluminum extrusion industry and technical staff joining this industry. The advantages and shortcomings of this program show that complementary models are needed and should be developed to serve large, midsize, and small companies in our field.

Sutanay Parida, National Aluminium Products Company S.A.O.G., Oman

Aluminum extrusion is a process-intensive manufacturing activity where the effectiveness of an ERP system largely depends on the accuracy and timeliness of shop floor data capture. A major challenge in extrusion plants is maintaining synchronization between actual production activities and ERP system entries. Delays or deviations in recording operational events create data gaps that lead to planning inefficiencies, inventory mismatches, and unreliable performance indicators. At Napco, key production and material handling activities having significant impact on ERP data integrity were identified and systematically controlled through the development of focused Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and structured business rules. This paper presents a practical implementation approach to align shop floor execution with ERP system requirements by restructuring operational workflows and enforcing process discipline. The proposed methodology improves real-time data reliability and enhances decision-making capability, resulting in a more organized and responsive manufacturing management system in aluminum extrusion plants. 

Raffaele D'Andrea, Emmebi Srl, Italy

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is transforming the aluminum extrusion industry by enabling smarter, safer, and more efficient operations. Advanced vision systems integrated with machine learning algorithms support the development of intelligent multipack solutions for robotic packing, enhancing accuracy, adaptability, and throughput in handling aluminum profiles. AI-driven maintenance assistants further increase productivity by predicting equipment failures, guiding technicians through diagnostics, and optimizing intervention schedules. Additionally, AI applications in forklift monitoring improve workplace safety through real‑time behavior analysis, collision prevention, and automated alerts. Together, these innovations demonstrate how AI can significantly elevate process reliability, operational excellence, and safety standards within the extrusion business, paving the way for more autonomous and resilient production environments. 

Stig Tjoetta, Hydro Aluminium Metal, Norway

Factories, like athletes, can become fit by carefully strengthening a sequence of core capabilities and by doing so develop lasting competitive advantages. Based on our experience in the Hydro Extrusion Division in the 1990s and early 2000s, we explore a model offering a systematic approach to operational improvements. The model is based on the concept that multiple production capabilities can improve simultaneously and cumulatively by providing expanding resources to a specific sequence of activities. This contrasts with the prevailing view at the time where the belief was that there was a tradeoff between certain capabilities. For example, flexibility or frequent changeovers might oppose unit cost performance or productivity. After adapting and implementing the model, significant improvements in operational performance of core capabilities such as productivity were achieved, while simultaneously improving others like manufacturing flexibility and delivery performance. 

Jeffrey Victor, Guy Davenport and Tim Roberts, Hydro Extrusion USA LLC, USA

Justifying investments in employee training can be more challenging than quantifying the benefits of new technologies and equipment for the extrusion industry. However, ongoing skill development provides significant long-term value. Hydro's Extrusion North America organization has implemented a comprehensive, standardized training program under the Manufacturing Excellence banner, offering courses across operations, quality, reliability and maintenance, manufacturing engineering, and aluminum metallurgy. These courses combine classroom instruction with practical floor exercises to reinforce learning. With strong support from senior leadership, the program has trained more than 1,200 employees across 19 manufacturing sites in the United States and Canada. Consistent, reinforced training enhances employee engagement, strengthens skills, improves quality and productivity, and supports Hydro's goal of being an employer of choice. Establishing unified training methods and content is essential in building a consistent culture within a multi-site organization. This paper examines the rationale behind investing in this approach and highlights the benefits.

Aaron Callis, Jordan Hamblen and Rafael Campos, Bonnell Aluminum, USA

The Root Cause Analysis (RCA) program continues to grow as an important part of how we learn from issues and improve the way we run our operation. Built on the Cause Mapping method from Think Reliability and supported by the Power BI RCA Tracker, the program gives teams a clear, consistent way to understand what happened, why it happened, and what we need to do differently. The updated tracker also helps us look back over time, making it easier to see patterns, track progress, and understand bad actors and chronical failures. A total of 147 actions were completed, showing strong follow‑through and consistent effort from the teams involved. While traditionally rooted in maintenance, this RCA process is now available for our safety, quality, and operations teams to address incidents, defects, and process losses in a structured and consistent manner.

Geir Ringen and Torgeir Welo, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Norway

The global market for extrusions is steadily growing across several sectors such as transportation, building, and construction. For aluminum extrusions to remain competitive against alternative materials and the trend towards increased functional integration, many applications (e.g., railcars, bridge decks, and automotive chassis structures) require large-size profiles. Meeting these requirements challenges both product mix and production volume flexibility, creating both opportunities and investment risks among extruders. This study investigates the cost-of-flexibility associated with alternating container sizes (14"–20"), make-or-buy billet strategies, capacity utilization, production allocation across profile size segments, macro- versus microeconomic assumptions, aluminum circularity, and price estimates. A multi-level simulation model is developed and tested, providing a dynamic decision-support tool for assessing production flexibility. It aims to estimate the cost implications of offering large profiles alongside a standard product mix in the marketplace. The research outcome provides a robust decision-support strategy combining foresight, hindsight, outsight, and insight perspectives. 

Ray Moore, Bonnell Aluminum, USA

Bonnell Aluminum's Operator Care program focuses on empowering operators to do crucial tasks that include cleaning, basic equipment visual checks, and lubrication for proactive care, fostering ownership and transforming them from operators to problem-solvers. The goal is to leverage operators' proximity to machines for faster abnormality detection, reducing reliance on specialized technicians for basic upkeep, allowing them to focus on complex work, increasing overall equipment efficiency. Operator Care results in immediate proactive maintenance, reduced downtime, and shifts the mindset from "I run it; you fix it", to dual ownership. Operators are the first line of defense at identifying abnormalities before technicians arrive. Annual Operator Care document review is vitally important as there are process changes, frequency changes, or when machine modifications take place. Additionally, as operator skills are developed, more routine tasks can be added to Operator Care and removed from preventive maintenance, empowering people and fostering growth. 

Duncan Crowdis, Alexandria Industries; and Lynn Brown, Aluminum Extruders Council, USA

Recent research highlights 79% of today's CEOs in the North American manufacturing sector site the inability to attract and retain talent and skills as their number one constraint to business growth. CEOs in the extrusion industry are no different. The Aluminum Extruders Council, on behalf of their North American membership has undertaken a number of workforce development initiatives to attempt to address this issue. This paper focuses on the most significant of these initiatives – the introduction of an industry driven apprenticeship program designed to attract and retain talent and develop those critical skills fundamental to our industry. Now into its third year, the lead up to and implementation of three apprenticeships – multi-skilled maintenance technician, extrusion die technician and extrusion press operator – will be discussed. The planning, implementation, challenges and results will be reviewed in addition to outlining next steps as we look to build on this success. 

Pawel Kazanowski, Dubai Extrusions Investments LLC, United Arab Emirates

Effectuation is an entrepreneurial approach to navigating unexpected situations by using the means at hand (who you are, what you know, whom you know) to solve problems. It embraces acting with what is at hand, reducing risk, collaborating with team members, and accepting surprises, rather than relying on strict analysis and planning. Several examples from modern extrusion plants are presented in which the immediate deployment of effectuation principles, rather than the formal problem-solving typical of the Six Sigma approach, led to the quick identification of potential root causes and the testing of corrective measures. The agility of effectuation is especially applicable when addressing irregular situations that arise in the fast-paced environment characteristic of modern hot aluminum extrusion and fabrication plants.

Steve Coates, Signature Aluminum Canada Ltd., Canada

Extrusion is unlike most other manufacturing processes where every cycle produces a discrete part. Extrusion is a continuous process. Unlike discrete part making, extrusion parameters, measured at exactly the same position, are continuously varying. Your customer's quality hotshots love Cp and Cpk, but it's not so simple to cut 30 pieces to provide a statistical representation on a run of extruded material. This presentation is based on many years of being on the sharp end of the stick as Quality Director and Plant Manager at an extruder supplying to discrete part makers. Educating customers in the middle of a part failure situation is difficult. Several key points are explained that will make it easier for your customer to understand how extrusion quality is controlled. The language of PFMEA's is a key tool because that is the cornerstone of the Quality Systems that both you and your customers use. 

Steve Coates, Signature Aluminum Canada Ltd., Canada

It would be rare to find an extrusion plant that does not adhere to a registered quality system. This means that there is a PFMEA in place to identify all potential failures, the possible root causes and details of the controls in place to prevent the root causes and detect the failures before escape. The word should does not exist in PFMEA. However, "should" is used and accepted all day, every day in extrusion plants, like every other organization. This presentation will expose how "should" is a key contributor to most root causes. Eliminating the use and acceptance of this one word will change the culture, and hence performance of your organization. 

Sam Muhamed, Thomas Leary and Debra Weston, The Aluminum Association, USA

The Aluminum Association's Technical Committee on Product Standards (TCPS) maintains the system for registering aluminum alloys and tempers in accordance with ANSI H35.1. For extruders and their customers, consistent designations and property data support clear specifications for downstream use. This paper overviews the Association's industry standards, including the alloy/temper registration system, aluminum mill product tolerance standards, and guidance that helps users determine and verify tolerances. Because tolerance interpretation and measurement can be complex and often depend on table selection, conditional footnotes, and inspection conventions, the Association has developed supplemental guidance materials, including explanatory videos and a simple online reference tool, to help users apply commonly misunderstood tolerance tables. The paper also describes how core references, including Aluminum Standards & Data (AS & D) and the Aluminum Design Manual (ADM), carry these standardized definitions, properties, and tolerances into broader consensus and procurement practices, including ASTM B07 product standards and other downstream specifications.