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Thursday, Mar 28, 2024

Convention Gives Platform to Valley-Area Firms

Seven companies from the San Fernando and Santa Clarita valleys exhibited at the Westec manufacturing trade show, which took place Sept. 15 to 17 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. The expo, put on by the Society of Manufacturing Engineers of Dearborn, Mich., attracted a total of 509 companies from across the United States. Among the local companies represented were Delta Tau Data Systems, a motion control systems manufacturer in Chatsworth; Ganesh Machinery, a Chatsworth tooling machine distributor; Industrial Metal Supply Co. in Sun Valley; and Professional Finishing Systems & Supplies Inc., a metal stamping company in Sylmar. Also at the event was Jayson Kramer, founder of Santa Clarita’s Precision Programming Services Inc., which provides tool machine programming services in addition to training in computer-aided design and manufacturing. He has attended Westec for more than 20 years and came this time around to promote communications and data collection software and services. “It is trying to get people to understand there are more ways to get data from their machines,” Kramer said. His 25 years of manufacturing experience, not only with Precision but with CNC Software, Inc., developer of the Mastercam software, and Autodesk Inc., another software company, has given him a broad perspective of what manufacturing means for the L.A. economy. “Manufacturing is just as big an industry as the movies,” he said. “Most people do not see it because it is in the background.” Two years ago, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti spoke at the Westec show. And a report last year by the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. commissioned by Torrance’s California Manufacturing Technology Consulting says that the state had a 10.5 percent share of all U.S. manufacturing jobs in 2012. Quicker Pictures Entertainment and media industry systems integrator ALT Systems Inc. announced a partnership this month with Pixspan Inc. to offer that company’s software that can transmit data files across high-speed connections. By adding the software, Sun Valley’s ALT can cut costs and time when it comes to workflow in the production and postproduction process. ALT President Jon Guess calls the Pixspan software forward-looking. “Pixspan’s software will allow our clients to transmit full-resolution images across (network) connections at ultrahigh speeds while also providing significant reductions in the space needed for disk storage and tape archiving,” he said in a prepared statement. ALT was founded in 1995 and has done systems integration work for Technicolor S.A., based in Paris with operations in Burbank; Deluxe Entertainment Services Group Inc., with operations in the San Fernando and Santa Clarita valleys; and ArsenalFX in Santa Monica. The company provides equipment used in compositing, editing, color correction and data storage. Pixspan of Rockville, Md., also makes software for transmitting high-resolution video and images in the medical and surveillance industries. Made in America A new state law will help manufacturers market their products in California as being “Made in America.” To have the label as made in the United States or America, products need to have 95 percent of their parts or pieces originate from inside the country. If a manufacturer can show that it cannot produce certain parts or components itself or obtain them in the United States, then the threshold drops to 90 percent of parts originating from inside the country. The new law replaces a regulation in place since 1961 and makes state law more similar to federal rules. Gov. Jerry Brown signed Senate Bill 633 into law Sept. 2. “In interstate commerce, producers need certainty so they can make that (made in America) claim,” said Dustin Painter, a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of law firm Kelley Drye & Warren. Kelley Drye has represented manufacturers in California in class-action lawsuits stemming from claims that their products were made in the United States even though there were pieces that were not. In one such case, Painter said, a maker of basketball hoops used nets made from outside the country. The new state law will reduce those types of legal actions, which Painter chalked up to certain attorneys looking to exploit the difference between state and federal regulations. The federal rule requires “all, or virtually all” of a product to be made in the United States in order for the manufacturer to make a “Made in America” claim. Twenty years ago, the Federal Trade Commission considered adding the 5 percent or 10 percent language that is now part of the California law. It received such a negative reaction the commission rejected it, Painter said. But now the feds could revisit the issue. “With California doing something, it lays the groundwork for the FTC to do something similar,” he said. Staff Reporter Mark R. Madler can be reached at (818) 316-3126 or [email protected]

Mark Madler
Mark Madler
Mark R. Madler covers aviation & aerospace, manufacturing, technology, automotive & transportation, media & entertainment and the Antelope Valley. He joined the company in February 2006. Madler previously worked as a reporter for the Burbank Leader. Before that, he was a reporter for the City News Bureau of Chicago and several daily newspapers in the suburban Chicago area. He has a bachelor’s of science degree in journalism from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

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