Your point about VPC's experience in manufacturing in the metallurgical arena is correct. I do believe the parent company does have a lot of experience in manufacturing furniture, and in particular, waterbeds.
What concerns me is Materion's dual role:
1) Contracted to be a non-exclusive manufacturer of alloy ingots
2) Sales role to augment Nomad and TMS and whatever it is that Bromage does.
How is Materion able to effectively promote Liquidmetal as a possibility to their customer base, which is huge, when they only have control of the manufacture of ingots and not the actual part or product itself, which is made by Visser?
So, I am a bit confused how Steipp can promote Materion as a sales vehicle when Materion has no control over manufacturing? All they can say is that we provided high quality ingot to LQMT's manufacturer.
I do not think that is enough leverage for a conservative company like MTRN to push LQMT other than as a supplier of ingots, which quality they can assuredly control at that level. They certainly would not stick out their necks to promote VPC since VPC is not a proven entity. For that matter, the whole R&D effort at LQMT is a joke unless it is being supplemented by Materion, which we do not know.
I am guessing that MTRN must have one of Engel's machines, for them to be able to tweak formulations of the alloy to optimize production of parts.
Finally, not knowing about the productive capacity for post ingot manufacture by Materion is very troubling, since there is no proof that:
1) prototypes have actually been made and shipped to clients by LQMT
2) there has been a ramp up of production which was promised for 3Q 2011
If I were MTRN, who has been investing their own money for the supply of ingots, I would be troubled that LQMT is not delivering orders for ingots.
MTRN acts swiftly and decisively: they created a new method of manufacturing FLIBE and built a plant that now works and is growing monthly in production of FLIBE.
They can do the same for the production of amorphous metal alloys;
but apparently, according to the existing sales/marketing structure, they are not able to sell value-added products to their own customer base. Only LQMT can make the sales, and only VPC can manufacture.
Who is in the driver's seat?
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