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.

Founded in March 1985 under the name Ganesh Machinery, within three short years Expand Machinery moved into a 4,000-square-foot warehouse, and has continued to thrive ever since.

Going for growth
Focusing on providing excellent customer service and fostering customer loyalty, Expand Machinery has since expanded into a cutting-edge 15,000-square-foot factory with a 40,000-square-foot warehouse, serving more than 12,000 machine shops, manufacturers, and technical institutions in a variety of industries with sales and servicing of equipment.

In 2019, Expand Machinery acquired the GENMILL, GENTURN, and Ganesh product lines. The company’s dedication to delivering top-notch, well-engineered machinery and exceptional post-purchase support to all its customers means each machine is designed to offer the most advanced technology.

This year, in particular, is one the company has been looking forward to, with IMTS 2024 – Inspiring The Extraordinary, taking place Sept. 9-14 in Chicago. Managed by the Association for Manufacturing Technology, The International Manufacturing Technology Show (IMTS), first held in Cleveland, Ohio in 1927, features industrial machinery and technology including welding, lubrication, and materials engineering.

The largest manufacturing technology trade show in North America, IMTS provides a forum for creators, builders, sellers, and drivers of manufacturing technology to connect, find solutions, and get inspired. Participants from around the world gather to discover the latest innovations and technologies that are changing the future through advanced and traditional manufacturing, robotics, automation, and digital transformation.

“The show is one of the biggest in our industry,” says General Manager Ravjeet Singh. “We will not only be participating, but participating in an even bigger way than the previous times.”

“Made in Japan” on display
The company has been moving in a positive direction, he adds, particularly in its product line. “In our 40 years in business, this is the first year Expand will be selling products that are made in Japan. Our made-in-Japan machines will be highlighted, demo-ed, and shown at IMTS in Chicago.”

Singh encourages attendees to visit Expand Machinery at the event at booth 338187 in the South Hall, to view the products’ capabilities firsthand.

As the company has previously only sold products made in Taiwan since its founding, it’s proud to offer this addition to its high-quality line of machinery. “Our Taiwan products will still exist; nothing is being discontinued,” adds Singh. “But we have expanded into made-in-Japan products, and we’re excited for the first two key models to be represented at the IMTS show.”

Expand Machinery will have seven or eight machines in total showing at IMTS this year, which also features its partnership with one of the company’s biggest partners, Mitsubishi, for controls and robotics.

The two new Japanese model machines being launched at IMTS 2024 are the C42MYS / C52MYS (Twin Spindle Single Turret Live Tool Machine with “Y” Axis available with Fanuc OITF Plus Control) and the CW42MY / CW52MY (Twin Spindle Double Live Tool Turret Machine with “Double Y Axis” available with Fanuc OITF Plus Control and Mitsubishi M800 Control).

The new launch of the company’s best seller for the last 20-plus years, GENTURN 36CS, is now available with Mitsubishi M800 Control, while GENTURN SL-20Y2 SWISS 20MM Hybrid Machine can be used with or without guide bushing and Mitsubishi M800 Control.

Other models include GENTURN 52GTS (Twin Spindle, Twin Gang Machine with Full “C” Axis and Mitsubishi M80 Control); GENMILL 5X-8 with Mitsubishi RV-13 (13KG Robot); GENMILL 5X – 24 with Mitsubishi 80KG Robot, and GANESH GMV-2F Manual Milling Machine with Newall DRO.

“The 5X – 24 is also a newer product, but it’s manufactured in Taiwan and will be displayed at the Mitsubishi booth with an 80KG Mitsubishi robot,” Singh says. “Also our GENTURN 52GTS machine will also be displayed at the Mitsubishi booth. So those two sets of machinery will be at the Mitsubishi booth, which will be only three or four booths away from the Expand Machinery booth in the South Hall.”

Into the world
The company’s embrace of new and innovative technology was one reason it changed names from Ganesh to Expand in 2019, Singh explains. “We wanted to have the name Expand Machinery because we are venturing into different countries and globally into the world.”

While today the company is launching made-in-Japan products, tomorrow it might be launching something new and exciting from another region. Regardless, it’s the first time in 40 years that the company has added any product made in a different country. “Japanese-made is considered a very superior product in our industry,” Singh says.

“This is the first time we’re showing four new products in the IMTS show, which we have never done,” he adds. “One of them will be our GENTURN 36CS—our number-one seller for Expand Machinery in the last 20 years. This is also the first time we’ll be relaunching that machine with the Mitsubishi M800, which a lot of our distributors and customers are waiting for.”

And IMTS will certainly be the best area to showcase these products. With the event taking place only every two years, it was canceled in 2020 at the height of the pandemic and was poorly attended in 2022. This year, however, promises to be different. “What we are hearing is that everyone from different parts of the country will definitely be attending, so it should be a well-attended show this time in Chicago,” says Singh.

While COVID has adversely affected all businesses in the industry in various ways, Expand has continued to thrive, especially in its growth and its strategic move into the Japanese-made product lines.

“It’s an accomplishment, and we’re expanding in the industry with this new launch,” Singh says. “As for milestones we’re hoping to achieve in the upcoming years, that also includes growing and expanding as a company. As we’re a small business looking to grow into a larger-sized business, these higher quality and more productive machines will help us get into the tier-one category of customers in the United States; that’s what we’re hoping for ourselves and our distributing partners.”

While the company already has an impressive customer base with the likes of Lockheed, Tesla, Ford, and SpaceX, this will further enhance Expand Machinery’s capacity to serve tier-one customers, along with the small and mid-size shop market.

“We’ve also expanded hugely in our parts support,” Singh says. “We’ve just added a number of machines in our parts department to enhance the efficiency level of our parts service to our customer base.”

The company’s growth necessitated a search for additional space when it became apparent that too much floor space had been yielded to the recent expansion of the parts department. To keep up with its impressive growth in the industry, boost efficiency, and increase its part-storage capacity, Expand Machinery added five Kardex Remstar VLM machines to its parts department. These new automated vertical parts storage and retrieval systems were the answer to the space issue, delivering an effective solution for quick parts choosing and storage along with much better floor space management.

Having quick, easy, and dependable access to components lowers warehousing costs and lets the company’s parts department expand. “All of this, of course, is also vital for our launch of products made in Japan,” says Singh. “It’s about expansion, maintaining quality service, and moving to the next level of high-quality, productive machines. Our company’s diverse product line that offers unparalleled machines will also be reflected in our new made-in-Japan launch.”

An expansion into robotics is another area Expand Machinery has delved into. “With the way advancements are happening in the optimization of the industry, robotics are important to our growth—as well as our big partner being Mitsubishi robots.”

Impressive strides
Ultimately, Expand Machinery is making impressive strides in its growth and ability to grasp what’s most important to the industry at large and especially its customers: what they need now and what they’ll need in the future to remain successful and relevant.

“Everyone knows when they see ‘Made in Japan’, it means it’s high quality, maybe the highest quality product,” says Singh. And while this newest addition will absolutely help set the company apart from its competitors, Expand also boasts many additional qualities that help place it on the highest rung.

“Of course, we have competition out there,” says Singh. “Our competition is also bringing in and selling similar types of machines, but what sets us apart is the whole platform of being a family company.” What that means in practice is providing top-notch service to its customers, both before and after the sale, and all under one roof. Expand Machinery also ensures customers receive support and care for all applications, services, parts, and sales.

“That is what drives our customers to come back to us,” says Singh. “Not only do we provide high-quality machines to our clients, but we back them with an excellent level of support.”

Be sure to visit Expand Machinery at IMTS 2024, Sept. 9-14, McCormick Place, Chicago Illinois, Booth 338187.

The post Expand Machinery Is Living Up to Its Name<p class="company">Expand Machinery </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.