"Good, fast, or cheap. Pick two." That was Kevin Woody, vice president of engineering for Auto Metal Craft, a prototype shop nestled on a side street in Oak Park, Mich., a short drive from the massive assembly plants of the Detroit Three. Woody runs the business with his two brothers. Kent is vice president of quality, and his brother Kim is vice president of sales. The trio has seen much change since their father, Patrick, took over the business in the 1970s, but that "pick two" business maxim hasn't changed. It's a prototype journeyman's way of saying you can't have your cake and eat it too. There's something timeless about the prototype business. So much of metal fabrication today hinges on automation. A nest is generated automatically, a laser cutting center retrieves a sheet from a storage tower, and away we go. Outside certain welding and bending cells, there's little hands-on work left on the floor. Because repetitive manufacturing has become so automated, many sometimes can truthfully say to their customers, "Good, fast, cheap—you can have all three."
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