nyone who has ever invested in stocks should know that past performance is not a predictor of future performance, but what a year 2021 was for revenue and profits in the metals sector.

Steel Dynamics Inc. reported over $18 billion in annual sales, or 91.7 percent above its 2020 revenues. A large part of that was driven by price appreciation (up 64.2 percent year over year) but shipments also rose 4.6 percent

Alcoa Inc. posted annual revenues that were 30.9 percent higher than the cash it took in during 2020. That occurred in spite of smelter closures and a 3 percent reduction in output. Alcoa returned to the black after 2020 losses in net income.

Clear Business Case

What is Applied Value and what is its history?

here are many massive steel service centers throughout the United States utilizing countless angle and plate processing lines to supply a wide range of industries with steel and metal fabricated products. These lines work tirelessly day in and day out, processing long lengths of material, moving metal plates, clips and more out the door. But what about the smaller odds-and-ends jobs, where a service center only needs a few plates punched, bent or sheared?

he coming decade will be decisive for decarbonizing the economy,” according to a recent report from McKinsey & Co. “Metals and mining companies have been presented with a special challenge of their own: supplying the critical inputs needed to drive [this] massive technological transition.”

McKinsey cited nine critical technology applications that industries, utilities and governments will employ to reduce carbon emissions through millions of individual actions. The consultancy’s researchers claim steel will play a role in all nine: Geothermal, hydrogen, nuclear, bioenergy, electricity networks, concentrated solar, solar photovoltaic, wind power and electric vehicles. The role of carbon and stainless steels will be found primarily in the infrastructure of these technologies.

lthough the recovery for the oil and gas industry has been a bit muted, oil posted its biggest annual advance since 2009 at the end of 2021, according to a Bloomberg report, as more economies began to move toward pre-pandemic numbers, spurring global consumption. West Texas Intermediate crude oil pricing rose 55 percent for the biggest year-to-date gain in more than a decade and Brent crude oil pricing rose 50 percent, the largest gain since 2016.

ustomers, and by extension sales, are the lifeblood of an organization. Estimating and quoting without converting quotes to sales equals lost revenues. However, estimating is a necessary, but imperfect, step to revenue generation. Many organizations focus primarily on operations and forget that the reason they exist is due to sales. The most important function of sales within an organization is timely, accurate and competitive bids. Many organizations use an assortment of cumbersome and outdated resources such as Excel templates, programming software and tribal knowledge to build estimates. This is all changing with a platform called SecturaFAB by SecturaSoft.

obotic combat, a competition in which custom-built machines fight each other, has gained popularity in the last 30 years. The sport has become so popular that competitions are found nearly everywhere from high school gyms to regional, national and global venues. It even inspired a couple of reality TV shows, like “Robot Wars” and “BattleBots,” that document the drama and thrills of these good-natured skirmishes.

One of the sport’s earliest fans is Simon Arthur, the founder of Big Blue Saw, a 6,000-square-foot job shop in his hometown of Atlanta. A software engineer as well as science fiction fan, Arthur was introduced to the “sport” when he attended Dragon Con, an annual science fiction convention. The headliner guest speaker one year was Marc Thorpe, a California-based toy designer credited with inventing the game.

hile long-term, trusting relationships will always be crucial to buyers and sellers, there are often some missed opportunities to know all you can about the data-filled world that surrounds each transaction. Two men—one with a decade of experience in the service center business, the other who started up technology companies on both coasts—have formed Felux Co.

Felux is a B2B marketplace and supply chain platform for the metals industry that is helping companies digitize their organizations and give their customers a digital way to buy and sell steel.

ndustrial real estate tenants can be very diverse. Tech companies, distribution companies and equipment rental businesses all have specific—and different—needs for the same space. Many of these companies also are looking for more flexibility as they navigate what Deloitte’s 2022 Manufacturing Industry Outlook characterizes as “positive economic indicators paired with historic labor and supply chain challenges.”

Deloitte analysts indicate in the report that “business agility can be critical for organizations seeking not only to operate through the turbulence from an unusually quick economic rebound but also to compete in the next growth period.”