Just getting a machine?

Total Grinding Solutions

If All You're Getting is a Machine, You're Not Getting Enough

For manufacturers today, strategic decisions are increasingly driven by the bottom line.  Do we want to take this project in house?  Perhaps outsource all or part of the project?  But more important than ever is choosing with whom to invest capital and what you get in return.

MIAMISBURG, OH — Tony Hadley is the owner of Dearborn Tool (Chicago, IL), an 18,000 sq ft, 22-employee contract shop who says he's been taking on a wide variety of contracts his entire career.  So Hadley thinks through the above considerations on a regular basis.

The most recent program
Most recently Hadley took on a program to produce a high-volume, close tolerance precision automotive component.  "My first inclination was to outsource the entire turnkey instead of doing it in house.  You know, pay the price later rather than pay the price up front," he says.  "I understood the process that was required.  In fact, I passed on a job just like this a few years ago, the volumes weren't high enough to warrant the investment, and I didn't have the internal resources, so I gave the contract to someone who already had the appropriate equipment.  This time around, the volumes were high, and I decided to keep the job in house and locate suppliers who could not only provide the right machines, but could each provide a complete turnkey.  I decided to rely on the expertise and resources of these suppliers to help offset those we lacked in house."

Resources:  a growing concern
Hadley notes that over the past several years he's intentionally taken the company leaner, reducing staff (at one point he employed 50 some), and during that process he sacrificed certain parts of his talent pool, which in this case included some intellectual resources, engineers and applications people who would normally be involved in working in the early stages of programs, coming up with process recommendations and solutions.  Lacking the resources, Hadley turned to his project vendors and leaned on them to provide the resources needed.

 There are seven machines involved in the project, one a Blohm Precimat 306 CNC from United Grinding (Miamisburg, OH).  "In the case of United Grinding," Hadley says, "their talent and depth of expertise brought things to the table that we could not have done.  All these companies involved have good reputations; they're all known for what they do.  However, if you want total grinding process/project input, you go to United Grinding.  They're the premiere supplier, period.  But we met with all the project vendors and told them what we were doing and that we wanted a total turnkey solution, and in the end that's what they did."

 Oddly enough, Hadley initially thought about buying a used creepfeed grinder, essentially to save money.  However, he quickly dropped that notion when he realized he might save a little but gain nothing in resources or support.  That was a risk he was not willing to take.  "So I decided to work my way back up the food chain to the top and bought the new Blohm 306.  After all, when you're buying a new Blohm, you're getting a lot more than just the machine.  You get the entire team."

 Hadley notes that when the project was launched, he had all the vendors sitting around the same table.  Some he'd know for years, others were new to him.  But by the end of the day, he knew he had the right group of people.  "They all knew what they were doing, and they were all going to pull in the right resources and talent.  And that's why I chose to do this project this way.  It’s why I went with a new Blohm. I knew that I needed a lot more than just a machine.  I figured, do this right, or don't do it at all."

 Automation down the road
Ultimately, the machine is going to be tended by a robot for loading and unloading, Hadley says.  "The machine produces 100 pieces an hour, and there's just no way I could have a guy standing there.  If I've got an operator running this machine, I can get about 18 hours a day utilization.  By replacing the man with a robot, my utilization goes up to 22 hours a day.  Plus my costs become much more predictable.  And my operators become mostly maintenance technicians, who I can spread over more machines, effectively lowering my labor costs." 

Working with a seven-day-a-week customer
"The only time I visited United Grinding was during the runoff," Hadley says.  “"But they were here every time I needed them.  I’m a seven-day person, and if I want to talk to someone about a program, and it's Sunday, that's when I want to talk to them.  Not Monday or Tuesday.  If you can’t deal with me on a seven-day basis, then you can't deal with me.  And some companies will do that and some won't.  United Grinding was one of those more than willing to work like that.  No problem.  And that's what really made this program successful."

 The customer held the contract up for about a year, and when they finally let it go, Hadley was looking at four months to bring the program on line.  Because of having access to supplier resources seven days a week he was able to hit the deadline.  "We're right on time, on schedule now, and we're one of the few vendors on this overall project who are on schedule.  I have to credit United Grinding for their up front flexibility and resource availability.  In fact, one of the other vendors involved in the project couldn't meet delivery, and we had to hold the project up further.  The Blohm was ready for delivery in December, and at our request they sat on the machine for more than a month to accommodate us and our schedule."

 He says his main United Grinding contact has been a regional sales manager named Phil Wiss who was at Dearborn most of the time — certainly whenever Hadley needed him.  Backing him up at United Grinding was Baltz Kloeti, project manager.  The two were continuously in contact, making sure every detail of the turnkey went smoothly.

 "We took delivery last week and the Blohm's running right now.  The machine was actually delivered on February 3rd, and we were running prototypes on late Thursday afternoon and on Friday of the same week.  And United Grinding did a runoff in their plant, which really helped.  There was some pre-prototyping that they dealt with and other things that no one knows about because they don't come up until you run the job.  United Grinding took it upon themselves to address these issues.  They did everything — the tooling, the fixturing, the programming.  We didn't have the talent to do that.  We simply walked in their door, and they began the runoff."

Finding the resources
Hadley admits that he's going to be relying on United Grinding support for quite some time to come.  "Frankly, I can't know all this stuff," he says, "the troubleshooting of the machine and so on, and you can't hire someone like that.  Believe me, I've been through that, and they're not out there.  Even if you could find the right guy with the right experience and background, he's got to be involved in that kind of work all the time, and I can’t keep someone like that busy with a single machine.  This is something that you can never succeed at on your own.  You have to have a vendor that can stand up and commit to the whole package.  Today, people like me can't afford to just buy a machine.  You've got to work with a company that provides a whole life cycle team."

 Hadley concludes:  "United Grinding has got some very, very smart guys, and if you're going to be in the manufacturing business in this country, you've got to have intellectual capital at certain levels, and one of those levels is being able to provide solutions to your customers.  That's the edge you've got to have.  You're going to have to be able to offer products and services people can’t get elsewhere — and the emphasis here is on service and support."

Grinding on a grand scale
The story is much the same as above, except the scale is considerably larger.  Doug Ricciardelli, manufacturing engineer at Pratt & Whitney (East Hartford, CT), says that from the very beginning the installation of 38 Blohm Profimat MT 607s, 21 for aircraft blade production and 17 for vane production, was clearly a team effort from the beginning between Pratt, United Grinding and Blohm in Germany. 

 "The whole process was pretty much co-developed by all parties," says Ricciardelli.  "What we were doing was something new in the industry, which was going to vitrified bonded CBN wheels.  In fact, we were the first in the industry to attempt this.  We knew our tooling approach, and Blohm built a small footprint machine actually developed based on feedback they got from us.  And through the installation until today, we've just kept the relationship going forward.  We continue to have on-site service, and this is going on our fifth year.  Michael Gaerner, technical support engineer, was here just about 100 percent of the time for the first five years.  Now he's here about 50 percent of the time.  When you have a factory-trained, knowledgeable United Grinding employee servicing your equipment there are just all kinds of intangible advantages.  It's helped us immensely with machine uptime.  It's really very hard to put a number to that relationship, but we wouldn't keep signing the contracts year after year if it weren't to our benefit."

 Ricciardelli reports that cell uptime is running at 80 percent, but with five machines per cell, if one does the math the uptime per machine comes out to be roughly 95 percent.  But as good as that is, he says, it's cell uptime that makes all the difference.

 He also notes that having a person on site works to United Grinding and Blohm’s advantage as well.  "They have someone here who actually sees how the equipment is used on a daily basis," Ricciardelli says.  "Not just someone who drops by from time to time.  Mike was over in Germany when they were building our machines, and now he's here and feeding back to United Grinding and Blohm any weaknesses or things we'd like to see improved in future machines.  So, both companies are getting real-time market feedback.  Mike’s been here all along, and he's thoroughly immersed in our operation.”

 This is not to say, however, that there hasn't been the occasional glitch.  Early on, Ricciardelli says, there were some component failures on hydraulic power packs  — something simple like a coupling that was breaking.  With Mike on site, he got it immediately diagnosed and fixed and then fed the information back to Germany where Blohm had the OEM of the power pack make the necessary changes, correct the coupling and then had them shipped and installed on a replacement basis.  What's really important is that when something goes wrong — and things go wrong with all machine tools — in the case of United Grinding the customer isn't waiting a couple of days or a week for someone to show up to fix the situation.

 A good example of this, Ricciardelli says, is that he had to go to Germany to buy an additional two or three machines.  "This was a year, year and a half after the original purchase," he says.  "Mike and I and a couple of other guys went over to run the machines off, and what was really interesting was to see that some of the improvements we recommended early on had already been incorporated into their latest machine designs.  Now, that's feedback coming full circle."

Not all vendors are created equal
Ricciardelli says he's been a grinding specialist for more than 20 years, and from his perspective there are about six choices when it comes to aerospace grinding equipment.  But United Grinding is at the very top of the list.  Not just because of the quality of the machine, but because they’re so knowledgeable and how well they support their customers.  
 "We have similar relationships with other vendors," Ricciardelli says.  "But the results are nowhere near the same as with United Grinding.  We're constantly squabbling with some of these companies.  They want to stand at arm's length in the relationship.  They're always trying to pull their guy out, sending him off to other places, telling him he can’t work weekends without charging extra.  With Mike and United Grinding it's entirely different.  I've called Mike at home, and he's come out here at all hours of the night and on weekends.  And don't get me wrong, this comes at a price.  But I don't think United Grinding is making a great deal of money on this contract arrangement.  It's just who they are, and it's why they're the leader in the field.  It's why when we need grinders in the future, they're the ones we'll call."