Sometimes explaining what business a manufacturing company is in is more complicated than its product.

Sharon Custom Metal Forming Inc. in Hermitage falls into that slot -- or more precisely -- notch.

Guided by Robert E. Wilson, who serves as president, and Alec Moyer, vice president of operations, even the two men find it hard to explain to outsiders the type of business they’re in.

"You get a lot of deer in the headlights’ look from people,’’ Moyer joked. "But basically, we make stuff out of steel.’’

At its core, SCMF is a roll-forming business. As the name suggests, the company forms metal to a particular shape. Nothing it produces is a final product. Rather, the company crafts pieces used as parts for a number of other items.

SCMF pieces can be found in such items as above-ground pools, platforms and office furniture.

Also, the company offers metal punching and notching. A punch can be as simple as piercing a hole in metal; a notch is a punch created on the side or edge of metal.

The Sharon natives became friends after Wilson graduated from what is now Kennedy Catholic School in Hermitage and Moyer, from Sharon High School.

As a sales engineer at the former AK Steel Sawhill Tubular Division’s Warren office, which was the company’s roll-forming operation, Wilson found the business was missing out on a number of markets.

"There were a lot of opportunities coming across my desk I felt we weren’t capturing,’’ Wilson said.

At the time, Moyer, a mechanical engineer, was working in the Washington, D.C., and Baltimore areas with engineering consultant Mueller Consulting. Yearning to return to his home, he hooked up with Wilson on the enterprise.

With a tight group of about a dozen local investors, the two men forged the company in 1997 and housed the operation in a cramped West Middlesex building. At the start, they began accepting orders to shape metal from 0.010- to 0.250-inch thick. Although that sounds like a tiny difference, in the metal-forming industry that’s a wide swath.

"When we put our first line in, we didn’t know where our first order was going to come from so we made sure we had a wide range,’’ Wilson said.

The business also can handle a variety of metals such as carbon, stainless and galvanized steels.

"Any metal that’s formable we can roll,’’ Wilson said.

As it gained a customer base, the business quickly began to expand. By July 2000, SCMF moved into the former 40,000-square-foot AmCan plant on Llodio Drive in Hermitage. It turned out to be brutal timing as the national economy began slumping into a recession, which smacked the industrial sector harder than others.

"We hit a roadblock with the economy like everyone else in manufacturing,’’ Wilson said.

Following the national upward trend, SCMF is seeing its business rebound and is geared up to make its next move.

"We’re capable of being able to grow pretty rapidly,’’ Wilson said.

The company operates two roll-forming production lines with a dozen employees.

A robotic welder serves as another operating line. It welds structures for sophisticated material handling systems -- such as packaging for moving flat glass.

The combination of equipment and employees allows SCMF to create products with almost microscopic precision now demanded by customers, Wilson said.

"Our employees require a skill level that’s not easily learned,’’ he added.

Both men have found they have their greatest success with a customer when they’re called in during the early stages of product design.

"You can give them advice on what’s feasible and what isn’t Wilson said. "It’s a way to show them what kind of company we are before we get the order.’’

SCMF has customers as far West as California, but primarily serves customers east of Mississippi and particularly in the Great Lakes region. Shipping an item to the West Coast adds costs to the price tag, Moyer acknowledged.

"But if you can offer a company something no one else can, you can overcome the freight issue,’’ Moyer said.