Integration is HAHN’s specialty, both for its customers and internally, and since 2024, HAHN Automation Group has operated under a unified global brand to take better advantage of the various operations under its control. Specifically in the U.S., HAHN Automation Group brings together the power of four well-known automation companies—Invotec, HAHN Automation, REI Automation, and HAHN Plastics—with over 30 years of collective experience, allowing customers around the world to benefit from shared technology, cohesive resources, and a combined expertise that truly sets it apart.

“One of the main things that’s helped us to do this is how we collaborate across our 20 locations globally so that we can assess projects and meet our customers closer to where the machinery will be in production—we can offer local support or additional resources,” explains Vice President, Commercial Management & Development, Noah Smith, who works out of HAHN’s Miamisburg, Ohio operation (previously Invotec).

With proven equipment solutions in MedTech and automotive electronics manufacturing that serve as foundational pillars of its operation, HAHN provides customers with solutions tailored to their specific industry needs while leveraging its expertise between its business units to find the right solution.

“A lot of those innovations and those technologies that automotive has developed over time are just now becoming more prevalent in MedTech, and so we’re able to use some of that historical expertise and knowledge in that field. We’ve found that it certainly does transfer to our body of knowledge of the medical market, just with some adaptation,” says Smith of the company’s internal cross-sector collaborations that have proved so fruitful.

Greg Earle, Managing Director in Hebron, Kentucky, notes that it works both ways: “A lot of things from the MedTech side—the quality systems and inspections and the testing side of things—have been adapted over to the automotive industry over time as well. Quality has always been a priority for automotive, and that experience gives us a different insight into how to validate and check things,” he says.

Both the MedTech and automotive electronics sectors have processes and operations that would benefit from automation solutions like those offered by HAHN Automation Group U.S. Inc. On the automotive electronics side, opportunities run the gamut from automated assembly and test processes to machine integration, tending, retooling, and retrofitting.

“In Hebron, we’re trying to grow our service department, and that means a lot of things,” Earle explains. “Some of our small, very dynamic projects, at the same time as growing the partnership, allow us to help when customers want new equipment. We can serve as that ‘easy’ button for ordering general spare parts, or for quick parts turnaround to keep their production going. Preventive maintenance programs, data analysis updates, and reporting-panel technologies also help our customers be prepared.”

In the MedTech sector, increased levels of automation in manufacturing has been a trend for several years, amplified by supply chain challenges. Additionally, the increasing complexity and small nature of medical devices presents a greater need for automation tools that help them meet regulatory requirements.

“Our facilities in Dayton, Ohio and Brooklyn Park, Minnesota serve as the global MedTech headquarters for the HAHN Automation Group. We don’t just specialize in MedTech manufacturing because it’s part of our portfolio—it is all we do in those locations,” says Smith. “It allows us to be intimately familiar with the challenges of medical device manufacturing and structuring equipment solutions for those challenges.”

Indeed, because of the company’s strong global presence, it can support its customers wherever they are and whenever they need it most—and that support comes in many ways.

“We’re able to work within a lot of our customer partners’ global structures to develop agreements or standardized processes for them that they can roll out across multiple plants and thus implement technology at a quicker pace,” explains Smith.

This support is ever more important given the rate of technological advancement associated with progressive automation. The advantage of being part of a larger entity is having dedicated resources, advanced technology, and research and development departments that are working with technology and component suppliers to remain on the cutting edge of available technologies and solutions.

“The company’s size and its investment in these capabilities have enabled it to support larger projects for larger customers than ever before. Yet, for the company just starting out, HAHN has solutions too,” says Smith.

Earle draws attention to machine-tending applications as a good starting point for companies considering automation for the first time. “They keep those machines—in which they have a lot of capital investment—running more continuously and more often, maybe even for a 24-hour day or on a lights-out operation, to get their return,” especially when skilled talent is scarce.

While demand for talent exists across sectors, things operate differently in MedTech than they do in automotive electronics given the relative maturity of automation and production levels between the two. Certainly, automotive has a long history in automation, the value of which is just beginning to be recognized by MedTech. From Smith’s perspective, “to just start to understand what the benefits are of operator-assisted automation or higher levels of semi-automation that lean cell technologies offer you, consider, for example, that we were in a site last week that had over 12,000 employees in one production facility, and 80 percent of those were operators, which is not a sustainable method.”

He adds, “As the products get more complex, you’re counting on operators to inspect and uphold quality standards while, at the same time, going through repetitive motions and tasks. The human is not designed for consistency like automation is.” In MedTech, the problems arise even before machine-tending, he notes: “It’s a matter of taking manual processes and trying to improve consistency, quality, and output.”

Given the focus on assembly, inspection, and testing, some of the greatest opportunities in MedTech are in cameras and vision systems, particularly as the number of operators doing manual inspections is still relatively high in a tech-enabled space.

“That facility that I mentioned with 80 percent operators has 40 to 50 percent of those doing manual inspections under magnifying glasses or magnifying lenses in those vision systems that don’t have AI. AI vision really helps to teach a computer or human what they’re looking at so that those actions can become processes rather than just operator-dependent inspections,” Smith explains.

However different each segment is, they are bound by a commonality of processes and relationships that are strengthened by a company culture that permeates the global footprint. “We strive to reach that point where we don’t look at our vendors and distributors as just vendors and distributors; we consider them as partners just as we do with customers. Trying to advance quality and technology while working together is more of a partnership, and that’s what we focus on as part of our core values,” says Earle.

The goal moving forward is to continue to expand these services across North America and Asia to take advantage of the growth in automation, including rapidly advancing AI, virtual and augmented reality offerings, and taking what was once “bleeding edge” and normalizing its integration into automation for customers.

One advancement that has exponentially improved the value proposition to customers is “digital twin” work that enables people like Earle to, as he himself puts it, “run the automation during the basic code generation, development, and testing and see how it all interacts together in the digital work, which hopefully speeds up the overall build time.” Instead of designing, building, and then testing, these activities can be performed digitally to intervene earlier in the process and mitigate any issues before production takes place. As Earle notes, “Digital twin doesn’t catch everything, but it could catch maybe 60 percent.”

Through these efforts, HAHN is continuing to leverage the strength of its omnipresent global footprint to provide integration solutions to its customers by aligning its best-in-class expertise, capabilities, and resources to stay nimble, agile, and ahead of the ever-changing standards for quality, innovation, regulation, and technology. For Smith, “We’ve been in operation as a group and with most of our current entities for over 30 years, which creates partnerships, and the partnerships allow us to grow with our stable and long-term customers. Those are our opportunities to support their business and grow with their business as well as bring new technologies to them and help them be successful.”

“And with our global collaboration and our internal systems, as we come together, we’re integrating all this knowledge from all the different facilities, and we need to keep expanding and growing it. It gives us a lot of power to have different concepts and ideas from a global perspective that we can bring into the facility to each of the locations when we’re working local to local,” says Earle.

There’s no doubt that this approach will continue to provide HAHN’s competitive advantage as it grows its presence and impact around the world through its highly innovative, integrated solutions.

The post Building a World of Expertise<p class="company">HAHN Automation Group U.S.</p> appeared first on Manufacturing In Focus.

Impact Fab’s clients know that if they bring their concepts to Impact Fab, the experts there will find a way to build them accurately and on time, because for Impact Fab, “anything less than the highest quality is not good enough.”

We spoke with Ross Haan, President, who co-owns the company with his brother Brad and their parents Dave and Betty Jo, who started the business in the family’s 400-square-foot garage with a welder, a drill press, “and a lot of hard work,” says Haan.

“After a while, we had four people working out of our garage, and that was when my parents thought they should make it an official business but decided to rent space first, to see if it would be viable,” he explains. “That was in 1994. My dad joked that he’d work hard for two years and if the business didn’t take off, he’d get a ‘real job.’ 30 years later, he still says that he’s never had to get a real job.”

30 years on
Today, Impact Fab operates out of two manufacturing facilities, one with 70,000 square feet of manufacturing space and the other with 10,000 square feet. Impact Fab offers waterjet cutting, laser cutting, metal forming, welding, CNC machining, and CAD engineering services to manufacturers, and employs 51 people.

Haan, however, prefers to call employees ‘team members,’ because they and their teamwork are what lift Impact Fab above the norm. “Our equipment doesn’t make us special, because we don’t have a single piece of equipment that’s unique. It’s our team members who make us special and unique because the skills and attitude they bring to work help our customers to excel.”

These fabricators and technicians, all expert craftspeople, have the skills to take on complex fabrication projects across diverse sectors, from initial design and prototyping to final assembly, working with an array of materials including metals, plastics, and composites.

Organic growth
Haan explains that the company has taken a non-traditional, organic approach to its growth by focusing on its customers, understanding their needs and challenges, and responding by investing in the appropriate equipment and capabilities. This has organically broadened its growth and naturally brought about a complete, one-stop job shop.

“We just wanted to be the ‘easy button’ for engineers, who don’t have to go to several shops to get their project done. They can send the entire project to us and we can do it,” Haan explains.

Operating from what he calls “an abundance mentality,” Haan is pleased to see the trend of manufacturing offshore reversing, with more manufacturers coming back or ‘reshoring.’ Once again, Michigan and West Michigan in particular is reclaiming its place as a hub of the U.S. manufacturing industry, with aerospace, environmental testing chambers, material handling, specialty automation, furniture, and automotive all part of it.

“We feel extremely grateful to be a small part of this larger community,” Haan says. “There are so many great manufacturers and so much opportunity here now that we don’t need to go out and compete and take work away from anyone else. But what we can do is keep adding value to the companies we partner with and serve, so that they can continue to grow. We’re not seeing anyone else doing that, so we stick to our core values of being curious and agile and applying those values to help our manufacturing customers succeed.”

Whatever you need
Does a manufacturer really need a 16-foot-wide by 14-foot-high by 20-foot-long chamber? Haan’s father’s motto was, “If we can’t build it, you don’t need it,” something that “customers will throw back in my face if I say, ‘we can’t do that,’” he laughs. “They reply, ‘What do you mean? It says that on your T-shirt.’”

And yes, it turns out that one manufacturer did indeed need an enormous chamber with some very specific design requirements to carry out in-house environmental tests, and turned to Impact Fab with only a rough concept.

“They said, ‘here’s what we need, can you help us get to that goal?’ That meant we were with them from the beginning, looking at material selection, panel sizes, weight requirements, and that early partnership allowed us to successfully build it for them and do it cost-effectively.”

This neatly illustrates Impact Fab’s culture of curiosity and agility—of the company asking itself, ‘How can we do this? How can we make this better?’

It’s about moving forward with innovations on a project-by-project basis, developing relationships with manufacturers, and becoming the resource they reach out to, to build the precision equipment or components they need, so they, in turn, can move forward, win bids on significant projects, and satisfy their customers with outstanding results.

Solution provider
Haan says that while Impact Fab is not a design company, it is a “solution provider” for many companies, among them Plascore Inc., a global manufacturer of honeycomb products used to strengthen structures in commercial, defense, and aerospace aircraft.

When they had a project that required six large heat-form fixtures for two jet engine nacelles (the streamlined enclosures that house the engines and components), they turned to Impact Fab, supplying only a CAD concept of the aluminum fixture they needed and its specifications.

A talented tradesperson led the team from there, recognizing that the entire project had to be thought through before the 3D machining could create the final shape, and all the specs adjusted including material type, thickness, tolerance, strength, welding type, and final inspection. Through Impact Fab’s solutions, the company not only delivered the nacelle components on time and budget, but with a 50 percent reduction in development time and thousands of dollars saved on material costs and machining.

Since then, Plascore has continued to partner with Impact Fab on similar projects. Writes Ryan DeMeester, Plascore’s Business Unit Manager, “The partnership with Impact Fab has allowed us to solve complex problems with reasonable solutions that work for both parties. They stand by their commitment to achieving their customer’s goals and staying committed to the lead times without sacrificing quality.”

Another company to benefit from Impact Fab’s solution approach is Dematic, which manufactures material handling equipment. This company’s large vehicle weldment required a large amount of extra machining after the frame was built. The technicians at Impact Fab saw a way to improve the design and the process, lowering the cost of each frame by $2,000 while still meeting all the project’s specified requirements.

A company to watch
It is success stories like these that led the Michigan Small Business Association to name Impact Fab as one of ‘50 Companies to Watch’ this past May. “We were surprised and honored,” Haan says. “We didn’t think we were even in the running.”

Underpinning these successes and recognition are those core values of culture and mindset to which Impact Fab has remained true since its inception 30 years ago, including the company’s care for the team, the environment, and the community.

“Competitive pay is a hallmark for us, along with a good benefits package which includes a six percent 401(k) match. We invest in our people’s future, paying for education and specialty job training, and we keep our facilities air-conditioned, so even in the hot summer months we work in a reasonable temperature.”

Concerning the environment, Haan tells us that since the beginning, the company has focused on reducing, reusing, and recycling, which he calls smart business, and shares that, “we’re always looking for ways to reduce our carbon footprint, having recently purchased our first electric delivery vehicle.”

He notes that the steel fabrication industry is only just realizing how important environmental considerations are and turning to what is called ‘green steel’: using renewable energy and a cleaner process than has been the norm for a century.

The Impact Fab team loves to give back and contribute to the broader community as well. The company belongs to some local organizations that do fantastic work, Haan says, including the regional economic development agency, which has been instrumental in bringing jobs to western Michigan; the West Coast Chamber; and the Lakeshore Advantage, which are all helping to build the local economy for future generations.

Looking at what is to come, Haan says, “I would describe myself and our team as rational optimists. We understand that many headwinds affect us, nationally and internationally, but I have an extremely positive outlook about what the future holds—for both manufacturing and our people—because there are just so many good people here. It makes me realize there is nothing we can’t figure out.”

Find out more at https://impactfab.com/.

The post The ‘Easy Button’ for Engineers<p class="company">Impact Fab</p> appeared first on Manufacturing In Focus.

As Business Optimization Lead Jamieson Pouw says of the current operation, TBS can fabricate large truck boxes and structural components along with mining buckets—and that is just the beginning. “If it’s made out of steel and can be repaired or built, that’s our claim to fame.”

The last few years, of course, have had global implications for business because of the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020, the federal government of Canada declared a few sectors to be strategic and necessary, with mining falling under these designations due to its role as a multi-billion-dollar economic engine of the country. Likewise, TBS’s role in the mining supply chain kept it in business throughout those tough times.

Once pandemic measures were lifted, the business came back stronger and busier than ever before, which Pouw believes is a testament to the owners and their confidence and investment in the sector. He says that The Bucket Shop’s partners and proponents in the provincial and federal governments have supported the company financially through several key programs, without which TBS could not have expanded in the way it has.

The Bucket Shop’s present-day corporate structure has been rationalized on two elements: its fabrication facility and a mobile fabrication division called Steeltec, which sees welders and millwrights travelling to mine sites to support repairs, overhauls, and shutdowns.

Another big development for the company this decade has been the introduction of Rhinowear, a suite of wear products that can extend the life of buckets and related equipment. Rhinowear solutions are designed in-house and tested in real mining conditions, allowing the company to stretch its outreach beyond Northern Ontario with consumables that can compete on a global stage.

In the past few years, TBS has also transitioned into a new distribution model. Its previous approach was a common one for small- to mid-sized businesses: fulfilling client orders and billing accordingly. However, this had the company leaning on other steel manufacturers and vendors regularly.

The new approach is more partnership-oriented, with the company focusing on vendors that can bring more value or expertise to its end clients. “Our products will be the best value because [they] will bring you the best total cost of ownership,” Pouw explains. Now, TBS partners with the largest providers of quality products in the industry and, with a more robust offering of consultants such as SSAB (Hardox), MTG, and ITW (Miller Welding), it has a veritable ecosystem of partners.

The company seeks to resolve mining issues in two distinct areas: productivity and efficiency. It builds rugged components that last longer because, in the mining sector, the cost of productivity is counted in the hundreds of thousands of dollars an hour. Since two of the largest open-pit gold mines are in Canada, as are many others, mining is a huge financial force that sees continual demand. TBS products are engineered and tested at multiple mining sites and the data audited from its research is tremendously valuable, especially as the rock conditions across Canada differ greatly and present different challenges.

As for efficiency, the company has a firsthand view of the inventory of every customer in its system as it relates to the parts, such as buckets or truck boxes, that the company fixes. Its inventory management system is aware of every bucket on a job, as well as the Rhinowear component that gets changed on it, and thanks to its preventative maintenance routine, it has a reliable predictive monitor.

This monitor allows the team to build multi-year forecasts of equipment maintenance and associated costs for its clients, presenting a mine site’s planning department with predictive analysis of all needed repairs, thereby managing the mine’s inventory and lessening the administrative burden.

Canada’s mining sector has been very active for over a century, with gold being relied on for its stability and abundance. The country is also home to the ‘Ring of Fire,’ a geographic area in Northern Ontario filled with rare earth minerals and critical minerals required for manufacturing such items as batteries for electric vehicles.

Member of Provincial Parliament for Timmins, the Honourable George Pirie, is a big advocate for the mining industry in Ontario. According to Pirie, Timmins is the new hub of mining activity in the province, and Ontario is a driver of mining around the world. This reputation is a bit new for Timmins as, previously, Sudbury’s nickel resources had been one of the most notable mining sources in the area. Now, most active mining, as well as mining activity and development, is focused on or near Timmins. For example, a new development called Canada Nickel boasts the eighth-largest nickel deposit in the world, and is on track to dictate the next 20 years of mining operations.

Pouw says that the future of mining in Ontario has a 100-year timeline, but the challenge is getting enough people to fulfill that timeline. A labour shortage in mining is part of the global labour shortages every sector is experiencing, but Northern Ontario is challenged in a different way than the rest of Canada. The average age of workers in the area is higher, which means more workers are entering retirement age, and a relative lack of universities means less youth migration.

The population is declining, yet it is the fastest-growing labour market in the country. Both the provincial and federal governments want to increase the population of the area and have identified its critical shortage of labour. Immigration has been part of a national strategy for many years, an initiative from which TBS has benefited and still embraces.

Through the onboarding of several new qualified employees thanks to immigration, as well as the creation of a company that can attract talent from different streams, organic company growth continues for TBS. To further introduce new workers to the industry, The Bucket Shop has developed a training program in collaboration with high schools and colleges to teach welding in-house. With its Keepers of the Circle program, women have gained a new way to enter the industry as welders, with over 40 having been recently certified in the trade.

The company’s Indigenous partners have been another important factor in combating the labour shortage. As every mine site in Ontario occupies Indigenous land, companies are obliged to partner with First Nations groups for economic and employment support. These Indigenous groups are both the fastest-growing segment of the population and available to support growing labour requirements.

As far as The Bucket Shop’s future goes, double-digit growth is expected for the next few years. The business has begun to do a lot of work directly for original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to support fabrication projects or as a servicing partner to maintain fleets. The company’s growth serves to accommodate these consistent requests, so TBS has invested around $30 million into enlarging and improving its research and fabrication facility.

The company’s revenue growth has also allowed it to take on a fleet of over 50 vehicles and the mechanics to maintain it, growing the internal structure further. TBS is now recognized as a company that is willing to invest its money internally and one that can bring in the money and projects to support itself.

Looking ahead, a few new developing mines will be coming online for Ontario in 2024 after the traditional four-year pre-production cycle wraps up. TBS has been working with these mines since the beginning with several ongoing, multi-year contracts and currently, both The Bucket Shop and Steeltec are contracted as partners at almost every mine in the Northern Ontario region.

Amidst all its growth, Pouw says that the company’s roots remain in Timmins and Northern Ontario and that, above all else, TBS will serve the mining sector of Northern Ontario now and into the future. “If we do too much,” Pouw says, “we can’t take care of our primary customers.”

As The Bucket Shop is an export company with a global presence that consciously conducts its activities for its local partners, this identity is never far from the minds of those who were there from the beginning and remain with the company today. It has proven a winning formula for both company and community success.

The post Seizing National and Global Opportunities<p class="company">The Bucket Shop</p> appeared first on Manufacturing In Focus.

Aimed at the power generation industry, Eddyfi Technologies launched its latest nondestructive ultrasonic inspection technology upgrade, Panther 2, this year. The company is the go-to for global giants in energy generation, transportation, aeronautical, military, and others in search of custom-designed nondestructive testing (NDT) equipment, inspection scanning, and robotics. Following three years of research and development on Panther 2 and several acquisitions over the past seven years, the company’s most recent purchase has seen its capabilities soar even further.

Eddyfi’s other products—which include sensors, instruments, and software—are popular for use on bridges, windmills, hydroelectric dams, pipelines, and nuclear power plants.

Just over 18 months ago, Eddyfi Technologies acquired former adversary Zetec, also specializing in ultrasonic and eddy current arrays. This technology is applied in manual devices to simplify equipment inspection by efficiently scanning large surface areas. “The acquisition is good for us,” says Frederic Reverdy, senior application and products engineer, about the two research and development teams that are teaming up to create some of the best NDT software available. “I have learned a lot from my colleagues. I hope they have learned a lot from me as well,” he adds.

At home in Quebec City, Canada, Eddyfi Technologies provides customers with innovative products that protect and improve complex, large-scale critical infrastructure on a global scale. The company saves clients’ money while keeping staff, nature, and urban zones around large industrial plants safe. With its next-generation science in NDT inspection tools, international service firms and original equipment manufacturers have turned to Eddyfi for customized innovation since 2009.

Today, as Zetec settles in, the company aims to develop a single product line, merging the strengths of each existing collection into a single potent offering. “We’re pretty excited for the future—to see the combination [of technologies] between the two companies,” Reverdy shares. Across North America, Europe, and beyond, the merger has turned Eddyfi Technologies into a powerhouse with which to be reckoned.

The new acquisition came complete with technology of its own. Launched in October this year when the Eddyfi team attended the American Society for Nondestructive Testing (ASNT) conference in Houston, Ultravision is a sophisticated phased array ultrasonics analysis tool. The new software is the first step toward blending the best of the product lines that exist between Eddyfi Technologies and Zetec.

“Ultravision is probably the most powerful software in terms of analysis for phased array ultrasonics on the market,” Reverdy says, explaining that this product made Zetec an excellent acquisition as the technology surpasses what was previously available through Eddyfi Technologies. In addition, customers who own Eddyfi technology can easily align the new Ultrasonic software with their existing products.

The company’s approach to garnering new business is pragmatic, as is its drive to provide the best NDT technology available. The result is a detail-oriented sales process that sees to it that no aspect of client requirements is left unstudied. After its sales managers introduce its technical team to prospective new clients needing quality inspection solutions, designers set out to analyze their exact requirements and identify issues to offer them an optimal product. For those with complex problems, even more sophisticated, custom technology is inevitable. That follows feasibility studies using simulation software, ensuring the correct technology is applied for the job.

To further enhance its capabilities, another 2023 acquisition, Sensor Networks, based in Pennsylvania, contributes the latest in remote visual inspection instruments, phased array and conventional ultrasonics probes, and corrosion monitoring systems with permanently installed ultrasonic testing equipment, adding thee capabilities to Eddyfi’s already generous range of technologies. Sensor Networks “is going to help us promote our own probes,” Reverdy says. “Now we have a portfolio, so we can propose the system, the probes, and the scanners.”

Serving a large portion of the oil and gas industry, its phased array testing equipment is especially popular in identifying corrosion in refineries and pipelines to prevent gas and oil leakages. According to Reverdy, the nuclear industry is also increasingly turning to Eddyfi for the latest in its advanced ultrasonic equipment for similar reasons. He cites an emergency in France last year at one such plant, where half the facility had to be closed for urgent inspection when a significant equipment defect nearly ended in disaster. Thanks to its leading-edge technology, the worst-case scenario was avoided as Eddyfi Technologies saved the day, the client’s assets, and potentially many lives.

Its ever-evolving product lines comprise both portable and stationary products. Lightweight and portable, its Gecko, Topaz, and Mantis lines focus on in-service inspections of aircraft, refineries, and pipelines, identifying dangerous weaknesses such as cracks or erosion. The second selection includes software comprising its Panther 2 and Emerald suites. Reliant on main grid power sources, these stationary systems are typically used in fabrication facilities where infrastructure components like plates, bars, and pipes must be inspected before dispatch and integration into industrial plant construction.

These software systems, especially the new Panther 2, are most popular amongst systems integrators needing thorough inspection equipment for new third-party systems. “Typically, you want this [process] to be very fast. You do not want NDT to be the bottleneck of manufacturing,” Reverdy says, noting that systems integrators “buy our product and put it into their solution.” The system comes with software development kits and operational support. About 20 percent of the customer base using the system is made up of independent or company-based research teams, Reverdy estimates.

As a significant upgrade to its forerunner, Panther 1, Panther 2 features improved data upload capacities. Based on fixed sensory data collection, transfers happen via optical fibre or high-speed Ethernet plug-ins. Improved scanning speeds translate into faster data analyses, making inspections lightning-fast. Eddyfi typically introduces software feature enhancements to accompany its hardware upgrades, ensuring systems run as efficiently as possible. “This precise nondestructive testing instrument is helping other OEMs optimize their processes,” says Content Marketing Manager Priscilla Johnson.

A surprising result of the intensive research and development that follow every new launch is the unique applications for products that customers come up with that the team might never have considered, like when inspection teams in refineries started using its Gecko system to prevent high-temperature hydrogen attacks, a potentially lethal equipment defect resulting from dry, hot conditions driving methane build-up caused by atomic hydrogen reacting with equipment steel. This forces the metal to split open, potentially causing havoc in such plants. As Eddyfi’s Gecko system worked brilliantly at preventing the issue, it became a part of the International Standards Organization’s (ISO) and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers’ (ASME) standards code for the industry.

“More and more people use the technology. As a manufacturer, we spend [a lot of time improving] the scanning speed, technology, et cetera. The Panther 2 is a good example of that,” says Reverdy, explaining that its total focusing method (TFM), an advanced imaging technique delivering accurate results over large areas, demands higher processing power.

Delivering faster real-time data feedback necessitates top-speed, state-of-the-art hardware, and to make it, all graphic cards must be updated annually. On the upside, replacing graphic cards instead of entire systems saves having to buy new technology every year while gaining faster speeds—a major cost benefit for customers. While improved speeds take precedence, ensuring operational ease drives Panther 2 and all Eddyfi products, for that matter.

“We are the first one to promote TFM,” Reverdy says, and Eddyfi’s competitors followed its lead in applying the technology for inspection purposes. Reverdy feels that Eddyfi remains ahead of the competition. “It is a sure thing in my opinion,” and that attitude pushes the company ever forward. “When everybody does it, you have to do it better.”

The post Elegance Through Synergy<p class="company">Eddyfi Technologies</p> appeared first on Manufacturing In Focus.

For fabricators who have ever wished to self-build applications to suit their unique manufacturing processes, the dream has, at long last, materialized, thanks to Caron Engineering, the solutions provider for big-name fabricators like GE Aerospace, John Deere, medical device giant Zimmer US, and others who can now build and own applications that integrate perfectly into existing systems.

The Caron suite of solutions has practically every function fabricators could ever need. “We have a tremendous knowledge of CNC communications. Our customers don’t have to know computer programming; we’ve given them the background knowledge embedded in this toolkit to do that automatically,” explains Rob Caron, President. “There are not many companies in the world that have the experience that we have in computer numerical control,” he adds with a smile.

Caron Engineering has provided customers with top-notch fabrication software for nearly four decades, introducing MiConnect to the open market in 2021. Today, its software is giving fabricators the control and creative freedom to build the applications they want easily and without the time and money involved in hiring third parties to do it. Gone are the days of being forced to hire computer coders to develop fabrication applications.

As with most timeless solutions, the idea for MiConnect was born of necessity. “Around 2010, we were spending so much time writing applications and computer programs. For our own needs, it [was] much nicer to create a toolbox that was much easier to quickly develop applications. Then we eventually started selling that concept,” Rob Caron says of the product that stands to revolutionize application development in the industry forever.

At home in Maine, with a showroom and technology center in Austin, Texas, Caron Engineering serves fabricators globally as far afield as Poland and Asia thanks to its trusted German representative of nearly 30 years, BLUM. As a smart-technology developer for the computer numerical control (CNC) tooling industry, Caron Engineering’s products are prized for next-generation innovation that supports the manufacturing industry in ways that many technology developers have not even thought of, like enabling manufacturers to determine how their applications function and to own them.

MiConnect also helps fabricators circumvent and solve the complexities of communication between devices, supervisory systems, and workshop systems by creating effective networking loops that ease fabrication processes while improving communication and product turnaround speed. The efficacy of the software is impressive, with the company working ceaselessly to provide customer support via the training it offers to a global network of systems integrator firms that are also growing at a healthy pace.

But MiConnect is not the company’s first star product, however. The first in its stable, and traditionally its best-seller, TMAC, is a tool monitoring adaptive control product, introduced not long after the dawn of 1990. Having been through its own process of evolution, these days TMAC acts as a background monitoring system for systems generally unattended by humans. Caron’s next product, AutoComp, which performs automated tool wear compensation, is a software suite that works in tandem with TMAC, adjusting tool offsets automatically to protect against machine deviations and the like.

This technology is essential to many fabricators because, while we may commonly refer to robotics as artificial intelligence, it could also be described as automation intelligence, saving end users money by protecting equipment and product runs. “As the entire manufacturing industry moves toward automation, our products are essential to allow machines to run in an automated mode—especially now that there are not the eyes and ears of humans around anymore to see all the issues going on,” Caron says.

Another of the company’s best-sellers is ToolConnect, a radio frequency identification (RFID) chip, or 2D barcode tracker tag, used in tool holders to identify the correct tools for use through preset data running between a machine and CNC control while eliminating the need for human supervision—all fine-tuned to integrate into customers’ exact processes. Its selection includes several equally smart products developed to make manufacturing more cost-effective and efficient, true to the company’s legacy of looking beyond the obvious for ideas.

Opening its doors in November 1986, knowledge at the company has traditionally been passed from one generation of staff to the next. Even now, trainee service technicians spend up to a year honing their skills before fully joining the workforce.

“We have become the go-to company, but it is really all the employees who are taking pride and ownership [in being] the best in what we do,” says Caron, who worked as an engineering manager at a machine tool firm before starting his own company. The decision was spurred by the foreclosure of the firm he worked for at the time—upon his return from Thanksgiving. It was an era of possibility and Caron chose to bite the bullet by going solo. It was a big undertaking. Beginning in a basement, his imagination took hold of his technical skills. And before he knew it, he was well on his way to establishing a healthy trade—alongside a few key people without whom things may have turned out much differently. For this, Caron is of course very grateful.

The company registered under an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) in 2018, and its staff of 35 became stakeholders in the company’s success. “Maine as a state is known for hardworking people. I think our company shows that well. I’m very proud of what they all do every day and how hard they work… They take their jobs very seriously,” Caron adds. There is a lot to be said for this level of dedication.

To ensure that it has a solid stock of recruits for the future, the company supports a local community college that provides training of all sorts, including management courses. In addition, Caron Engineering is known for supporting students in gaining further education. The company also gives back to local charities by donating electronic devices to an organization that supports youngsters suffering from cancer in Maine, alongside other causes.

Looking at the industry in its current context, Caron describes the fabrication and engineering world as “just not having enough people right now.” Of course, this fact becomes a challenge when attempting to install new technology—the same technology that is being installed due to a labor shortage. “Everyone wants to move to automation because they have to and it’s the way to move forward. But there are not enough companies doing automation now. It is getting more challenging for them to find people,” he says.

Well-stocked with a powerful collection of new technology developed during the pandemic, Caron Engineering’s sales trajectory is going nowhere but up. As it has won several awards for best business practices, it would be safe to say that Caron Engineering knows how to handle growth; and with the return on investment of its technology being as impressive as it is, growing sales are a given.

“Everybody talks about Industry 4.0; we have been doing Industry 4.0 for 38 years,” Caron says. By increasing its work with artificial intelligence and continuously improving its offering to suit customers’ needs, Caron Engineering is paving the way for more new and exciting technology to change the local and foreign fabrication landscapes—for good.

The post A Next-generation Application Builder<p class="company">Caron Engineering</p> appeared first on Manufacturing In Focus.

As the technology became more practical, founder Fred Zierick and his family created the first set of mounting tangs for those receivers in 1919, enabling them to check AM radio broadcasting signals. The family pitched in to get the business off the ground, with Fred’s mother creating the first Zierick catalog.

Over the ensuing century, the company only continued to grow thanks to the efforts of the Ziericks and their capable workforce. Today, the company proudly conducts all its manufacturing in Mount Kisco, New York, staying close to its long-time home and with the Zierick family still in charge as ever.

As Vice President of Sales and Marketing Patrick O’Callaghan points out, many products with which ZMC’s own offerings interact every day involve electricity and electronics in some way, whether it’s LED Lighting, Motor Controls, or practically any other type of modern necessity or convenience. O’Callaghan says that, inside any kind of product with which something from ZMC is associated, there is usually a connection made through printed circuit boards or wires so that signals or current can move across these wires—and of course, those connections need to be supplied with power to work at all.

ZMC’s suite of offerings include wire-to-board, board-to-board, and wire-to-wire connectors and are found in products ranging from air conditioning systems and industrial electronics to everyday objects like cars, e-bikes, thermostats, and more. The company specializes in surface-mount technology and though-hole products that work in concert with circuit boards.

“All those devices and assemblies need the types of parts that [ZMC] designs and manufactures,” says O’Callaghan, and adapting to new demands of the market has kept the company in business for over a century and counting.

Now reflecting on another full year in 2023, the company spent its time launching new products, especially some that are particularly useful to higher temperature and higher performance applications. For example, electric cars often require high-performance connectors that can take on more electric current in a similar footprint, which ZMC’s new product offering is looking to address.

The company is also re-launching a unique four-position fine wire connector following investment in production improvements. The fine wire connector is part of a product family—in which one variant terminates a coaxial wire in a single connector instead of two separate connectors—which won the Tech Award at the World of Technology & Science fair in the Netherlands.

O’Callaghan says that the company has a unique perspective on its industry, given the types of markets it supplies to. As the semiconductor market adapts to manufacturing in each geo-region and reacts to increased demand for AI chips, there remain chip shortages in some manufacturing builds that place pressure on the electronics industry as a whole. Semiconductors are a backbone of so many products in today’s market and the industry itself is often a marker for what trends will continue over time.

In the last 12 months, due to supply chain issues and increased ordering toward the back end of COVID shutdowns, book to bill ratios have been lower than usual as the overall market adjusted; however, O’Callaghan says that the company is working on several product types across different areas, with clients moving a bit more slowly now.

The effects of this massive buying spree are only becoming clear now. Today, many of the company’s clients have an excess of raw materials and inventory with pockets of supply chain issues, meaning that bill of materials can go unassembled at times due to missing part numbers.

O’Callaghan explains that the current landscape for electronics and semiconductors is a challenging one for these reasons, but also and especially due to other supply chain issues in the wake of both the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. The situation around COVID-19 in 2020 onward created a specific set of market conditions that have led to effects of spike and inflation in the market, with a lack of materials being a noted issue for the company in the 2021 to 2022 period. This has occurred while demand for ZMC’s products has only increased, which is proving tricky for the company. Yet, there is also a sense of optimism that it can withhold against any pressure or uncertainty, especially given its considerable track record and history.

As a smaller-sized and family-owned company, ZMC aims to continue manufacturing and supporting local business whenever possible, procuring raw materials from similarly sized North American suppliers if it can. “We like to think that we support customers in North America and globally using our U.S. manufacturing base as a platform to do so,” O’Callaghan says. As 2024 is well underway, the company will be looking to launch specific parts this year to both respond to the current market conditions and innovate with new products.

Although business going into the new year has begun at a slower-than-normal pace, ZMC wants to keep its people working, as its workforce has always been one of the company’s key assets. To that end, 2024 will be a good opportunity for the business to upskill its people where possible and to take on projects it usually is not able to during busier times. Even in slower conditions, O’Callaghan says that the company will continue to build inventory that it aims to sell later in the year and invest in its workers, and it will hardly be staying quiet even if the industry itself is.

ZMC will be celebrating its 105th anniversary this year, a remarkable achievement for any business. O’Callaghan says that this has always been a relatively conservative company, resisting the urge to grow beyond its capabilities. “We’ve stuck to niche product segments with customers we know really well.” This attitude of controlled growth has always been tempered with both an interest in the people who make everyday operations possible and in the types of products it continues to build.

A small-to-medium-sized enterprise in the greater New York area can be seen as a bit unusual in today’s market, but O’Callaghan says that ZMC continues to be successful in its own way. So many of its products are shipped overseas to areas like Europe and Asia and are built into products that are well-known and boast superior brand recognition across diverse buyer segments. Although its market niche is a bit more behind-the-scenes than others, everyone in the company is proud to supply the parts, wiring, and more that make some of the most iconic global products of today’s marketplace possible.

The post Powering Today’s Most-Wanted Products<p class="company">Zierick Manufacturing Corporation</p> appeared first on Manufacturing In Focus.

Based in Plymouth, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Plastic Products, Inc. mainly serves the United States’ Midwest, followed by national and international clientele. An interesting fact about the company’s best sellers is that, since 2020, giant extruded fiber optic raceways made from complex resins are by far its most popular product—supplied to the communications industry. This is followed by a range of sophisticated glass fiber-filled offerings, often with UV-resistant capstocks that serve the window and door market. The company is also favored by the luxury appliances market for the best in premium handles and trim componentry.

Pushing the limits of co- and tri-extrusion technology—where dissimilar polymers are chemically bonded and joined into a single extrusion—plus a lifetime guarantee on its tooling packages are not all that Wisconsin Plastic Products, Inc. is known for. The company also offers almost-unheard-of tight tolerances on its punching and cutting work. After three decades in the plastics extrusion industry, the company knows that partnering with its clients as a trusted extension of their businesses brings lasting relationships.

As a result, when COVID-19 hit, the company was well-prepared for a black swan event. “We had good backup supplier plans in place, and we learned how to put even better plans in place,” says Ryan Zolp, President. “It was a very difficult road to travel, but we certainly learned a lot from it,” he says regarding the unprecedented time, when some raw materials were impossible to source and, like everyone else, the firm had to turn to online communication to serve its clients best.

At Wisconsin Plastic Products, profile extrusion is considered a science that relies on its superb in-house tooling standards to set the stage for superb results. Manufacturing some of the continent’s biggest extrusions, ranging up to widths of 30 inches, the company’s fully equipped research and development department is headed up by a dedicated team of professionals in charge of product development and polymer research, all with the support of a strong engineering team. There is also the support of the International Standards Organization-certified quality control protocols, ISO 9000. The company is also certified by United Laboratories, featuring its mark of approval on many components and giving consumers peace of mind knowing that the company’s materials and systems are audited four times a year to guarantee best practices and product quality.

Employing a proprietary sizing system called vacuum calibration, Wisconsin Plastic Products ensures shape repeatability, tight dimensional control, and outstanding surface finish across the gamut of plastic types including rigid vinyl, acrylic, co-polyester, polycarbonate, ABS, and more.

“[Vacuum calibration] takes the element of human artistry out of the picture. So the quality of our extrusions is more so driven by the design of the vacuum calibration system,” he says. That gives the company a marked advantage over competitors employing air rack sizing technology, which depends heavily on the skills of their technicians. Just as every artist’s creation is unique, the same is true for technicians crafting with air rack sizing. The technician’s artistic influence can lead to shape variation from technician to technician and run to run.

Wisconsin Plastic Products offers many cutting edge specialty processes including Celuka Foaming. This extrusion process allows the weight of products to be cut in half, making it especially popular for bulking up walls while minimizing weight. The company can also add glass fiber to its products, increasing strength and flexural modulus. Alongside these specialty processes, the company also offers unique surface finishes employing its state-of-the-art embossing and hot stamping technologies. Wisconsin Plastic Products, Inc. has also introduced a protective coating called spatter coat. The in-line technology adds an appealing texture and limits fingerprints and scratches from end-user contact.

The company’s flagship process called Meta-Plast has helped establish its reputation for excellence. Meta-Plast provides a powerful bond between plastics and a range of metals like copper, galvanized steel, and aluminum through a custom co-extrusion system. “We get all the benefits of the strength and low shrink of the metal, but we also get all the flexibility and functionality of plastic in one composite extrusion. It’s incredible technology,” Zolp says.

The versatility of the resulting Meta-Plast composite lends itself to a broad range of high-volume applications including low-voltage power supply systems, mounting flanges (nailing fins) for the door and window industry, and heavy-duty LED light enclosures developed for optimal performance and lifespan in abusive environments.

Beyond driving innovation, the company also has an eye on environmental stewardship, engaging with customers to ensure that as much of its packaging and shipping materials as possible are reused and recycled to reduce waste. It also returns plastic scrap for recycling from companies that use its materials.

“We don’t give our tool shop enough credit. They are a huge part of the success of Wisconsin Plastic Products,” Zolp says. Complete with computer numeric control (CNC) lathes, multiple CNC mills, four wire electrical discharge machining (EDM) machines, EDM drills, EDM sinkers, and Haas vertical machining center, the team manufactures all of the extrusion tooling needs of the company and much of the downstream equipment.

The company was founded in 1994 by Brad Bruggink, initially as a turnkey tool systems vendor. Its initial business plan was turned on its head when the company agreed to become a third-party supplier of plastic extrusion components for a local office furniture OEM. Less than 12 months after taking on the contract for extruded plastic parts, the company became well aware of its core strengths and unique third-party proposition, and pivoted from its original systems manufacturing to supplying big OEMs with custom plastic components in what seemed like the blink of an eye.

By 1998, the proof was in the pudding and a larger facility had to be sought. This time setting up shop just under nine miles away, the outfit grew and its marketing efforts brought news of its dynamic capabilities to OEMs in industries it was not yet serving. The approach proved effective, and business soared. “It’s been a fun road these 30 years,” Zolp says, smiling. Of those three decades, he has been a part of 25 years of its success.

An expansion of 15,000 square feet and two new extrusion lines awaited in 2019 when the company had outgrown its 100,000 square foot facility. Growth became perpetual. Only three years into the new facility’s operations, more land was needed. The company added another 55,000 feet of manufacturing space, equipping it with six extrusion lines set up for a future of producing giant-sized extrusions.

In supporting company expansion, there is always time to do good for causes beyond its facility. Wisconsin Plastic Products is a generous contributor toward cancer research while also helping fund an annual holiday light show for the local community, to which some employees also contribute their time and skills. The proceeds of the event are donated to the local food pantry that takes care of the vulnerable across the county.

Zolp is full of praise for the company’s sterling team of 115, whom he describes as second to none. Focused on employing lateral thinkers, Zolp says that he stands amazed at the culture of innovation and continuous improvement across the board. The quality of training—including tuition reimbursements for employees committed to continuing their education—provided to all new employees, alongside apprenticeship programs, supports the culture. Therefore, when COVID hit, its people went into overdrive like a well-oiled machine and pulled the company through spectacularly.

“Kudos to the team. We found a way and got it done,” Zolp says proudly. The growth during the pandemic demanded improved systems, making way for the implementation of the company’s most recent investment, a next-generation enterprise resource planning (ERP) system.

“During the pandemic, we leaned on our management team harder than ever. I offer tremendous credit to the managers involved in training new employees during that [challenging] time,” Zolp says of the period that brought huge growth and with it an urgent need for clear-headed tenacity from all staff members. The period was marked by recruiting and training new team members in record time to continue serving customers successfully as markets changed post-COVID.

Subsequently, Zolp notes a particular trend in customer behavior where a bigger number of value-added benefits like graphics, double-sided adhesives, custom product cutting, as well as the inclusion of recycled materials in components, are called for compared to the past. The stress of the pandemic has created very close relationships between the company and its OEM customers. The Wisconsin Plastic Products engineering team offers itself as a helpful extension to the technical needs of the company’s customers.

A second facility is also on the cards over the next five years. While the jury is out on where the new facility will be, what is certain is that this plastics profile extrusion leader’s growth is going only one way—and that is up.

The post Precision Profile Extrusion<p class="company">Wisconsin Plastic Products</p> appeared first on Manufacturing In Focus.

Enrico Giannetti is founder and President of Dorian Tool International, and he has made his choice.

“The competition from all over the world is fierce,” he says. “Dorian Tool can’t compete with low-cost products coming from some of these countries; instead, we focus on developing high-tech products for customers that demand high performance.”

Giannetti is no stranger to pivoting when needed. He opened a machine shop business in 1980 in Houston, Texas, and that shop served some of the major international companies in the energy sector located in Houston and Dallas at the time: Schlumberger and Otis Engineering, among others. It quickly grew to be successful and profitable—at least, that is, until the spring of 1982.

Through the early 1980s, the oil industry crashed. Adjusted for inflation, prices plummeted from around $140 per barrel coming into the 1980s to less than $30 per barrel by the middle of that decade. Needless to say, there were severe consequences for any oil-related business, including Giannetti’s machine shop. It would have been understandable if he had simply folded and moved on to other pursuits. He did not.

“We had to evaluate our options and make the best decision in accordance with our situation,” he recalls. “In 1984, we moved all the equipment into our property in East Bernard, about 50 miles southwest of Houston, and a new Dorian was born.”

Today, the company employs about 50 people. Apart from Enrico Giannetti as President, other key staff includes Yolanda Giannetti as Vice President of National and International Sales and Director of Administration, Human Resources and Customer Service; Sarah R. Ortega-Durón in Marketing; Douglas Amerson as Operations Manager; Hector Chavarria as Manufacturing Product Manager; and Baris Cezaroglu, Vice President of Engineering and Manufacturing.

That team and the talented people with which they work produce and sell a wide range of high-end machining products to a nearly limitless range of customers.

“Our customer list includes automotive and aeronautics manufacturers, medical equipment manufacturers, companies in the energy industry, and the Defense Department,” says Giannetti. “From a hobby shop to a large manufacturing company, anyone that does any kind of manufacturing could be our customer.”

To those customers, Dorian supplies tools engineered for cutting, knurling, turning and boring, threading, and grooving metal on both CNC and manual lathes and systems for holding those tools. It is perhaps in this latter category—the company’s tool-holders—where its innovation is most clearly evident.

The company’s tool posts hold multiple patents, with industry-leading indexing and locking technology. Its quick-change system—a universal boring and milling bar with quick-change tool heads—offers significantly increased efficiency, leading to less time spent changing tools.

Digging even more deeply, the company’s components and parts also employ unique innovations that allow its customers to save time and money.

For instance, each Dorian ER collet—the part that secures the bit in a cutting tool—features 16 full-length slits, in contrast with the eight more typical in competing companies’ collets. This allows the collet to collapse much more uniformly, providing a concentric 360-degree gripping surface for the tool and reducing component wear and tear.

Dorian’s proprietary vibration damping system absorbs vibrations caused by cutting tools, offering better accuracy and surface finish in addition to longer tool life. The company’s components also offer a through-coolant system, supplying coolant to the cutting edge for improved tool life and, therefore, reduced costs.

As he operates a manufacturing business which, in turn, has manufacturers as its customers, Giannetti is understandably passionate about the industry.

“Manufacturing is the pillar of a stable economy in any country in the world. At Dorian Tool, we’re proud to produce some of the highest-tech and high-performance toolings in the world. We bring our tools and technology to our customers—other manufacturers—helping them to become more competitive and profitable as well.”

The ‘international’ in Dorian Tool International’s name is no exaggeration. Its customers are global, as is the company itself, with international sales representatives located in Germany, Canada, Italy, Mexico, and China.

The team also participates in trade events that expose its products to potential customers around the world. The International Manufacturing Technology Show (IMTS) is held every two years in Chicago, and Dorian Tool participated in the 2022 event. It also participates in AMB—the International Exhibition for Metal Working—held annually in Stuttgart, Germany.

A global approach makes sense as manufacturers of all sizes and types face a host of challenges: competition from around the world, pressure on prices, skyrocketing costs, and more. When asked about the most serious difficulty facing his business, though, Giannetti answers quickly.

It is about people: “Finding new employees is the greatest challenge in our industry,” he says.

The difficulty is that in today’s world, manufacturers like Dorian Tool exist in a constantly changing space between the traditional labor-intensive nature of manufacturing and the current high-tech form of the industry.

“Too many young people—the next generation—are not interested in working in a manufacturing plant,” says Giannetti. “There is still a lot of manual and physical work involved in the job. At the same time, though, in today’s machine tool industry, most of the equipment is driven and controlled by computers. Without a good education, knowledge, and experience, it is very difficult for anyone without proper preparation to operate a CNC (computer numerically controlled) machine tool.”

Dorian is routinely in need of CNC machinists, mechanical engineers and programmers, sales engineers, and technical leads. To overcome the hurdle presented by a shortage of talent, the company has put a number of strategies in place, tightening its procurement focus for capital equipment and purchasing advanced equipment that can operate with less human input.

“In the manufacturing department, we are changing and simplifying the manufacturing process and getting new equipment which will help us to overcome the manpower shortage.”

As manufacturing technologies and equipment evolve, so too will the industry, and Dorian Tool International will continue to evolve and change direction as it needs to as well. This company will not let the race for the bottom in price and quality distract it from its focus; instead, it will innovate, develop new tools and products for its customers, and constantly raise the bar for quality.

To power the future of manufacturing in America, Enrico Giannetti has one hope; his passion for the industry is clear, as it is a rallying cry shared by manufacturers across the country and beyond.

“Expand education in manufacturing technologies,” he implores. “Get young students thinking about our industry and fill the classes with them, creating a new wave of personnel to fill the shortage of this great industry.”

The post On the Cutting Edge<p class="company">Dorian Tool International</p> appeared first on Manufacturing In Focus.

After profiling Gravotech in October 2022, we sat back down with key members of the Gravotech USA team to hear the latest developments. The company has just released two exciting innovations, the LW3 and Mini Inline. Armed with leading-edge features and real-world applications, these products have the ability to redefine the standards of product identification and traceability in the industrial marking sector.

The LW3 takes laser marking to the next level with unprecedented clarity, accuracy, and adaptability. The technology brings precision to anything from intricate serial numbers on small parts to bold markings on big industrial components. As versatile as it is precise, the LW3 can mark an extensive range of materials including both plastics and metals, no matter the size or shape. This adaptability is ideal for manufacturers that work with parts in multiple sizes and materials—but that is not all. Time is money, as the saying goes, so the LW3 is also designed for speed. The product’s rapid marking time boosts productivity while maintaining precision.

The Mini Inline, meanwhile, puts the best of the company’s innovative technology into a compact form without compromising on powerful marking capabilities. The space-saving footprint is designed for industries with limited room on the production floor. The Mini Inline obtains its small size by eliminating the need for a bulky class 1 laser housing while adhering to the highest safety standards.

“The Mini Inline has a small conical enclosure that goes on the end of a laser head to replace the need for a large enclosure,” explains North America Sales Manager, Evan Persing. The machine’s space-saving features allow it to integrate seamlessly into production lines so the workflow is not disrupted.

Not surprisingly, both the LW3 and the Mini Inline have been “very well received,” with orders already pouring in while the products were still in development. “The first ones off the line are already sold,” Persing says, ahead of the official release date.

How does Gravotech manage to stay ahead of the game to deliver market-leading products such as the LW3 and Mini Inline? “I think it’s the longevity of being the leader in the market,” Persing says. “Just being in business so long and with such a trusted name. Being able to put resources behind developing and refining our already exceptional products.”

General Manager Don Kirch reiterates the importance of having years of experience in the industry, particularly when developing new products. “We know what works and we build off of that, which allows us to stay cutting-edge and ahead of the market.”

The company knows how to make products that are adaptable enough to fit within a manufacturer’s specific—and often unique—setup. “Most of our machines are sold for inline marking, so it would be integrated into an assembly line or an assembly cell,” says Persing. “The differentiator for Gravotech products is our compact size. The marking heads are extremely small and robust, so they are able to be integrated into a lot of different situations. Every plant—every assembly line—is built differently for different reasons, and it is extremely easy to work ours into many different workflows.”

The speed and reliability of Gravotech machines are two other key product advantages. “Our mechanical side is the fastest on the market,” Persing says. “We’ve got a dot peen [marking system] that is the smallest and also the fastest. We can mark ten characters in one second! That is key for manufacturing. It’s all about speed, reliability, and uptime because, if a machine goes down, it stops the plant from being able to make parts because they all have to be marked. It is a key reason for our success.”

In addition, customers can count on the company’s knowledgeable and dependable sales force. “They’re experts in their field,” Persing adds, with some employees having been on board for decades. “There’s a lot of longevity, and that makes it very easy for the customer to partner with Gravotech because the team knows what they’re talking about and can truly help solve any traceability questions or issues that a customer is having.”

Most customers do not have the time to deal with all the details of traceability; they simply want the issue to be taken care of as simply as possible. “It’s out of necessity. It is for safety, for tracking parts through the manufacturing process—tracking parts through the lifetime of the part. It’s not necessarily something that people want to get too bogged down with. They just want it to work, and that is where Gravotech comes in, being able to provide the right solution and give them the best product.”

“Over the past two years, Gravotech has strengthened its distribution network to get closer to and more in-depth with each customer while having products more readily available to suit their needs,” says Kirch.

“On the production side of things, not being able to source components for building our machines led to some longer lead times,” Persing adds. “We were able to pivot from that and moved to the hybrid model—direct and indirect—bringing on a lot of new channel partners to stock and distribute throughout the country and fulfill orders.” The results have proven effective despite the challenges of the past few years.

Diversification has been another advantage of this pivot. “We’ve got an extremely strong sales force that was able to move to different industries,” Persing says. This has allowed the company to expand to other sectors while maintaining customer relationships within the sectors in which it has traditionally been active, such as automotive. The result is a future path with multiple possibilities.

With such a positive track record, the future is looking very promising. “We’re going to continue in the same path with channel partners and making product more available while constantly improving product and service for our customers,” Kirch says.

Accompanying this improved availability is an emphasis on reaching customers where they are. The team’s approach will be “more local than in the past,” he says. “We’re distributing as close as possible to the end users.”

As it marks its 85^th anniversary with two new, cutting-edge products, and has the network in place to efficiently take care of customers, Gravotech has positioned itself to enjoy many more years of permanent marking success.

The post Mark of Excellence<p class="company">Gravotech USA</p> appeared first on Manufacturing In Focus.

Today, it’s hard to imagine a time without this timesaving technology, appearing on everything from smartphones and self-serve kiosks in fast-food restaurants to handheld game consoles, all-in-one computers, ATMs, and more. And then there are the specialist applications, such as military and aerospace, transportation, industrial, medical, and marine.

Providing touch screen solutions to leading original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), system integrators, and value-added resellers, A D Metro’s range of control panels, kiosks, and mobile computing solutions continues to advance the technology and broaden the market, bringing the company repeat business and a respected place in the field.

A D Metro’s touch screen technology is also found in products delivered by Fortune 100 companies for applications in defense, aerospace, industrial automation and medical equipment.

Much of A D Metro’s success comes from the company’s well-earned reputation for service, quality, and stability, says Albert David, President, CEO, and Chief Technical Officer. The company creates the raw sensor technology which fits into monitors, terminals, and other applications.

Once products are qualified, they cannot be changed unless they’re re-qualified. One instance is a small medical patient monitor, which the company has supplied to a client for about eight years.

“Even if we wanted to change the simplest little component on the touch screen we make for them, they’d have to go through a re-qualification process, and that holds everything up,” David explains. “Once the design is set in stone, they start producing high volumes, but nothing can change on it. So the key to our success is delivering a reliable, quality product, with great service, to ensure that this captive audience in both medical and defense applications is not motivated to try and change developers.”

An industry veteran, David was active in technology long before founding A D Metro 30 years ago, and was working for a Japanese company distributing computer componentry. There was plenty of competition in the market, and the company—which rebranded product and sold it under its logo—began to lose market share. David’s assessment was that there was a market out there, but for an expanded product line, if he could acquire more suppliers. He soon found a partner in Montreal and launched ‘Prime Peripheral,’ which focused on PC point-of-sale peripherals.

About three years later, David bought out his partner, moved the head office to Ottawa, and changed the name to A D Metro. “It stands for ‘Alpha Delta Metro,’ not ‘Albert David,’ he laughs. “The reason for that was to get us to the top of lists in trade shows and publications with a name that started with an ‘A.’”

The company’s early years focused on point-of-sale and PC peripheral products like cash drawers, receipt printers and displays—essentially everything that would be connected to a PC to make it a point-of-sale system. The reason, he says, was that Canada introduced the Goods and Services Tax (GST) in 1991. “When GST came in, you had to be able to track input credits and apply them against what you had to pay at the end of the reporting period,” he explains.

“Dedicated cash registers weren’t able to do that at the beginning, so a lot of software vendors started developing software to make intelligent point-of-sale systems. Once that became successful, restaurant management systems began to flourish and use some of the same basic peripherals, like touch screens.”

Thanks to touch screen technology, businesses like restaurants were able to track orders and receipts. Servers couldn’t invite friends to have a ‘free’ meal, because nothing could be ordered through the kitchen unless it went through the point-of-sale system.

Along with deterring theft, point-of-sale systems unified orders and sped up how quickly they could be inputted. Touch screens became a natural evolution of point-of-sale and restaurant management systems, making ordering easier, incorporating barcode scanners, and being able to pick an item from a menu on a screen without navigating via mouse and keyboard.

“Touch screens were a natural evolution,” says David, adding that since these screens were also smaller than a keyboard and mouse, they helped to save table space.

At the time A D Metro started, all touch screens were convex-shaped bent touch screens, designed to sit in a cathode-ray tube (CRT), back when all monitors were CRT. The challenge was to find vendors who could ‘slump’ the glass to match the curvature of a 14-inch CRT monitor, form the polyester membrane with a conductive coating on it to fit the shape, and put everything together to make a membrane-type touch screen.

“You couldn’t just put an ad in the paper and hire an engineer who had touch screen technology and knew how to do this, and there were also trade secrets.” Using his engineering knowledge, David cobbled a system together and found a supplier who could make bent glass.

A D Metro then began making the first bent touch screens, selling them under their own brand. As technology evolved, the industry moved away from bent CRTs to flat-screen LEDs. Around the same time, peripherals sold by the company, such as receipt printers, cash drawers, pole displays, and barcode scanners, went from branded status items to commodities.

As competitive pressure from Asia grew, David realized there were servicing gaps relating to defence, military, medical, and industrial requirements. While offshore producers were putting out cheaper, consumer-type products, these were not suitable.

“Higher-end applications—industrial, medical, and military—can’t use and don’t want to use products like that,” he says. “We started looking for technology that would differentiate our offerings from cheap suppliers because there was a need, and people started coming to us.”

This led to his finding a way to put very thin micro glass on a resistive sensor, which resulted in the creation of the company’s flagship product, ULTRA. Described by David as “a game changer for medical, military, and defence applications,” ULTRA Resistive Touch Screens can go where capacitive and regular resistive technology cannot.

Working the same way as resistive touch screen sensors, ULTRA’s Glass-Film-Glass (GFG) construction features a borosilicate glass membrane (essentially tempered Pyrex), which reduces fracturing, prolongs lifespan, and has an extended operational temperature range.

Available in display sizes ranging from 3” to 24”, the ULTRA 5-Wire resistive armoured touch sensors are ideal for applications such as airports, railways, and rapid transit systems. “It’s still being sold, and is our number one product, with many patents on it,” says David.

Unlike capacitive touch screen technologies, ULTRA’s resistive touch technology does not emit any radiofrequency, so it is ideal for the stealth requirements of defense applications. It is able to operate in any weather, and the company’s demonstration video shows it taking a beating, still functioning after being burnt, frozen, and having ice scraped off it. Also able to operate underwater and in any environmental conditions, it is well-suited for outdoor applications, such as car washes.

David recalls a large Canadian Oil and Gas customer using ULTRA touch screen terminals outside car washes until recently, when the company making kiosks was replaced by another manufacturer and used touch screens from another maker. The new business didn’t use ULTRA, but some sort of projected capacity touch screen which was rife with problems, especially touch screens turning dark and discolouring from sunlight.

Recently, A D Metro received a call that the kiosk manufacturer wanted them back supplying ULTRA touch screen solutions. “That’s a good example of where we can go, and where other technologies cannot go.”

ULTRA is also used in many medical applications. Durable and salt-free borosilicate glass is resistant to many chemicals, which allows the screens to be sanitized.

Along with ULTRA, A D Metro has developed other leading technologies. These include LCIR (Linear Correlating Infrared) touch screens used in avionics, particularly in helicopters where the technology solves a problem specific to these aircraft.

The combination of a helicopter’s fast-rotating blades and sunlight can create a strobe effect that interferes with light-registering instruments. A D Metro came up with a unique technology that works in an environment where competitors’ products will not, since they can’t function with sunlight hitting the optics. As a frame-based technology working with infrared light beams, LCIR can tolerate direct sunlight.

With LCIR, there is no substrate glass covering the display, so nothing impedes the optics. This makes it ideal for radar, mapping applications, high-contrast applications, and avionics. While some manufacturers claim that their products can work with sunlight, it is only possible with a deep top to shield the optics, shading them from direct sunlight.

“That’s kind of inelegant, whereas we have a very compact design,” says David. “Our frame is one-eighth of an inch high and a quarter of an inch thick, whereas the competition might be three-quarters of an inch thick. The very tight restrictions in avionics control panels make them impractical to install where space is extremely limited and displays crush up against each other,” he explains. “That’s where we’ve got the edge. You don’t need that type of top cover to keep the sunlight out.”

Thanks to A D Metro, these screens are also impervious to dirt and debris. Since optics are in front, they’re easy to clean, and will actually instruct the user to wipe the screen.

The company is also behind the ARGON PCAP. A projected capacitive controller, it senses and adapts to the connected (off-the-shelf) PCAP sensor size, format, and cover glass. Projected capacitive controllers need to be programmed to the actual sensors they’re working with because they have a sequence of horizontal and vertical channels. These channels—and there can be 100 of them—are hard-wired to the computer. Plug in the ARGON controller and it will sense channels and parameters to ensure optimal touch performance. It is so sensitive it can be operated wearing latex gloves.

“We can do a lot of things with the ARGON product that we developed to make plug-and-play usage out of projected capacitive that you can’t do with just a standard projected capacitive controller,” explains David. There’s no need to work with suppliers on programming changes and operation, unlike with other products on the market.

The company has several prominent suppliers of Projected Capacitive (PCAC) chips expressing interest in ARGON. “We’re working with a few of them right now to see if we can make an industry standard of that to make it much easier to use projected capacitive technology without the high level of support that’s required.”

Although there are no particular plans to mark the company’s 30^th anniversary, Albert David is upbeat about A D Metro’s future.

“If we are here today, we won’t be gone tomorrow; we were here in 1993, and we’re still here in 2023. We’re not a fly-by-night operation, and we have a solid, in-demand product line. We’re servicing a niche market that a lot of higher volume suppliers don’t seem interested in.”

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