Magnetic Analysis Corp. provides non-destructive testing systems to the worldwide steel industry.

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It’s fair to say that Magnetic Analysis Corp. (MAC) wrote the book on non-destructive testing in the United States. After all, the company was the first to introduce electromagnetic testing for the discovery of flaws in steel back in 1934. From that initial innovation, the company has gone on to add more sophisticated technologies and capabilities, to the point where MAC is a leader in non-destructive testing of metal tube, wire and bar in North and South America and is growing globally.   

Vice President of Sales Dudley Boden says the company’s story began in 1928 when father-and-son team William Gould and William Gould Jr. founded MAC to develop a way of testing steel for defects without the use of sampling techniques that effectively destroyed parts of the steel during testing. MAC’s research engineers discovered a method that involved the use of an electromagnetic field, which measured changes in permeability of steel. “It was totally new to the steel industry at that point,” Boden says, and it was met with skepticism.    

The new technology might have been a permanent victim of the in­dustry’s uncertainty were it not for the innovative solution the Goulds developed. Rather than asking customers to make a large capital outlay for their equipment, the company leased its equipment to customers to reduce any perceived risk. That proved to be all the incentive customers needed, and within several years, non-destructive testing had supplanted the original methods.  

At The Ready
The company’s long-standing lease policy helped create one of MAC’s greatest advantages in the marketplace. “The No. 1 thing is that we retained the responsibility to keep the equipment running,” Boden says.    

Because MAC only leased its equipment for decades, the company de­veloped a network of field engineers across the country to provide fast, effective service for customers and the equipment. “That has continued into the present even though the majority of our business is sales business instead of lease business,” Boden says. With this network of engineers, MAC’s customers know their equipment will not be down for long.    

MAC’s equipment is versatile as well as well-tended. The company offers customers a choice between electromagnetic, flux leakage and ultrasonic inspection systems, whereas many of its competitors don’t have those capabilities.    

“We are the only company on a global scale that offers three major technologies for testing,” Boden says. “Virtually all of our competition does one, maybe two of those technologies. We’re the only one who can offer that from one vendor.”    

This versatility is a major differentiating factor for MAC, especially as stainless and carbon steel companies go global and require multi-modality testing systems to increase their quality and capabilities.

Shifting Sands
The balance of manufacturing shifting from the United States to overseas is one of the most significant changes MAC is facing today. “The biggest challenge is that the business is shifting geographically, and by the type of equipment that we’re offering,” Boden says.    

With the American and Western European metals markets declining, emerging markets such as India and Eastern Europe are becoming a larger portion of MAC’s business. However, given the lack of infrastructure in many of these regions, making service visits requires more planning and consideration than in the United States or Western Europe. “We’re having to figure out ways to supply the same level of service that we’ve always done in the West to some
of these remote locations,” Boden says.    

To complicate matters, the average size of the systems MAC supplies is getting larger. “What we have found is that one of the key things that has been successful for us is to find a very strong local partner,” Boden says.    

When searching for a partner to help MAC serve clients in remote locations, the company prefers to choose technical expertise over the diversity of its products. MAC sees more value in having a partner that can understand a customer’s technical requirements, as well as MAC’s products, as more important than one that has experience spread out over a broad range of products.   

With many steel companies consolidating and becoming more powerful, they expect more out of their testing equipment. Although some equipment suppliers are too willing to tell customers what they want to hear without considering the realities of fulfilling the requests, Boden says MAC won’t promise more than it can deliver. Trying to appease customers only to fall short of lofty promises creates angry customers, he adds.   

MAC will continue to change along with the metals industry, and Boden says the company’s tradition of innovation will continue into the future. “We are becoming much more global,” he says. “That means not just selling globally, but also manufacturing more globally.”