These careers are especially taxing on the body and require an elevated level of skill and performance, which is why these services come at a cost: the financial cost is greater, as is the cost to human life. The death rate for underwater welders is greater than that of a welder on land.

Underwater projects introduce new sets of safety and operational challenges for crews to overcome, but as these challenges emerge, so too do new innovative technologies that advance what is possible.

One technology that has found utility in underwater projects is three-dimensional (3D) printing and related 3D technologies, which are being used to keep workers and underwater assets protected and provide valuable data that can be used to inform decisions both economic and environmental.

How does it work?
To understand how 3D printing and other technologies are being leveraged for underwater projects, it is important to understand what it is, how it works, and why it makes sense for underwater professionals to consider this technology in the future.

Though it has come a long way, 3D printing, also referred to as additive manufacturing, is in its technological infancy, particularly when it comes to underwater applications. The process enables users to “print” objects in 3D form from a digital file using a variety of materials. Objects are created by applying successive layers of material in cross-sections until the process results in the desired final product. The technology can be used to create complex shapes and geometries using less material compared to traditional manufacturing processes. This is a relatively simple explanation of the technology and the process, as there are more complicated versions like volumetric 3D printing that can print entire structures at once without the need for layering the materials, but this is still in development.

Additive manufacturing is used for everything from hobby crafts to the construction of houses, and now, it can be used underwater to improve the safety and efficiency of construction and maintenance projects. It has been leveraged by crews to manufacture parts for subsea equipment and operations, and to facilitate the inspection and maintenance of subsea infrastructure, offshore construction activities, marine conservation, coral reef restoration, archaeological exploration, and so much more.

Going below the surface
A specific application of relevance is 3D photogrammetry, which is increasingly being employed to monitor and map underwater assets. Mapping models involves capturing multiple photos of an object or scene from different angles to create a 3D model from which information can be drawn and decisions made. These activities support underwater inspection activities by providing accurate information and valuable data that can convey the asset’s condition, be it a port structure, vessel, offshore windfarm, chain mooring, water tank, et cetera. It offers a new perspective and improves the safety and ease of these missions.

One intriguing way that 3D technology is being used is in the creation of artificial reefs that promote marine biodiversity and relay valuable information about the conditions at sea to shore. There are several examples where this is being used around the world, including those that have been deployed by CyBe Construction in partnership with SeaBoost and VICAT off the coast of France. These large geometries are optimized to encourage biodiversity and facilitate a new environment for divers and researchers alike to explore.

Similarly, Florida Gulf Coast University’s Water School located at Kimberly’s Reef, which can be found 10 miles off the Florida coast, is a living underwater laboratory composed of 3D-printed coral-like pieces that have been attached to large underwater concrete culverts to encourage diverse species to call it home (see Construction in Focus, May 2024).

This artificial reef serves as an inter-disciplinary research platform and an invaluable source of information to educate and advocate for the preservation of coastal waters and the marine environment and economic contributions they support. The reef will also provide data related to environmental events like red tide that have wreaked havoc on the Gulf of Mexico, particularly Florida beaches and the ecosystems tied to those areas.

Using this data, researchers can better understand the impacts of these events, particularly on marine organisms and their ability to recover, as well as gain insights into meteorological and oceanographic conditions for the benefit of the humans and the wildlife that depend on the health and vitality of these environments.

A future to be explored
As with the adoption of any new technology, it takes time to adapt, but 3D technology offers advantages that cannot be ignored. While 3D technologies like additive manufacturing are not new, they are relatively new in underwater applications, so the more research that is conducted and the more tools and applications that are discovered and advanced, the greater an impact it can have.

This is currently underway. To better facilitate underwater 3D applications, teams are developing robots and advanced remotely operated vehicles (ROV), improving the efficiency of the overall process in the complex underwater environment. Southern Ocean Subsea (SoSub) is a designer and manufacturer of underwater robots and robotic tools for underwater operations. It continues to work with industry partners to develop these complex robotic systems to facilitate the use of 3D printers and related technologies below the water’s surface that satisfy the demands for repeated loads, tight tolerances, and precise dimensional accuracy.

As automation and robots are further developed and integrated into the application, 3D technology will become a go-to to improve the ease and safety of underwater exploration, construction, and maintenance activities, ever expanding the number of applications where it can play.

While 3D technology is particularly useful underwater, it is not a perfect solution. No different from the challenges faced by divers, the equipment is still subject to visibility issues and exposure to underwater hazards including temperature and pressure differentials, currents, and other variables—but is far less susceptible to them than humans are and offers far greater precision.

Likewise, material selection can be a challenge. For instance, the materials used must be resistant to corrosion and mold and capable of adhering to surfaces underwater to ensure they offer structural integrity. Material developments continue to progress as the capabilities of 3D printing are fully realized.

Regardless of the challenges, when conditions are right, 3D technology offers enhanced visualization and the benefits associated with retrieving mass amounts of data that can be archived and used in myriad ways. From keeping workers safe, to effectively informing companies of the state of their underwater infrastructure and assets, to monitoring conditions underwater, truly, the potential of 3D technology’s underwater application is endless.

The post Under the Sea<p class="company">A New Frontier for 3D Technologies</p> appeared first on Manufacturing In Focus.

Manufactured parts can be contaminated with everything from grease and oil to grinding residue and other debris that must be removed before use. Failing to remove lubricating materials and other residue can be disastrous—and very expensive. That is why, for almost half a century, PROCECO has designed, manufactured, and supplied high-quality integrated cleaning systems to thousands of the best-known and most respected manufacturers worldwide.

Behind a range of state-of-the-art conveyor washers, drum washers, batch/cabinet washers, spray immersion washers, and other products, PROCECO’s expertise in industrial aqueous parts washers and custom precision cleaning systems is unmatched. From high-pressure water-jet deburring to wastewater treatment, and fluorescent penetrant inspection to surface treatment, PROCECO meets the needs of clients in heavy machinery and general manufacturing.

Turning the page
The story of PROCECO Ltd. goes back to 1975. That year, the Montreal-based business was founded by Austrian immigrant Helmut Schauer and his business partner as PROCECO Industrial Machinery Ltd. The years to come saw growth, certification, acquisition, and the introduction of many successful products, including the filing of a patent for turntable spray-cabinet parts washers (which became the TYPHOON®-HD), in 1981.

The company experienced growth, both in the U.S. and internationally; the building of a new manufacturing and test facility in 1990; ISO 9001 certification in 1995; and the acquisition of MP Tech blasting technologies in 2009. The first battery tray cleaning system for the electric vehicle industry was delivered in 2020.

On the threshold of its 50^th anniversary, the latest chapter of the PROCECO story began this April with the acquisition of the company by respected entrepreneur Philip Infilise following Helmut Schauer’s retirement. Known for his innovation, integrity, and leadership skills, Infilise is the founder and CEO of Beyond the Dotz. Positioning PROCECO for continued success, the business will go forward with Robert Burns as President and Infilise as CEO.

“Building a company with a strong reputation and respected brand over 50 years is a compelling achievement and I am honoured to be able to be part of PROCECO’s next chapters of its story,” says Infilise in a media release. “Helmut has fostered a culture and a team with strong values and a proven track record. PROCECO’s growth under Robert Burns’ leadership has created a strong foundation for the impending expansion of the PROCECO organization. The future is very bright, and I am excited by the opportunities to collaborate with all PROCECO stakeholders to impact positive outcomes.”

Holding company co-founder Helmut Schauer in the highest regard, Remi Mercier, PROCECO’s Director of Sales, also looks forward to the company benefiting from Philip Infilise’s experience and fresh perspective.

“The new owner, Mr. Infilise, has a proven track record in terms of increasing revenue and sales, so I think the company can benefit from that experience and grow,” he says. “It will open a huge window of opportunity for us. The idea is to successfully continue what we have been doing for 49 years. We are known in the market for quality equipment, and we want to build on our reputation and keep growing the company.”

Industry leader
As one of the world’s premier manufacturers of industrial aqueous parts washers, surface treatment systems, and integrated systems for in-process cleaning, PROCECO has supplied over 6,700 systems to clients in aerospace, automotive, and other sectors. Although the company’s core focus is on North America, PROCECO has customers worldwide. Recognizing the potential in international markets, the company is dedicated to taking its decades of industry experience abroad.

No matter the location, all clients benefit from PROCECO’s professionalism, dedication, and innovation, whether they are after the company’s Overhead Conveyor Parts Washers like the TYPHOON®-OCW or the TYPHOON®-SI Spray-Immersion Cabinet Parts Washer; Railway Axle Washers; Locomotive Engine Washers; Aerospace Tube Cleaning; or any other PROCECO offering.

The company also offers a number of advantages to its clients as a one-stop, start-to-finish shop. Starting with sales, all equipment is carefully designed to meet specific customer needs at the company’s office in Montreal. “We buy some components, make others, and then put it all together,” says Mercier.

Taking ownership of the full process, PROCECO then ships equipment to customer sites. Installation of parts washing equipment may be handled by a third party, and PROCECO will then perform pre-start-up, training, commissioning, and full servicing of the equipment. “We have a department for service calls, provide spare parts for customers, and conduct retrofits and audits of equipment,” comments Mercier. “We cover pretty much the whole spectrum.”

PROCECO also sells refurbished washers and handles re-tooling for customers. The company is currently performing electrical re-fitting for a U.S. company moving abroad, making them compliant with local regulations. “They shipped us back the equipment, and we’re working on it,” explains Mercier. “Once it’s complete, we will ship it overseas and make sure everything is working. It can be electrical or mechanical; there are different things we can do, including equipment refurbishing and retooling.”

Saving you money
Sometimes parts washing is not approached seriously enough, which can cost companies time and money later on in the manufacturing process. One way PROCECO saves customers money is through the repeatability of the washing process and strict consistency of results. Consistency is key, as dirty parts can cause massive recalls.

“For us, it is critical to make sure we bring consistency and repeatability into the customer’s manufacturing process,” says Mercier. “By working with large companies, we have a proven track record that shows we can achieve this.”

Another way PROCECO saves customers time and money is through its modular engineering design approach. One of the greatest benefits of PROCECO’s products is that modules can be added to equipment, which allows the company to cost-effectively meet evolving customer needs and applications. “Since we already have the concept, it’s just a matter of putting the pieces together,” notes Mercier.

Steady growth
Today, PROCECO has a staff of over 100 at its 65,000-square-foot Montreal facility. All client sectors of the business are on the rise—especially heavy equipment—and the team is also seeing growing demand in aerospace on the maintenance, repair, and operations (MRO) side.

As a Canadian company, PROCECO is seeking strategic partnerships with a foremost American aviation company and several well-known automotive parts manufacturers (to help with the transition to electric vehicles). “We help them with new pieces of equipment, and at the same time, they help us develop what the future of parts washing will be in the automotive industry,” says Mercier.

Recently, the company developed a new concept for its aircraft wheel washer and secured a contract to develop the machine for Air France and their maintenance centre at Charles de Gaulle Airport (CDG). Says Mercier, “That presents a huge opportunity for us to expand that market.”

Looking forward
As PROCECO edges closer to its 50^th anniversary, the team looks forward to its future, including plans for further growth and capacity, and securing new customers and distribution channels.

Although the company promotes itself both through traditional means like mailing and modern methods such as social media, much of its business comes through word of mouth. “Sometimes customers move around to different companies, and contact us for equipment. We also have a whole strategy [encompassing] digital marketing, including inbound leads, going out into the field, speaking with people, and having a presence at trade shows. It’s a great way to meet existing and new customers at the same time,” Mercier says.

“Given our almost 50 years in business, the word is out.”

The post The Integrated Cleaning Systems Experts<p class="company">PROCECO</p> appeared first on Manufacturing In Focus.

What sets WERMA apart from the competition? “The biggest differentiation between our products and our competitors’ is that we are usually always a step ahead as far as innovation in the product,” Skarke says. “These are features you may not see immediately, but when you look behind the product at the testing specifications, other features, things that the product can do, they always have some unique selling points, unique character, that our competitors did not think of.”

To create these unique products, the team takes on the customer’s perspective. “We keep in mind, what is the client really looking for?” he says. “What can the client benefit from? What’s needed in the market? And [we] execute accordingly.”

Balancing creativity with simplicity is another point of difference. The company’s solutions are “very simple, but clever at the same time,” Skarke says. “‘Clever solutions that simply work’—that’s a slogan we have.” As a result, WERMA products are both user-friendly and effective. It is imperative not to “make it unnecessarily complicated.”

eSIGN, a new signal tower product, is raising the bar for the entire industry. “That was a perfect example where we really set the new standard,” says Skarke. “We came out in the mid-90s with what we call a modular stack light, allowing customers to actually buy individual modules and put the stack lights together themselves based on the color configurations they wanted to have. With the eSIGN, we took that [in a] completely different direction.”

The product configures colors electronically, so customers can buy one product and program it to meet their unique needs, rather than making the change manually. What if, for example, a customer is dealing with six applications? They can simply program the one product six ways to fulfill each one of those applications. Because of this electronic modulation, the consumer does not have to worry about buying the correct color combinations. “You can’t go wrong,” Skarke points out.

That is not all. “There are a lot of features hidden in the software where you would not see them initially,” he says. Unlike a conventional stack light, “We have different modes—how you can program the light—so that it is literally not just a stack light signaling the status of a machine. Now, with these modes, you’re able to also utilize it for things like leveling mode where you can indicate, let’s say, a level in a vat.”

This forward-thinking product can also be used as a timer, where the light changes to indicate each number in the countdown. “It’s really a signal tower,” explains Skarke. “That’s what we call it, because it can signal so many different things besides just the status of a machine. So that’s what’s revolutionary; it’s not a normal stack light anymore.”

WERMA will be unveiling several exciting new products at this year’s International Manufacturing Technology Show, IMTS 2024. One of these products is RST 56, a new series of stack lights that has been launched worldwide this year.

“It fits a nice niche,” Skarke says. Before RST 56, WERMA stack lights ranged in size from 37mm in diameter all the way up to 70mm, but the company did not offer any recent designs in the 50mm or 60mm size range, “which seems like an industry preference in a lot of applications. So that was really the main reason we needed to fill that gap.”

As with all WERMA products, the team focused on “simple solutions,” when it came to designing the RST 56 series. “It’s a 24-volt solution with an M12 connect. It’s a pre-assembled light, and it has a total of 18 SKUs or so, so it’s very simple for a consumer to purchase these products. It’s basically a one-click shop for these products, and it covers literally the majority of what the market is looking for today in regular stack lights.”

The company works hard to stay abreast of the latest technology and trends to deliver exactly what the market needs. “Definitely the electronic modularity of our products is key,” says Skarke. The company is also keeping a close eye on interfaces. “Industrial interfaces are very crucial—how you link sensors of any kind to an automation line these days [is crucial].”

WERMA is also focused on getting the word out about the company’s products. “WERMA can look back at a 75-year history but we are fairly new to the U.S. market; we started in 2012. So I think that the biggest challenge WERMA has in the United States is really brand and name recognition. This is obviously the goal.” The team wants to gain its fair share of the market, “because we do believe that we have a superior product.”

Even though the brand is relatively new to the United States, WERMA products have been catching on remarkably fast. “I would say it resonates with our clients,” Skarke says. “They see the value in our response, our fantastic service, our availability of the product—which was key over the last few years—and also the superior quality product. I mean, it just works.”

Word-of-mouth has certainly helped build WERMA’s reputation in the United States as a company that delivers a hassle-free solution, which wins over more and more customers. “That reputation in the market, you can’t put a dollar value on that,” says Skarke.

Products that are “out of sight, out of mind,” and “pain-free,” are always in demand. “I think that’s really our concept for success,” he says. “It has been in Europe and has been here for years. We have very healthy growth, which is a nice thing to see. [We are] finding new partners on a regular basis.”

Looking ahead, the company plans to continue its efforts to increase awareness of the WERMA brand. The company is “working on our network to get the proper exposure that allows us to continue to grow. Since we already captured the title of being the largest signaling device manufacturer in Europe, the goal obviously is to do this worldwide.”

Specifically, WERMA is the largest signaling device manufacturer “as far as product diversification,” Skarke says. “We have, right now, over 2,500 different products in our product portfolio, and everything is just focusing on signaling.”

As WERMA continues its expansion within the United States to deliver this diverse product range to more customers, the company will maintain its tried-and-true strategy and will “stick to our roots with our core products,” he says. With nearly 75 years of growth already accomplished, this seems a sure-fire path to future success.

The post A Better Signaling Solution<p class="company">WERMA</p> appeared first on Manufacturing In Focus.

What about if you were a museum official tasked with moving an enormous and priceless artifact in a tight space to accommodate renovations, and it was suggested that the top of the building be removed to allow a crane access to move the artifact 1,000 feet to another inside area?

Those are two real-life scenarios where entrepreneurs and museum officials turned to AeroGo’s solutions providers, with their engineering and design expertise and innovative hovercraft technology, to accomplish the seemingly impossible.

On air casters, the oil rig floated above ½-inch-thick steel planks laid over the rough field, and using the product’s omnidirectional capabilities, was positioned within a fraction of an inch on the wellhead, making what had been considered economically unfeasible a viable operation.

Meanwhile, using the same hovercraft technology, the heavy and unwieldy museum artifact was gently maneuvered in the confined space with only two and a half feet of clearance from the ceiling, while the roof remained intact.

Solutions, solutions, solutions
Admittedly, these are not everyday occurrences, but as AeroGo’s CEO John Massenburg and Director of Sales Roman Scott indicate, they are dramatic demonstrations of the capabilities of the technology and the lengths to which the company will go for a solution.

“We build consultative services to solve problems,” Massenburg says, referring to the enormous range of industries that benefit from AeroGo’s solutions. “In terms of scope, we are an inch thick and a mile wide because our products have an application for just about every industry.”

The industries he refers to range from factory automation to power generation and distribution, from defense and marine industries to modular construction, from pharmaceuticals and biotech to the aerospace industry where it all began.

“Our roots were a spinoff from Boeing,” Massenburg says. “They developed the style of air caster that we make now. It was based on hovercraft technology and first used to align heavy aerospace parts—fuselages and wings—before assembling them in the factory.”

However, building planes is a niche market. When the developers recognized the technology had many applications beyond the aerospace industry, they created AeroGo as a separate entity in 1967. 57 years later, the company continues to grow and thrive, helping a wide range of industries do the same with the equipment it manufactures at its 45,000-square-foot fabrication and assembly facility in Tukwila, just outside Seattle, Washington.

Not only is AeroGo manufacturing its products in the U.S., but the company is vertically integrated. “We source all of our materials regionally—rubber, steel, aluminum, electronics, and electrical components—reducing our manufacturing footprint,” Scott says. “We are also doing our bit toward reducing the trade deficit by exporting approximately half of our products.”

AeroGo, he tells us, maintains a dealer network in countries around the world, including Australia and South America, but its largest customers are in Western Europe and Asia.

Important innovations
The company manufactures a range of air casters designed for a variety of environments, including critical operations, factories, clean rooms, floors with gaps or boards, and special applications requiring additional lift heights, which can be accommodated by high-lift air casters. AeroGo makes the only air bearings that meet or exceed ASME B30.1 safety requirements and can be used to replace air casters on other manufacturers’ equipment.

Among the AeroGo family of products are air caster rigging systems, air cushion vehicles, wheeled vehicles, air pallets, air planks, air transporters, and custom engineered solutions.

“What air caster or hovercraft technology does,” Massenburg says, “is allow things that are so heavy—five thousand pounds to 500,000 pounds—that traditionally they would be moved by a forklift or some kind of powered tugger with chains and pulleys, or even a crane, to be moved by hand, or with a remote control,” he explains.

“The other important part of the piece is that it is very easy to take one of these heavy objects on air casters and precisely place or adjust it. I like to use an air hockey table as an example: those pucks can go in any direction, so air casters also go in any direction and allow us to maneuver something into a tight space. Alternatively, we can take two parts that weigh thousands of pounds each and put them into place by hand so they can be bolted together, and that’s another example of omnidirectional movement.”

Factory flexibility
As a company proudly bearing its Made in America bona fides, AeroGo is well-positioned to assist manufacturing’s return and recovery in North America through factory automation, which Massenburg defines as “essentially moving things in factories to produce a product, taking advantage of the technology’s low friction and omnidirectional movement.”

He says that applications of the technology in a factory might involve rigging, moving a heavy machine tool from one side of the factory floor to the other, moving raw materials, moving work platforms, or moving parts of the product so they can come together to be assembled and then moved out of the factory. Air caster technology gives factory managers operational flexibility, Scott says. “You could say it’s our number one value proposition.”

The technology, which has no harmful emissions, eliminates the need for fossil fuel-powered forklifts and typically is a fraction of the cost.

Air caster advantages
Because of the low friction and ease of movement, the technology opens up work opportunities for people who are not extremely strong. “If you were to take something that weighs 1,000 pounds and put it on wheeled casters, the big burly guys will be able to move it, but if you’re not burly you won’t. But with air casters, someone small in stature can move something very heavy, so that gives factory management flexibility in the workforce,” he says.

To demonstrate, AeroGo’s website includes a video of two children, ages six and seven, pushing a 5,500-pound pickup truck back and forth while it hovers above the factory floor on air casters.

Protecting the factory floor from damage by hard wheel casters is yet one more reason to adopt air caster technology.

“We’ve been talking about lighter weight applications in factories,” Massenburg says, “and the next level is weights that can’t be pushed by hand, things like power distribution transformers that weigh between 500 and 600 tons. The conventional way to move them would be with a crane, but the downside is that a 600-ton crane is shockingly expensive and there are inherent safety issues to lifting heavy objects where people are working in a confined space,” he explains.

“However, an air caster system that moves the same weight costs a fraction of what a crane would. The other important piece is that the crane is a fixed component, and once it is installed on the floor, I’m not going to be able to move anything beyond its limited reach.”

Explaining how to move heavy loads that would otherwise require a crane or system involving chains and tug lines, Massenburg says that air motors and electronics partner with bigger air cushions and work like radio remote-controlled cars, “so these drive systems operate as controlled moving systems with braking mechanisms. The smaller one we make is not much bigger than a vacuum cleaner, but when it’s hooked to air casters it can move 40,000 pounds. So, when you take something that weighs that much and make it mobile while protecting the floor, it opens opportunities to make things in a manner—and in an environment—that wouldn’t have seemed possible.”

Air caster systems also lend themselves to being embedded in various kinds of equipment such as an engine stand or a tooling structure made by other manufacturers, which would provide even more flexibility in factories and could easily re-configure their workspace to accommodate changes in workflow.

A bright future
“Our plan is to scale our growth by 50 percent over the next three years,” Scott tells us. “We have our standard products list, we have our custom solutions, and we feel comfortable with our growth plan.”

The secret to the company’s continued success is a “focus on solutions as opposed to sales,” Massenburg says. “I started as an applications engineer, working with customers to determine how to fit AeroGo into their product or assembly process. It’s more of a partnership with the customer to solve whatever pain point they have, and so sales is almost like an afterthought. If I can solve the customer’s problem in a way that meets their needs, then it’s an order for AeroGo. It’s not a typical sales process because it’s really a problem-solving thing.”

Concludes Scott, “We want to solve real-world problems and move all types of loads both indoors and out. We operate at the intersection of labor, money, equipment sensitivity, resource planning, and safety, and this is where all those things converge. There are a lot of things you can get to move equipment—chains, pulleys, forklifts, or cranes—but they only check some of the boxes. Air caster technology checks them all.”

The post Floating on Air<p class="company">AeroGo</p> appeared first on Manufacturing In Focus.

However, finding more efficient practices and thus, better products, is not always easy. That’s why many companies have turned to the latest in machine learning and advanced software to gain an edge by improving and optimizing their processes.

But better technology does not come cheaply, and while larger firms can make substantial investments, many smaller ones cannot. So, what do you do when you know the competition benefits from the latest, costly software as part of their design process? The good news is that there is expertise out there to level the playing field for smaller manufacturers.

Good news for products
EAC Product Development Solutions, based in Minneapolis, has been transforming how companies design, manufacture, connect to, and service their products for almost 20 years.

“We’ll go in and help a company, whether through a few web meetings or onsite, for a two- to four-week engagement to help them understand where their problems are in their product development cycle,” explains Chris Woerther, President of the PTC business unit at EAC. “We identify solutions to help them improve and get strong.”

EAC works to solve problems, utilizing software that helps companies develop strategies and finding ways to innovate, optimize, and ultimately create better manufacturing processes and products. That includes using augmented reality (AR) technology to guide customers down the right manufacturing path while bridging gaps in skills. (Note that the U.S. Census Bureau has estimated a potential 2.1 million unfilled positions in manufacturing by 2030 because of the lack of skilled labor.)

AR can train employees, check product quality, and improve accuracy and safety in operations with visual interactions in real time.

For example, workers can use a phone, tablet, or headset to manipulate computer-generated objects in a 3D space, seeing everything as if it were right in front of them. In this way, they can work alongside a remote teammate or follow written or video instructions for repairs and other jobs.

All of this starts with listening to customer needs and challenges. As a plus, the team at EAC knows what it’s like to be a smaller player in the industry. The company’s story starts in 1996 when President and CEO Chris Hathaway left his job with a larger company to start his own firm. Against this backdrop, the EAC team understands that, more often than not, it’s the smaller shops that have innovative ideas, but they are also the ones who are frequently challenged by the resources needed to turn those ideas into reality.

Vital move
The company first offered straight engineering services, but it wasn’t long before Hathaway realized how much impact software could have on product design and finding the efficiencies that make a difference. Now EAC guides companies across all sectors in “cool projects,” from aerospace and transportation to leading-edge medical devices.

An important move for EAC was partnering with PTC, a software company that manages data through a product’s lifecycle. “Keeping data up to date and synced with your product is critical and often a very big pain point for companies of all sizes,” Woerther says. “The partnership was the start of a product lifecycle management system and is the foundation we’ve grown from through the years. Unfortunately, only the bigger companies can take advantage of that. We were adamant about finding ways to help all companies through their entire product development cycle.”

This includes applying IoT (Internet of Things) technology and additive manufacturing to support the 3D printing capabilities of Formlabs and INTAMSYS. EAC also provides clients with service lifecycle management through the Arbortext publishing system, which is used to deliver high-quality information to users about a product’s capabilities.

“The whole point is, we’re always looking for ways to help a company through their entire cycle,” says Woerther. A great example of EAC’s impact is the team’s work with a multi-location manufacturer of custom automation equipment, transforming how its products are developed and tracked.

As Woerther explains, “They relied on paper books, and that was a challenge—not only creating them but keeping them up to date with everything from design to logging issues.” The manufacturer would mark them up on the shop floor, but the updates would not consistently get back to engineering.

There was a significant benefit in closing this efficiency gap, and EAC helped the company to better capture and make the most of its data. “There were many steps in there, but probably the biggest value to them was enabling their builders on the manufacturing floor by getting digital tablets into their hands and giving them digital access to CAD data.”

It might go without saying, but the customer no longer had to produce paper books. The overhaul saved on costs and time while establishing a true closed-loop change process in the design and build lifecycle.

“After these changes,” Woerther says, “when a builder finds a problem now, they digitally log that issue. They can even draw and mark up the problem, make suggestions, and then track and create tasks to ensure that the quality continues to improve.” Analyzing the data and applying the improvements to the process added up to savings of more than a million dollars annually.

Stories like this have gotten EAC noticed and awarded for having “the most impact in digital transformation at scale” by its partner PTC. EAC will also be part of the International Manufacturing Technology Show, or IMTS, in September, where the team will demo its solutions.

A valuable partner
In business since the late 1990s, EAC has seen the market change. Through upturns and downturns, persistence and ingenuity have paid off. During the recession of 2009, many competitors shuttered and clients were also impacted, but EAC continued to find value for them.

“When people are having trouble, the value we offer becomes even more important,” says Woerther. “There were a lot of players early on, but we outperformed and outshined many of those and are one of the top PTC partners in North America today.”

The demand for what EAC provides is only increasing with the emergence of AI as manufacturers become aware of the need to establish a clear digital thread throughout a product’s lifecycle. This includes getting the right information at the right time to the right people.

Impact of AI
Todd Liebenow, Senior Applications Engineer with EAC, talks about the potential impacts of the generative component of AI in manufacturing. “It’s taking intelligence that’s based on requirements for parts and assemblies and actually driving toward an optimal solution that includes the process for manufacturing,” he explains. “For us, it’s about how we can help companies make parts lighter, faster, and cheaper but still satisfy the design requirements.”

With that aim, EAC works through generative design to look at all the requirements for parts and develop an optimal design. “What you specify might not necessarily be manufacturable in the traditional sense, like subtractive manufacturing. But through our partnership with Formlabs, we can help you get there.”

In a hypercompetitive industry, EAC can help smaller manufacturers stand out and turn their innovative designs into high-performance products.

“I challenge people to expand beyond what they know,” Woerther says of communicating what digital transformation can do for companies. “It’s sometimes hard to understand the benefit of product life management technology services. There are so many things out there that can help their business get better. Don’t assume that any one way is the best way.”

The post Leveraging Big Data for Big Gains<p class="company">EAC Product Development Solutions</p> appeared first on Manufacturing In Focus.

While its world-renowned measuring tools, software, hardware, and interface products serve international giants around the globe, the company provides a unique service, an experience much appreciated by customers. Omega TMM serves many different customers, large and small, from a variety of industries.

Originating in the tool measurement industry as a division of the well-known brand Parlec, Omega TMM became a separate entity in 2017. Today, while the company continues servicing Parlec machines, its horizons have greatly expanded, and its output is more sophisticated than ever.

Next-level service
Forging a reputation for service in the industrial tool measurement and fabrication systems software worlds, the company wins favor with customers for consistently raising the bar, with a higher level of service than is routinely encountered in the industry. Based at its headquarters in Fairport, New York, the company offers its client base an added benefit: the services of a wholly-owned foreign Asian enterprise, employing a team of nearly 40 under the Omega banner in Nanjing, China, a strategy that has served the company exceptionally well—especially during the challenges of the COVID era.

The entire region is a large consumer of Omega TMM presetter products exported from the United States. Closer to home, Omega TMM exports its products and solutions to Mexico and Canada.

A global presence certainly does not imply that Omega TMM’s American clients are left under-serviced; on the contrary, Omega TMM has a team of dedicated service professionals who can react very quickly to any customer need.

As a one-of-a-kind outfit deeply rooted in American soil, the company’s speed, innovation, quality, and phenomenal service are what defines the “Omega Way.” When joining the Omega TMM club, as Mike Bernitt, Vice President of Operations and General Manager, refers to it, every customer becomes an insider, privy to resources and privileges they’d be hard pressed to discover elsewhere.

“We are the only American-made tool measuring company in North America,” says Chris Inzinga, Vice President of Business Development, Marketing, and IT. “We serve our customers based on their needs and respond with every interaction in a Customer First manner that makes us stand out against our competition.”

“People are unbelievably thrilled that they can take a deep breath and let us be the architect of the solution,” says Ryan Meleg, Executive Vice President of Global Sales and Product Development, who is known for routinely engaging directly with customers. “We listen. And they can’t believe that it’s actually done,” he says.

Meeting market needs
Serving industries ranging from biotech and medical fabrication to aviation, aerospace, automotive, glass profile grinding, and other industries reliant on precision measuring, the company stands alone in its offering and innovation.

Exceptionally agile and ready to respond to ever-evolving market demands, Omega TMM is continuously adapting and always up to date with how newer, younger leaders and decision-makers engage with technology and communication. As such, the team is all set to welcome new customers on their terms and launch several new products at the International Manufacturing Technology Show (IMTS) this year.

First up in its new product range is the Omega TMM Astra, custom-developed to be the heavy industrial market’s largest capacity, most accurate machine of this type to date, according to Meleg. A platform machine enabling automotive original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to replace several pieces of equipment with a single Omega TMM machine, this groundbreaking innovation provides superb accuracy, improved efficiency, and a custom user interface.

Omega TMM will also introduce the “3D measuring system” featuring a second camera developed to measure lathe tools. This technology adds a third axis with an additional horizontal angle to its capabilities.

The company will also introduce a world-first in presetting and height-setting in the Orion—powered by REGO-FIX, used in heavy industrial drilling and milling. Despite the arduous development process, Omega TMM is proud to be the only firm whose solution carries the REGO-FIX stamp of approval for use with its powRgrip system.

Alongside all this innovation, the team continuously improves existing systems, exploring new industries to serve. Most recently, it developed an entirely automated computer numerical control (CNC) presetting machine for the stone industry, bringing it to market at an accessible price.

In addition to remaining current in the North American market, the company’s wholly-owned foreign enterprise in Asia drives ever more demanding innovation to suit its own local markets, pushing Omega TMM to do better all the time. With increased CNC capabilities on smaller machines, new clamping designs, and other evolving requirements, customers all over the world get ever-improving measuring accuracy.

One such new machine is the EVO-PRO, what the company calls the most accessible automated tool-measuring system available today, available globally at a significantly lower cost than remotely comparable machines of its kind. As automation grows in the fabrication field, Omega TMM continuously hones its skills to remain ahead of developments—and successfully so.

An award-winning workplace
Client satisfaction is not Omega TMM’s only priority, however. Employee satisfaction is also a tremendous motivator, as evidenced by the company’s recent and well-deserved first place out of nearly 70 entrants in the Democrat and Chronicle’s (USA Today Network) Top Workplaces awards.

Classed in the Small Company Category in April this year, the company debuted at number 33 only five years ago. And its efforts have paid off. For Omega TMM, the honor proves that its customers are guaranteed to receive the attention and dedication of some of the very best professionals globally every time they engage with the company.

Omega TMM also motivates its staff to innovate. At Omega TMM, business is not only about driving sales; it is also about building relationships with customers and supporting their evolution. That means investing in and developing staff so that its teams can develop next-generation, custom solutions as needed.

As a result, being honored with a mention for the Spirit Award—plus winning the New Ideas Award all at the same ceremony in April—is a source of great pride. Driven to be the best, the team is always searching for new ways to add the ‘wow’ factor to its service selection, earning it an outstanding global reputation for its tenacity.

At home, Omega TMM’s work has been featured on national television several times. Featuring on Dennis Quaid’s Viewpoint, which aired on CNN, Discovery Life, CNN Headline News, MSNBC, and Fox Business Network, Omega TMM has become a household name in measurement technology excellence thanks to achieving smooth operations for every customer it serves. After all, that is the focus central to everything it does.

Software solutions
And the innovation continues to build. Omega TMM’s product offering includes a fast-expanding software portfolio. Serving some of the largest manufacturers in business, easing systems integration, especially within automated outfits, is a well-honed capability that sets the firm apart in a big way.

To this end, Omega TMM provides complete integration and high-level support to clients who turn to the company for quality innovation, allowing them to adapt its systems to suit their unique interfaces. Even if that means collaborating with third-party suppliers to deliver smoothly running systems, Omega TMM ensures that its customers get the best outcomes possible from its systems every time.

By giving customers the confidence that it can be trusted to solve their most intimidating fabrication management and measuring challenges, Omega TMM builds strong relationships that last. Delving deep into all shop-floor-management issues like tool storage, tracking, and more, this team has a custom solution to all such management and measuring issues.

By continuing to anticipate client needs and the shop floor requirements of the future, Omega TMM is setting itself up for continued expansion. Its premiere product launch at IMTS this year reflects that focus. Naturally, there is palpable excitement at the company. “Come stop by our booth in the West Hall and see us,” says Inzinga. For those who cannot attend the event, the team is ready to present virtual demonstrations of all its products plus a virtual customer training center via live-feed Teams meetings on 4K cameras in its next-generation John F. Nuccitelli Center for Customer Excellence.

As always, Omega TMM’s continued evolution is a given. Its leadership shares its unwavering belief in the mission. “We have proven ourselves in two of the largest markets. We feel very confident that we can conquer the rest of the world,” Meleg says.

The post Driving Global Evolution<p class="company">Omega TMM</p> appeared first on Manufacturing In Focus.

With the company’s presence well established in Pennsylvania, the team has turned its attention to expansion throughout the mid-Atlantic. Today, C.H. Reed works with manufacturers and industrial businesses in Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, West Virginia, New York state, southern Michigan, and Ohio as well as in Pennsylvania.

The company helps customers in these states identify opportunities for improvement in their compressed air, paint finishing, and fluid handling processes and equipment through advancements in equipment technologies and ongoing preventative maintenance and service. As a result, manufacturing customers can increase their efficiency, safety, reliability, and quality while decreasing environmental impact, energy expenditure, and maintenance costs.

C.H. Reed’s most recent expansion has been into Ohio. “In the last couple years, we’ve been trying to get deeper into the Ohio market,” Vrankin says. The state is home to a great deal of manufacturing, which makes it “one of the hottest markets in terms of air compressors in the country… That was a big driver for us to break into the state and try to capture some of the territory.”

In February 2017, the company acquired an air compressor business outside of Cleveland, which launched it into that market. Then, in September of 2020, it followed by opening a branch in Toledo, Ohio. “The company we acquired outside of Cleveland—it was called BruceAir Company—they had an existing customer database that we were able to form a relationship with as C.H. Reed and take over managing those accounts,” he explains. “So that was a good segue into the Ohio market. Toledo is a little different; we didn’t acquire any companies in Toledo but we went in there, we opened up a branch, and Quincy Compressor gave us their territory. So, we’re the primary Quincy Compressor distributor in the Toledo, Ohio area. That certainly helped us gain some traction there.”

C.H. Reed’s relationship with manufacturer Quincy Compressor goes back decades. “We’ve been in partnership with Quincy since the mid-1960s,” says Vrankin. “We’ve been dealing with them for quite a long time and are currently in the top four of Quincy’s largest U.S. distributors. We call ourselves a strategic partner. We’re not just a distributor for them; it truly is a co-branded, partnership approach.”

Quincy Compressor is C.H. Reed’s primary vendor for both air compressors and vacuum pumps. “They have a very extensive vacuum pump line that we’re leveraging to try to get deeper into the vacuum pump market, because it’s a little different than the compressed air market,” Vrankin notes. “Ohio is a really popular region for industrial vacuum pumps as well, which is another driver for us to have a local presence there.”

Vacuum pumps are a relatively new strategic initiative for C.H. Reed. “Industrial vacuum pumps are in high demand, and we’re striving to learn everything about the various manufacturing applications that require vacuum and dive deeper into that,” he shares. The company is dotting every i and crossing every t to ensure that it offers the best vacuum pump solution.

“We’re working on training up our service technicians,” he says. “We actually just had a handful of service technicians down in Alabama at Quincy to go through an extensive factory training vacuum pump session. Same thing with our sales teams. We’ve been hosting sales training sessions with Quincy Compressor vacuum reps in-house here in Hanover. They make the trip up to Pennsylvania, and we have a [two or three] day training session for our sales team.”

Naturally, C.H. Reed maintains strong relationships with a number of manufacturers. In addition to Quincy Compressor, Chicago Pneumatic is a major compressed air partner, as well as Pneumatech for air treatment equipment. “We have a similar approach with Graco and Carlisle Fluid Technologies,” says Vrankin. “Those are our two primary partners on the finishing side.”

That side of the business includes both paint finishing and fluid handling equipment. Finishing deals with the painting and powder coating of products, while fluid handling covers “the different kinds of industrial pumps that move all kinds of different fluids, whether that be tomato paste for food and beverage manufacturing companies or ink pumps for printing companies. We have been in the paint finishing and fluid handling industry since C.H. Reed first started, so it’s a well-established product group category for us.”

While the company’s expansion into new territory has been successful, it has taken a concerted effort to overcome the expected difficulties. “There are definitely some challenges going into a new market,” Vrankin shares, “one being brand exposure.”

In this realm, C.H. Reed’s long-term relationships are proving invaluable as the team works to spread awareness of the brand. “A lot of manufacturing companies and people in the industry might not know the C.H. Reed name, but they’ll definitely know our vendors’ and our partners’ names, such as Quincy Compressor, Chicago Pneumatic Compressors,” he says. “So, we’re trying to leverage the brand exposure with a co-branded approach to the market. That [lack of name recognition] has definitely been a challenge, but I think the partnership approach and the co-branded approach is definitely a solution to that.”

Finding a foothold among the well-established competition already present in the Ohio market is another challenge. “Ohio is a really hot market for air compressors,” Vrankin points out. “The competition is fierce.”

Despite the challenges, the company is excited to keep forging ahead into new territories and new offerings. “The vacuum pump market is huge, and we’ve only barely touched it, so I think in the coming years, vacuum is going to be a top initiative for C.H. Reed,” says Vrankin.

“Along with that are nitrogen generation and oxygen generation systems,” he tells us. “That’s another product category that falls under compressed air, but it can be one on its own at the same time. So diving into nitrogen and oxygen generation opportunities with our vendor Pneumatech is a big push for us as well.”

The company is eager to provide its customers with a better solution within this product category. “If companies have a need to introduce nitrogen or oxygen gas into their processes, the old school way of doing it is nitrogen in a bottle form or a liquid form from a third-party supplier. It’s shipped in, in bottles. These systems that we’re providing are on-site nitrogen generation systems. It basically creates the gas on demand rather than having to ship the bottles in and deal with all the dangerous transportation efforts that come with that. There’s a big opportunity for nitrogen and oxygen generators as well as vacuum pumps, so I see us continuing our efforts to become a regional market leader in those categories.”

With 76 years of experience and success under its belt, the company is well placed to expand into these markets and more. “C.H. Reed has had record numbers the last couple years,” Vrankin says. And the team is working hard to keep those numbers looking up for many more years to come.

The post Industrial Solutions for Success<p class="company">C.H. Reed</p> appeared first on Manufacturing In Focus.

Making the world
With everything from mobile phones and computer chips to automobile and space shuttle components and many more “everyday” items manufactured under vacuum, it is comforting to know that the team instrumental in fabricating much of the world around us is quality-driven and over-qualified for the job. This comparatively new American startup may be young in trading years, but its research and development endeavors go back decades.

Backed by a legacy vacuum pump outfit in Asia, its affiliated firm has a proud history fast approaching three decades. At home in the United States, however, NAVAC is headquartered in Lyndhurst, New Jersey.

On the other side of the world, this leader is exceptionally proud of its next-generation, 1.2 million-square-foot innovation center for vacuum technology and fabrication facility on the outskirts of Shanghai.

Dwarfing its competitors with vast capital investments in state-of-the-art machinery and top tier engineering staff, including industry experts, that allow it to be 30 to 40 percent more cost-effective, NAVAC leads with performance. Setting itself apart in everything it does, its guarantee includes performance, reliability, and service achieved by maintaining complete control of all its manufacturing processes.

World’s smallest dry pump
By manufacturing all components in-house including its motors, lead times are all but non-existent and production is immediate. No detail escapes the keen attention of this laser-focused team. While its roster of new technology is as impressive as it is substantial, the company’s most exciting new addition to its range focuses on dry screw vacuum technology. Considering the level of sophistication involved in developing these oil-free machines, the prohibitive cost of doing so has put this technology out of reach for most manufacturers.

But now, with the dawn of the NAVAC HelixDrive range, a dry screw pump handling 8 to 100 cubic meters per hour, the demands of applications that require low throughput that have had to resort to oil-lubricated vacuum technology in the past are answered. “This is the world’s smallest, most reliable, and most cost-effective dry screw pump,” says Brian Cox, Director of Business Development. “There really is no screw pump built at that size, especially at this price point.”

Developing the product in collaboration with a leading university in vacuum technology, NAVAC tested and improved upon the HelixDrive in the most demanding settings in the Asia-Pacific market before it was released to the U.S. for purchase. It also comes to market offering innovative technology at a similar price to a common, lower-quality pump currently on the market.

Standing apart
The team’s enthusiasm is infectious. Market disruptor Mike DeLisi, Director of Sales of Vacuum Technology, recently returned from a trip to NAVAC’s plant near Shanghai full of praise for the company’s capabilities and modern infrastructure here and abroad. “We have a state-of-the-art facility and one of the largest manufacturing footprints that rivals the facilities of companies like Apple or Google,” he says, highlighting that the team there maintains a precision operation and outstanding leadership.

Keeping the firm at the pinnacle of its performance, its leadership engages with master strategists like DeLisi and Cox to help situate the company in the optimum position, exceeding customer needs with the innovative quality of its customer care and products. Leading with what it calls the NAVAC Experience, the company goes all out to deliver its one-of-a-kind product lines in a way that reflects its commitment to service.

While NAVAC’s range of products may look like similar releases on the market, they are all distinctly different. These include its legacy pump, the NRD/NRS series, which comes complete with advanced pump technology and industry-leading reliability, standing head and shoulders above the competition available in its class, according to DeLisi. Today, this range could qualify as the company’s entry-level pumps. By improving upon its technology, the company developed midrange and premium selections that truly advance vacuum technology beyond what the market ever thought was possible.

Iconic black series
NAVAC’s black pump series is considered the most sophisticated and disruptive pump available at present. By transforming the power supply on its EcoDrive and ShieldDrive products from AC-powered motors to permanent magnet DC-powered machines, the team dropped energy consumption by as much as 50 percent. These new DC-powered pumps are also significantly quieter, revolutionizing the typical noise range of over 100 decibels to sometimes lower than 60, making many of the company’s machines quieter than most refrigerators. This is critical in one of its key markets—freeze drying—as residential freeze dryers occupy space in many kitchens today, further validating the need for quietness and efficiency.

These pumps also run for significantly longer periods between servicing and replacement, beating the traditional four-to-six-year lifespan of an AC-motor pump running 24/7, with up to 10 years before replacement in the NAVAC DC-powered form.

These are not the most exciting features, either. While less sophisticated pumps often seize up due to contamination, the NAVAC EcoDrive and ShieldDrive ranges offer an Eco Mode or variable-speed drive. This technology means that these machines can now run on fewer revolutions per minute during downtimes while consuming an average of eight cents’ worth of energy per day and almost eliminating seizing due to corrosion locking up the pump once it’s out of service.

Often paired with turbo molecular vacuum pumps, typical roughing pumps run needlessly at full capacity during downtimes, wasting energy and causing wear and tear to the pump. Now, with the NAVAC Eco Mode addition, this problem is a thing of the past. DeLisi’s smile could not be bigger when reiterating that, despite implementing all this cutting-edge technology, NAVAC’s products remain a staggering 30 to 40 percent more cost-effective than that of other manufacturers.

Lab favorites
There is also the favorite amongst laboratories for application in critical environments. The ShieldDrive is NAVAC’s latest oil-lubricated, magnetically coupled, guaranteed leak-free rotary vane vacuum pump, offering dual-stage function and a high-performance permanent magnet motor. This technology relies on two magnetic couplers spinning the motor into the pump—which leaves users with complete confidence that no oil can escape the shaft seals.

While other companies have tried their hand at this technology, selling it at quite a premium, NAVAC is confident that its proprietary take on creating this oil-tight solution renders its product far superior to anything else in its class.

Wherever applicable, NAVAC vacuum pumps also come standard with an advanced proprietary coating that protects all components from corrosion and significantly improves lifespan.

The company’s next market-disrupting range is the UniDrive series, a single-stage vacuum pump offering more robust and reliable vacuum solutions. This technology is popular amongst some of the world’s largest food manufacturers. Downtime in such factories can mean losing millions of dollars of product a day, and these firms like to know that the vacuum pumps removing air from food containers and packages in their facilities work as hard and predictably as they do. Here, cool running motors also add to efficiency, as overheating machines can cause serious problems in temperature-controlled manufacturing facilities.

This series also has an even more market-specific pump, the UDS, which caters to the liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) market, analytics, and other highly specialized vacuum pump markets that require single-phase power supply. Used in high-tech environments, these machines supply steady and reliable vacuum action that is controllable and ultra-robust. While single-stage vacuum technology is old and well-known, it forms the foundation of the vacuum pump industry.

No pumps without people
Despite being vacuum-driven, the company has a keen focus on its people and their development. Its people are lauded for being as fantastic as its products are. Optimum response times mean that every customer is attended to immediately and any concerns are solved without delay. In terms of service delivery, NAVAC considers the pre- and post-sales support to be as crucial as closing its sales agreements.

With over 50 years of combined experience, the two leaders, Cox and DeLisi, are building the company’s strongest sales team yet. Placing itself at the opposite end of the traditional approach of typical sales teams, NAVAC’s focus on the customer experience takes its products and service delivery to new heights for this industry. In the process, the company collaborates with clients in need of performance, reliability, and service to meet their demanding application requirements for outstanding vacuum technology—an acutely underserved market at present.

“Building up to this, many of our competitors in this market considered vacuum pumps a commodity with more of a ‘one size fits all’ mentality—where customers had to fend for themselves and make tough decisions on selecting the right vacuum pump for their application. Mike and I saw a huge opportunity here and had developed what we call the NAVAC Experience,” says Cox.

The greater NAVAC story started nearly a decade ago when the company started exploring the American vacuum pump market with the vision to expand into the country. At the time, the company was known in other global markets for its industrial vacuum division alongside its heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) division which is still part of the company. The original company owner started the Asian facility nearly three decades ago.

“Our leadership team is extremely innovative, both in product development and channel expansion. We were at the forefront of manufacturing and technology,” DeLisi says of the visionary entrepreneur who brought the best of vacuum technology to the global market via the company’s fully integrated, self-sufficient fabrication manufacturing outfits. Starting its entry into the American market in New Jersey, the company has taken its time to build solid foundations before making a solid impact on world markets.

Bringing close to two decades of filtration expertise to the table, DeLisi was ideally positioned to contribute his extensive knowledge of vacuum technology and environmental protection to the company’s infrastructure when he joined. His experience in developing business strategies with sales teams that solved pump and filtration issues for customers now serves as a basis for his disruptive approach to the industry status quo.

“There’s more to vacuum technology than just each component. We want to create a solution for customers so they don’t have to approach multiple sources to find that,” he says of the integrated service NAVAC offers.

Accountable industry
His mission, as DeLisi describes it, is to put the company at the forefront of customers’ minds and to keep everyone in vacuum technology advancing forward by driving innovation in the industry. His dedication to providing the NAVAC Experience while exceeding customers’ expectations is what he defines as matching a premium product with a premium service standard.

Setting the global example of backing its products and being accountable, NAVAC supplies customers with new vacuum pumps if its pumps in the field become faulty outside of their warranty. The logic behind this is simple: high-stakes operations cannot afford to waste uptime. Therefore, to protect customers from lead times that can be as long as 10 to 20 weeks in some cases when working with competitors, the company ensures that its products are easily accessible, globally, at all times.

“We want to help elevate all our competitors to perform at the level that we perform because, again, our mission is to make sure that the customer is taken care of,” DeLisi says.

This approach to shaking up the vacuum pump industry is a breath of fresh air as far as Cox is concerned. “Now I truly believe as long as the customer wins, we all win,” Cox says. As a longstanding industry expert, he has seen it all—the good, the bad, and the very ugly. He speaks passionately about the decline in customer care over the past few decades.

“I always put myself in the customer’s shoes,” he says. “If I was making the capital investment that our customers are, I would want the best product at the best price, but more importantly, I would want a high level of customer care.” Experience taught him that keeping customers engaged and satisfied is very easy if the team is engaged and understands that the customer comes first. Here, the secret is to have a good time together so it doesn’t feel like work. “We wake up and go to war in pursuit of protecting the customer and when the day is over, we celebrate our victories.”

New facility, new future
Recently breaking ground at its new facility, NAVAC’s growth will add around another million square feet to its existing footprint. Yet there are still many firsts ahead for NAVAC, like introducing its disruptive UDS technology at its first-ever trade show hosted by the American Society for Mass Spectrometry (ASMS), in June this year. With specialized teams watching the future and what it brings, NAVAC is aware that, in many ways, it is ahead of the future.

As such, the team fully grasps its global responsibility to consumers, as “there is nothing in this world that vacuum technology doesn’t touch,” DeLisi reminds us.

By continuing to bridge the gap between customers and technology, NAVAC’s 10-year vision promises to bring the world many more sustainable, legendary products with an unwavering focus on performance, reliability, and service.

The post Nature May Abhor a Vacuum, but Industry Loves It<p class="company">NAVAC</p> appeared first on Manufacturing In Focus.

“We’ve been through Great Depressions and Great Recessions. 2008 just about killed the place,” says Vice President Aaron Cole, great-nephew of the company founder. “We’ve built it back to where business is really good. We’re busy. We’ve got more work than we know what to do with and three times the people we had just a couple years ago.”

About half of Premier’s workload consists of gear manufacturing, while general machining—the company has a variety of lathes, computer numerical control (CNC) mills, and manual machine tools—gearbox work, fabrication, and wire EDM makes up the remainder. Aside from a few services, such as gear teeth grinding, which is subcontracted out, the work is self-performed. Projects are generally made to customer specifications, particularly when gears are involved.

“Most of our stuff is custom, one-off to two-off orders. We get into some production runs of 10 to 100 on smaller parts for people who are stocking up, but the vast majority of our work is custom,” says Cole.

Premier does sell some standard wares, primarily through its wood products division. The company has its own line of veneer lathes, for example, which peel logs into thin sheets of wood, which are stacked and glued together to make plywood as part of plywood manufacturing.

Complementing these goods and services, Premier can respond to emergencies around-the-clock, with afterhours calls directed to Cole.

If a client has “a crane that’s broken down or they need a gearbox repaired or something made, they can get a hold of me at any time,” he explains. “Any time somebody calls, if they need us to jump on something, I or another salesman go out and look at it, then call the guys and get them in and get going on it.”

While the company does not have ISO certification, it adheres to ISO protocols and procedures to maintain quality. Cole shares that the company might eventually strive for ISO certification to enter new markets such as defense and aerospace, as companies in these sectors are generally required to be ISO or International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) certified. “There’s a lot of money and a lot of work to be had if you work for the government, and you need to have those certifications to do that kind of work,” he notes.

Safety is certainly paramount at Premier, and the company maintains a safety committee that routinely inspects for hazards, while Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) regulations are closely followed. The welding department operates in an enclosed environment to avoid exposing unshielded workers to arc flashes that could potentially cause eye damage. Plant employees wear safety glasses and don gloves to handle sharp objects, except when working on lathes as gloves and long sleeves can get caught in moving machinery, pulling people into it.

Originally, Premier was a blacksmith shop, run by William Lofstedt back in 1923. It transformed into a gear shop while ownership remained within the family. Aaron’s grandfather, Alan Cole, took over the firm in the 1960s, followed by his son Russell Cole, who still serves as company President.

The company grew, reaching about 75 personnel by the 1970s. The good times did not last, however; the recession of 2008-2009 hit the company hard.

By 2018, “we were down to six guys in the shop. I was working here at the time. We used to have probably on average 300 to 400 jobs in the shop at a time. There was a period where we had two jobs on the books,” Cole remembers.

As workers retired, Cole “started absorbing roles because we didn’t have the money to hire anybody new.” He took on various duties including purchasing, outside sales, front office work, and shop management, and put in 70-hour weeks.

He worked closely with his father, which was not always easy. He recalls a time when he was “about 17, doing stupid 17-year-old stuff—not working hard, goofing off,” when his dad bluntly reminded him that he could be fired like anyone else who was not pulling their weight. He smartened up and has been working hard ever since.

Sparks continued to fly occasionally between father and son. Trying to convince any boss to change direction is difficult, and the problem is compounded when that boss also happens to be your father, Cole says. Things have balanced as of late, and now Aaron Cole is responsible for some of Premier’s main operations.

A few years ago, the company underwent a huge change with the decision to move to a new locale. “We were in northwest Portland, in the industrial district, from 1923 until 2018. We got out of the city. It kind of became the trendy downtown area right up to our door, and the industrial area wasn’t a thing anymore. We moved out to the ‘burbs. We’ve got all kinds of space, and it’s quiet now and there’s room for trucks,” notes Cole.

Two years after the company established itself in a Canby industrial park, COVID struck. Premier was deemed essential and allowed to stay open. Interestingly, the company flourished during the pandemic. The virus disrupted traditional supply chains, so some firms started sourcing products and services from domestic suppliers instead of using offshore vendors. The beginning of the pandemic “was the first good year for us in a long time, as far as sales went,” shares Cole.

Keeping employees safe during the height of the virus was no problem either. “We had a 60,000-square-foot shop and around seven guys in it, so we were able to stay apart.” Cost-cutting also boosted the company’s fortunes, which in turn allowed it to expand, to around 25 employees at present.

Given the company’s lengthy history, it is no surprise that Premier has worked on some significant projects. “Almost all the dams along the Columbia River have our gears in them,” says Cole, while a few years ago, Premier was heavily involved with the wind industry. The company sent crews to climb wind turbines to repair yaw drive gears. “We were flying all over the country, spending a couple weeks basically rebuilding gear teeth by hand.”

The dam work was performed in tandem with a big construction company that served as prime contractor. When the firm landed a job, Premier was often hired as a subcontractor to provide gears. It was an arrangement that suited Cole fine. While interested in possibly doing defense and aerospace projects, he is wary about the voluminous paperwork that contractors face when dealing directly with government clients.

Company promotion is handled through a combination of online initiatives, local door to door canvassing, attendance at trade shows, and membership in trade groups. The company belongs to the American Gear Manufacturers Association (AGMA) which affords access to meetings, events, job leads, and networking opportunities.

Premier is also a union shop, as plant employees belong to the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. Pay is good, and Cole treats his workforce well which, in turn, instills loyalty. “Pretty much everybody who’s ever worked here retires from here,” he says. “It’s such a small, family place. You know the people, you know their spouses, you know their kids.”

For his part, Cole aims to be as flexible as possible. If an employee needs to go home to look after a sick spouse or their kids, they can leave early or take the day off without consequences. “It’s like a big family around here. I’ve stolen—quote unquote—a lot of guys from other manufacturing around us because we pay a little bit better, and we like to think we treat them better. The people who have come here have said as much.”

For all that, he says attracting skilled new workers is the company’s biggest challenge, and he bemoans the fact that many schools have stopped teaching machining. “You’ll hear that everywhere, I’m sure, in machining. It’s the biggest problem in the industry as a whole.”

Still, he is excited about the future and has big plans for this family firm. Among other things, Cole wants to build up the fabrication department and hire more staff. “In five years, I want to have twice as many staff, twice as many sales. In 15 years, I want to be the best gear manufacturing and machine shop on the West Coast and the place people think to call first.”

The post This Family Firm Is in Growth Mode After Passing the Century Mark<p class="company">Premier Gear & Machine Works</p> appeared first on Manufacturing In Focus.

In time, the founder was joined by his son, who came up with an idea: instead of repairing torches manufactured by other companies, why not start making their own?

“If you were a repair shop, a customer would come in with broken stuff,” says QCC’s General Manager Josh Flagner. “You would find out what you had to buy, get those parts, and do repairs.” Wanting to be more than a repair shop, the company started creating its own line of parts.

Years of hands-on experience and analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of torches made by other companies led to the privately held company establishing successful product lines fairly quickly. In 1999, the founder’s son bought the company from his father, and the name was changed to Quality Components Company to better suit the business’s new direction and services.

Made to last
At Quality Components, torches, cutting machines, tips, gas distribution systems, and other equipment aren’t just well-made, but engineered for the real world.

“When a customer wants a torch, we know what that torch is supposed to accomplish, and how durable it’s supposed to be,” says Franklin Mayse, Sales Engineering Manager. “No matter what anybody says about how you’re supposed to use a torch, people out in the field are beating them up. They’re poking and moving things with them and using them as hammers. So, we don’t try to find the cheapest way to make a piece of equipment knowing it’s going to get beaten up out in the field. We just don’t do that,” he says.

“Instead, we go above and beyond every step of the way to make sure the equipment that leaves here stands up to what it actually sees in the field, not just what’s on the best practices list.”

The result? At QCC, all components are domestically sourced. The company uses high-quality stainless steel and doesn’t offer a ‘value’ line. The company ensures there is enough bracing in its tubes, often using thicker tubing than many competitors.

Unlocking potential
For decades, QCC had been a successful but small Ohio-based company with fewer than a dozen dedicated employees. Well-known in the area and not so much outside of it, much of QCC’s business came through word-of-mouth recommendations. There was no advertising, and there were no dedicated salespeople trying to generate leads.

Then, a prominent group, recognizing QCC’s tremendous potential for growth, acquired the company about two years ago. This saw the business bring experts on board, including Nick Dinardo as Marketing Manager, a newly created position.

Although there are larger players than QCC, the group recognized the company’s importance in a niche market. With an established customer base, QCC stands out from bigger companies who have “a lot of institutional blind spots,” says Dinardo.

“As a business becomes gigantic, and they put processes in, some people get left out,” he says. “So there is value in being a small business, being able to take on lower-volume custom jobs, and deal with customers and solve problems. And that’s why we acquired QCC in April 2022, and we have been running it since then.”

For the company and its clients, the acquisition has brought welcome benefits, as QCC transitions from a modest-sized business into a larger entity. As a company, QCC now has marketing plans and sales strategies, attends trade shows, and continues to build its decades-long reputation for quality.

Keeping the quality
General Manager Flagner—who has an extensive manufacturing background—remains proud that the new owners kept every single employee when they took over. “We worked hard to keep the ‘quality’ part of Quality Components Company,” he says, acknowledging that there are cheaper ways to manufacture products but refusing to do so, choosing instead to maintain QCC’s legacy.

“Every piece of every product line we have, we buy from domestically sourced raw material. And we can verify every hole is the right size and every angle is the right angle,” says Flagner. “We do all of that in-house and don’t have any parts made elsewhere and sent to us. We don’t offshore parts or anything like that.”

Flagner is also proud of QCC’s original staff for giving the new owners a chance and staying with the company. “We’re having a really good 2024 and are expecting big success in the second half of the year,” he shares.

The company’s reputation for quality and innovation is no recent development and goes back to the beginning. Although the founder wasn’t an engineer by trade, his hands-on experience and troubleshooting know-how enabled him to design outstanding products. His knowledge, combined with a dedicated staff, including a torch assembler and gas assembler who have been with the company for 34 and 25 years respectively, has helped make QCC what it is today.

Mindful of the need to bring on new workers, the group behind QCC has welcomed younger staff in their twenties and early thirties, including the shop supervisor who is a CNC mill specialist and another newcomer in the torch department. QCC is successfully balancing new hires with seasoned employees for the benefit of both customers and company.

Domestic and international
For clients, one of the many advantages of working with Quality Components is its location. Mentor, Ohio is just a few minutes from Cleveland, the heart of American steel production. It isn’t unusual for customers to walk in the door and say the head of their damaged torch needs to be fixed.

Many local clients are small scrapyards that need torches to cut metal to the right size and shape for resale to steel mills, foundries, and processing plants. QCC works with customers at all stages of the metal’s life cycle, from the moment molten hot steel is made, cooled, and cut to steel processors who cut steel for their clients. Other customers include shipyards making frames and support structures, and railroad track maintenance and repair.

“Most of our business is in the United States, but we are always looking at ways to expand that to other markets,” says Flagner. The company also serves clients in Canada, Mexico, Brazil, and Europe.

Patent success
As part of its commitment to innovation and quality, QCC has several patented products under its belt, including a line of flowmeters. Uniquely designed and made with heavy-duty brass and 1/4” inlet and outlet construction, these flowmeters boast internal floats within transparent tubes, 1/8”-thick durable plastic outer tubes, and many other features. According to the company, “The outer tube has a calibrated scale printed on the inside surface to protect it from dirt and scratches and accurately measures to within plus or minus four percent of full range, exceeding the most stringent maritime industry requirements of five percent.”

The company is also known for another patented product, its QC Series caster torch tip. Designed to work with QCC’s QC Series torches, these tips are extremely effective in the oxy-fuel industry and are capable of cutting materials over 60” thick!

The company is also behind the QCC 4900 Series powder cutting torches. Specially designed to cut through challenging non-ferrous materials like stainless steel, nickel, and cast iron, these hand-held torches feature unique “powder” nozzles, which “feed iron powder into the flame to enable cutting,” says the company. These are available in lengths from 36” to 120” and have options including heat shields, skids, and head angles of 180, 90, or 75 degrees.

Ideal for hard-to-process metals, the company’s iron powder cutting torch works well for cutting unusual structures like castings, stacks, or bundled materials like coils, since they inject fine iron powder into the flame. Sufficient heat is taken up by the powder instead of the metal that’s being cut to maintain a temperature below the ignition point of stainless steel. This allows stainless steel to be cut like normal carbon steel.

Boots on the ground
Perfect for scrapyard customers, these torches were a hit at the recent ISRI show (ISRI recently rebranded itself to ReMA, the Recycled Materials Association). Being a ReMA member allows QCC to have a platform servicing scrapyards.

“We were the only company at that show selling torches and cutting equipment for the scrappers—we are the boots on the ground,” says Flagner. “While we’re not the only company selling to ReMA members, this shows that of all the other brands of torch businesses supplying scrapyards, none of them are putting in the time and effort that we are. We’re trying to be on the ground with the people doing the work, making sure we have good solutions for all sorts of different applications,” he says.

“Scrapping is so diversified,” he adds. “There are different types of metal, and people have stuff all over the place. We are out there trying to solve problems, and ReMA gives us an opportunity to do that. With ReMA’s local chapters, it’s a great way to network and meet other companies that are selling to the scrapping industry, and scrapping customers. The big show is great, but probably in the long run, there is even more value in the remote local chapters and marketing there.”

Along with ReMA, QCC is a proud member of AIST, the Association for Iron & Steel Technology. A non-profit association, AIST has about 16,600 members from over 70 countries. “In the long term, it’s a really good organization for us,” says Flagner. “We’re building relationships and getting into steel mills and other operations on the ground level, learning about more technologies and operations with steel manufacturers and helping them solve their problems.”

As newer steel mills are being powered by electricity and run more efficiently on scrap, QCC sees even more business as steel mills process their own scrap on-site for recycling and put recycled steel back into new steel production.

In the future, Quality Components Company will continue to have a hand in every stage of the steelmaking and recycling process. Innovating smarter designs, such as torches that can be positioned further away from hot metals, makes for more precise cuts, using less gas and resulting in longer torch lifespans.

Says Flagner: “There are other machine torch tips like this in the world, but our founder looked at it and said, ‘I can make this better.’ He improved the design, got it patented, and the U.S. Government said, ‘Yep, you made it better.’ So the QC Series machine torch tips are the best solution for that application in the entire industry.”

The post Made for the Real World<p class="company">Quality Components Company (QCC)</p> appeared first on Manufacturing In Focus.