When the Council on Competitiveness asked 400 manufacturing executives from around the world last year to rank nations on their manufacturing competitiveness, they put the United States in fourth place, behind China, India and South Korea. They also forecast that the United States would fall to fifth place by 2015.

Commenting on its study, the council said the United States "has been challenged to create high-value, manufacturing-driven job growth which, in turn, has become a tremendous challenge for both policymakers and business leaders keen on maintaining the prosperity of the American working middle class."

In earlier survey results conducted by the council in association with Deloitte, CEOs said that in five years, the factor most important to company competitiveness would be strength of leadership and management, followed closely by overall product quality as perceived by customers. CEOs also cited sharp increases in the coming importance of business strategy and capacity for innovation.

This month, IndustryWeek kicks off a four-part series on the competitiveness challenge facing the United States and its manufacturing community. We start the series with a look at how manufacturing CEOs are crafting strategies to build their companies, meet customer demands, deploy technology, develop their workforces and ensure long-term competitiveness.

Material Advantage

"We surgically went after new markets such as medical and alternative energy. We looked for ways to grow significantly in oil and gas, commercial aerospace, microelectronics and advanced electronics such as cell phones and smartphones." -- Richard Hipple, CEO, President and Chairman, Materion Corp.

For several decades, Brush Engineered Materials' identity was inextricably linked with beryllium, the toxic but highly functional metal used in a variety of aerospace, nuclear and other applications. But in recent years, Brush had transformed itself into a more diversified company with considerable expertise in a variety of materials. Still, thanks to a series of acquisitions, a divisional structure and a variety of brand names, most customers knew only a small part of what Brush's capabilities were.

On March 8, Brush sought to forge a stronger, unified identity when it changed its name to Materion Corp. While it was the beginning of a new era for the company, it culminated a transformation that has been going on under the leadership of CEO, President and Chairman Richard Hipple and other Brush executives for the past 10 years. When Hipple joined Brush in 2001, it was a $400 million company with 65% of its business connected to beryllium. While beryllium had been a good business, executives knew depending on it would limit growth because it was capital-intensive, had high fixed costs and was highly cyclical in nature.

A smaller part of the company, however, was focused on engineering precious metals, such as gold, platinum and palladium, into specialty products for markets such as electronics. This area enjoyed much more intellectual-property value, had lower working capital and fixed costs, and offered many channels for growth. The company decided to ramp up investment.

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