(This article appeared in Weighing and Measurement Magazine, August 2001, pages 12-18)

Bound for a career in manufacturing, David Castle pursued his degree in business and marketing at Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Mich. His first job out of college in 1971 was in the purchasing department at the Eaton Corporation, Batavia, N.Y. Over the years he had three different assignments with Eaton-each at different locations, but all in purchasing. During his advancing career he worked at Ingersoll-Rand and Joy Manufacturing (acquired by Cooper Industries) and also ran a distributorship for Joy In Wheeling, W.V. All of his experience was in the manufacturing sector serving as purchasing and materials manager in most cases.

 In 1990, Castle joined Avery Weigh-Tronix as vice president and general manager of the Santa Rosa, Calif. facility. This was his entrance into the scale industry. He ran the Santa Rosa operation until 1995, when he was tapped as president of Avery Weigh-Tronix, Fairmont, Minn.

 In May 1998, four men levered a management buyout of Avery Weigh-Tronix from Stavely through the investment firm of Berkshire Partners. These men are: John McCann, CEO; David Castle, president of Avery Weigh-Tronix; Larry Gunning, president of Avery; and Roger Evans, manager/director of Salter Housewares. "We bought the business from Stavely, and we have run that fairly successfully," said Castle. "In June of last year, we acquired Avery-Berkel and are pulling the two companies together and merging most of our United Kingdom operations."

 Today, Castle remains committed to, and passionate about, his livelihood. The business of making weighing products - and the people with whom he works - have kept the spark strong. "I'm excited to be part of this organization. I wouldn't have invested in it if I didn't believe in it," he says.

 Not only has Castle successfully experienced shifts and developments in his own company, he has been very much a part of the overall advancement of the weighing industry through the Scale Manufacturers Association.
 We sat down with him at his office in Fairmont last May to discuss SMA and what it is doing to help the weighing industry.

WAM: How long have you been active in the Scale Manufacturers Association?
DC: I've been involved with SMA almost from the start of my entering this business - about 1991.

WAM: You're president of the Association?
DC: Yes. It's a two-year assignment and I'm serving my second year.

WAM: You've just returned from SMA's annual meeting in San Diego. Could you tell us how the proposed standards worked out?
DC: They worked out fine. We've approved the Production Meets Type, which was one of the most significant standards that we introduced.

WAM: Let's talk about the whole series of standards, starting with load cell standardization.
DC: We wanted to get the load cell manufacturers to agree upon a color-coding scheme that was fairly universal. They've all agreed to that. It was surprisingly easy to gain that agreement.

WAM: What about the standard for scale serial communication protocol, Levels 1 and 2? And why tackle this?
DC: We've already initiated some standards for RS232 protocols. The whole basis of all we're trying to do is to make it easier for end users to consider using weight as a method of controlling their processes. We want to make it easier for customers to apply scales and weighing devices into their process, which we think will help improve the industry and the overall market availability for everyone in the industry.

WAM: What are the standards for Shock and Overload Protection of Scales and Recommendations on Electrical Disturbance about?
DC: These are design standards for the industry. We're working on more.

WAM: You mentioned earlier that Production Meets Type was a very significant standard. Why is that?
DC: Production Meets Type is a very serious issue for us because we know there are some products being sold in the United States that may have an NTEP certificate only because they presented a "golden" standard, but the actual production of the unit doesn't necessarily meet all of the criteria that it's suppose to.  The inspector out there, in some cases for example, doesn't have the ability to check a weighing device over the temperature range. All he can do is look at the device at where it sets in the room. So, we think Production Meets Type is an important issue for the Conference (National Conference of Weights and Measures, NCWM). And we thought we [SMA] should take the lead as manufacturers in putting some kind of standard in place and open it to all members of the industry - both SMA members and non SMA members - to have a Production Meets Type program within their own facility.

WAM: These are all voluntary standards, right?
DC: They are all voluntary standards; there's no question. However, I think there will be a lot of pressure on people - especially load cell manufacturers -to adopt these standards. For example, if Avery Weigh-Tronix wants to use the SMA logo on an NTEP scale we produce, and if we procure a load cell for that scale, we're going to insist that the manufacturer of that cell also has a program to prove production meets type. We don't want the additional expense of doing all their testing here. Because of this, I think there will be a lot of pressure on load cell manufacturers to use this standard.

WAM: Do you think the scale manufacturers as a whole will adopt these standards?
DC: My hope is that they will. We've had three manufacturers go through the proposed production standard to confirm that we have a good document for auditing to assure that the companies' facilities have a program that they can prove production will meet type.

WAM: How many standards does SMA now have published?
DC: Four: Scale Serial Communication Protocol, Levels 1 and 2; Load Cell Standardization; Shock and Overload Protection of Scales; and Recommendation in Electrical Disturbance.

WAM: Was there major controversy on any of these among your membership?
DC: No. Actually I expected the load cell standardization to have been more controversial than it was. But we actually got a lot of agreement fairly early on. I think it was because people recognized by adopting these standards an engineer might be more attracted to designing into his system a weighing device, which provides more information, rather than a flow meter, counter or other type device.

WAM: So you believe that these standards will help broaden the scale market?
DC: Absolutely. I keep saying, it's not our purpose to slice the pie among the scale manufacturers, but to make the pie larger. We want to encourage design engineers in large corporations to use weighing devices for their processes rather than other types of measurement devices. We can do this by offering a choice of quality suppliers, all committed to the same standards.

WAM: Are these standards available to all scale manufacturers?
DC: Yes, all are published and available on the SMA web site.

WAM: Will any SMA standards become ANSI standards?
DC: We'll be looking into putting some of them in ANSI standards as we go forward.

WAM: I understand that you have several more standards under development.
DC: Of the standards we have under development, the Production Meets Type was approved by the SMA membership at our annual meeting in April. The USB Interface Protocol, Load Cell Terminology, Truck Scales and some of the Environmental Wash Down issues and Audit Trail Access are still under development with various sub-committees of the SMA Technical Committee.

WAM: Won't Production Meets Type just be a marketing tool for SMA members?
DC: No. We will be offering everyone in the industry who has an NTEP certificate an opportunity to work with SMA through a third independent auditor to allow them to have their facilities approved and to identify their products as meeting the SMA Production Meets Type standard.

WAM: What about the companies that have already been audited? Won't they be ahead in marketing their achievement?
DC: We've decided that we will give all manufacturers ample opportunity to enter into this program prior to any of those who have already had their facilities audited to use it in their marketing. The idea is that once you have proven you have the quality system in place, and have met the standards of the procedure according to the third party, you will be able to use the SMA logo in a prescribed way to say that this product meets type in accordance with the SMA guidelines.

WAM: Some of the scale manufacturers I've talked to aren't too happy with a Production Meets Type program. Are you sensing this?
DC: I think there are some concerns. First of all, this is not a simple standard to meet. It's not meant to be onerous, but it's meant to be an absolute demonstration that the procedure in your factory allows for the proper testing to be done so that you know those devices will meet HB-44's T.N.8 requirements. Therefore, you've got to have a quality system in place that allows for that, and then you have to have documentation that you performed the tests, and that those tests are done randomly with a corrective action program in place.

 So, I think there are a couple of issues for scale manufacturers: 1) This is an additional audit fee on top of the audits for ISO, if in fact they are ISO certified. If they don't have a quality system such as ISO 9000, it's going to be very difficult for them to demonstrate that they can control their production so it does meet type. 2) Several manufacturers are doing a lot of their processes off-shore, and they need to put the program in place at the point of manufacture, or if they don't do that, they're going to have to do something to assure quality at the point before they ship it to the customer.

I don't think there is any question that these things add cost. And that's an issue for some manufacturers. It's not free. Quality's not free.

WAM: How do you convince the skeptical?
DC: I think by telling them the benefit. Being recognized as a company that has processes in place puts you in a much better position to sell major corporations and customers who are very concerned, not only with quality of product that they make, but the quality of the products they use in their processes.

WAM: Does SMA plan to do anything to promote the industry as a whole?
DC: The role of SMA traditionally has been to stay involved with weights and measures issues, technological issues and board-of-governor issues in the Conference. We decided two or three years ago that SMA should begin to take a look at standards for the industry and publish those standards to help improve the industry. We feel this adds value to our membership by being involved in this endeavor.

 Looking forward, I think SMA leadership needs to look at other ways that we can add value to our membership. And those will all be meant to add value to the industry, of course. But I'm not quite sure what format it's going to take. We will be doing strategic planning for SMA and ask ourselves all kinds of questions about membership, whether or not we should be involving other groups, other kinds of people that weigh and measure. So that's yet to come.

WAM: There's a perception out here that SMA is an exclusive club for the "big boys".
DC: I think there is a perception that it's the powerful, larger scale companies that are running the SMA, and we have some undue influence over the Conference. I don't think that's quite fair, but we need to take a look at that and figure out why. The dues of SMA are not inexpensive, but they are based on revenues so smaller companies pay much less than those of us who pay the maximum dues.

WAM: How can we, as an industry, increase the attractiveness of the weighing technology beyond traditional applications?
DC: I think that we will start seeing a lot of technologies begin to move our industry forward. We're moving into all kinds of systems use where the higher-end scales sales force and manufacturers are not responding to a customer's desire to weigh, but actually will engage him in conversation to find out what he plans to do with his data.

 I believe in many cases, the scale industry can be a problem solver and be a solutions provider to customers by not just helping to weigh the product, but help manage the data downstream and put it into their system in ways that are user friendly. I'm starting to see that in a lot of the products that come out in our facility, as well as our competitors. Indicators are tied into networks where weight data is stored and downloaded directly into the customer's system and used to correct processes and provide billing information based on weight - the true weight.

 We must keep in mind that no one really cares what it weighs, they want the information. It's how they use that information that adds value. Just simply providing weight isn't good enough anymore.

WAM: What do you think is the biggest problem facing the weighing industry today?
DC: I think one of our biggest problems is that we don't generate enough revenue per employee. Part of it is that we're a fairly narrow industry. While we can provide solutions to customers, we're not a complete house. Therefore we need to lift up our heads and talk about other processes that would tie into weighing such as cubing, counting through proximity switches or whatever. It may be broadening our offering to our customers to provide in-process solutions whether for processors of food, coal, steel or whatever.

 The other problem we have is being able to attract younger people into the industry and provide them with a model that allows them to make a good enough living to stay in the industry.

 However, I believe in this industry and feel we have a very bright future.