Starting small to fly high is a journey of hard work, innovation, teamwork, and, most importantly, patience, which has been true for most industries and eminent personalities.
Similar to the aforementioned saying is the story of the industrial giant – LA Metal Stamping Co., which is catering specifically to the metal stamping market that is expected to grow from USD 211 billion to USD 310 billion in 2030.
In its endeavors to serve this ever-increasing demand, the company diversifies its expertise in the industry to provide its client with a bunch of design, patenting, and manufacturing of metal stamping services. Apart from this, the company additionally provides its clients with the benefits of its in-house tooling design, build, and maintenance capabilities to allow them an effective production flow process.
But what sets LA Metal Stamping apart is its firm belief in Treating Everyone with Respect which is truly instilled in this company through the female-driven leadership of its President – Mrs. Lina Mody along with the wise business acumen of its Vice President – Mr. Arvind Mody.
Though they started small, as a family business, they have now grown exponentially and have been placed among the solid Tier One Supplier to many global clients. The prime reason for their success lies in their learning that patience is the key and in creating and maintaining the familial feeling in their organizational structure and workflow that they had started with.
From 1976 till today, in 2022, the company has constantly been working on the two most important factors of Quality & Customer satisfaction and continues to build honest and trust-based relations in the industry.
Through the interview highlights, let us uncover LA Metal Stamping’s journey from the start!
Lina, please brief us about LA Metal Stamping Co and your source of inspiration behind venturing into the manufacturing industry.
LA Metal Stamping is a female leadership-driven family business that has been in the manufacturing industry since 1976. Our primary focus is on stamping metal parts from a variety of gauges through either progressive or manual dies.
We also have in-house tooling design, build, and maintenance capabilities which allow us to cater to a more efficient and effective production flow process for our clients.
Could you please tell us about the core values on which the company is built on and what is the mission of the organization?
The core values of LA Metal Stamping are very simple and are rooted deep into the very fabric we live our lives in. “Treat everyone with Respect!”
As the President and Owner, I am deeply driven by the notion of extending the “family feeling” throughout the business, as I believe that it is very important that we all share honest conversations on how we can help one another grow.
Hence, LA Metal Stamping is not just a company but a family.
How is your unique approach toward prototype development revolutionizing the market and how does it differentiate your manufacturing organizations from the rest of them?
LA Metal Stamping has a fantastic engineering team that is always creatively thinking of methods to be advanced, especially in our approach to metal stamping. Just recently, with the assistance of the Government of Canada and the IRAP program, we created a process that allowed for the reverse engineering of metal parts.
For example, a client drops off a part with no drawings available but has a physical part only. What initially would take our Tooling Engineering team hours to create a drawing by manually measuring the part, was now being replaced with AI Technology that provides dimensional information within minutes.
This advantage in thinking allows for greater part savings which then can be passed along to clients, right at the beginning of a project.
What is your opinion on technological advancements and how is the organization utilizing these benefits to cater to the dynamic needs of the manufacturing sector?
We are of the opinion that technological advancements is a very positive dynamic. Through its benefits, we have experienced client revenue growth and expansion of stampings that can be offered simply by utilizing specific AI Technology.
We have additional technological steps that will be further integrated into our production systems and of which we will have full IP ownership in the future.
How did you counter the challenges that you have faced in your journey so far? What are the key learnings you learned from those experiences?
One of the biggest lessons I learned has been – patience.
When our team has a vision or idea on a new technology method that we should be using, we find ourselves moving very quickly towards testing whether the idea has merit. It is when the dust settles, and when we look back after multiple creative brainstorming sessions, we realize we may have over looked simple solutions.
Our internal solutions were to create phase boards with connectivity layers so that we have a route to trace back to the time when it was about vocalizing and creating realities from ideas.
What advice would you like to give aspiring entrepreneurs who want to venture into the manufacturing sector?
The word ‘No’ is very commonly used in many different situations. We know that if we as entrepreneurs got a penny for every time, someone told us ‘No’ we would all have millions before our first-year anniversary.
Our advice to young entrepreneurs would be to – stay focused on surrounding yourself with a team that is stronger than you in areas where you need growth opportunities. This will allow for greater collective strength in achieving the milestones and goals of your company.
Where do you envision LA Metal Stamping to be in the future? How do you plan on upscaling your reach and operations in 2022 and beyond in the manufacturing sector?
LA Metal Stamping started off as a small stamping company with local clients…today we stand tall as a solid Tier One supplier to many global clients. We are honored to have a team of full-time employees who have been with us for many years and have personally experienced and enjoyed all of our growth.
Also, it is important to state that fostering of new skilled labor is essential to always have new growth of leaders internally, as it is very crucial to long-term successes. Scaling the company has become a focal point of our growth as we are developing relationships to grow in industries that have not yet been established.
Having a vast multitude of clients in many different industries allows our company – LA Metal Stamping- to be competitive and not be heavily dependent on any particular manufacturing segment.
We are growing and expanding our foot print in the metal stamping industry which, we are sure, will create more jobs and present us with increasing opportunities for our engineers to come up with new AI ideas.
A Dynamic Duo—Leading Company’s Visionary Growth
The story of how LA Metal Stamping became one of North America’s leading metal stamping and manufacturing companies began in September 1972 when Arvind Mody immigrated to Canada and began working as a General Laborer with a small stamping company.
As the years passed by, he moved up with the company leadership ladder and took on the role of Plant Manager. In the year 1988, Arvind then stepped up and became one of the owners of the company. The growth of the company was one of the most important objectives, and for that to happen, a bigger change was needed.
Lina left her position with the Catholic School Board and joined LA Metal Stamping in 2001 as President. With time, she took hold of majority ownership and teamed up with her spouse Arvind to initiate the progress of the company toward the target of international expansion.