When it comes to turning around companies in crisis into flourishing ventures, Jeff Lantz knows his business. Developing strong partnerships, while establishing greater brand awareness in niche industries are strategies the owner and CEO of Tech Castings, Inc. stands behind.
“I’m used to taking risks. I was looking for a business to turn around that looked intriguing and came across Tech Castings. The foundry had been there for 30 years, but it had a couple of major issues. It only had one customer and then the owner passed away. I bought the business in December of 2011 and essentially restarted the foundry with no customers,” said Lantz.
Tech Castings, Inc. is an investmentcasting foundry, producing high-quality castings for top companies in aerospace, manufacturing and turbine industries around the world. Located in Indiana, the foundry’s experienced staff of highly trained professionals manufactures vacuum and air melt alloy castings for aircraft engine and auxiliary power unit components, industrial gas turbines and for oil and gas production.
“At the time, I didn’t have any foundry knowledge whatsoever. It was critical that we were able to retain some key employees from the old foundry. We wouldn’t have been able to make this work if they hadn’t been willing to stick around,” Lantz admitted. “From that point on we knew we needed to work hard to regrow our customer base.”
Immediately after acquiring Tech Castings, Lantz and his team knew they would have to make a number of investments in the 25,000-squarefoot-facility. “One of the first things we bought was an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system that was more of a machine shop-based system. We quickly realized we had to make a change because what we had acquired wasn’t the right system for us,” said Lantz.
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