Editors know that fab shop owners wear many (many, many) hats, and depending on the size of the shop, have to be equal parts accountant, purchasing agent, sales manager, marketing guru, safety officer, shop supervisor, process troubleshooter, training manager, human resources department, and maybe even chief cook and bottle washer. Heck, some probably even get to lend a hand on the shop floor once in a while, doing the one thing they probably love the most: running the machines that fabricate metal products. Taking a bigger look at the process sheds some light on a bigger process: The metal cycle. The process starts with a metal ore and ends when the finished item's service life comes to an end when a product is thrown away, a car is junked, or a building is torn down. But the material itself doesn't have to be banished to the scrap heap. Many of the alloys we use today can be recycled many times over, perhaps indefinitely.

(more...)