April 2007 Edition

Sawing

Less Is More When It Comes to Sawing
Equipment for a Mexico Shop

North or south of the border, it pays to stay on the cutting edge of sawing equipment. Two new saws replaced three older models.

By Pat Ropchock, Assistant Editor

Expanded Requirements The firm expanded into aerospace in 2003 by creating the Frisa Aerospace subsidiary, which manufactures super-alloy rolled rings for jet engine manufacturers such as General Electric and Rolls Royce. It is ISO-9002 certified and has Lloyd’s Register certification for the European market.

The first step in ring production is cutting the metal stock in Frisa’s cutting department. Stock can range from high-carbon steel to super alloys and stainless steel. Efficient and accurate cutting was a necessity since the band saws and other saws in cutting department were the first step in rolled ring production. The stock cut by the saws then goes to open-batch furnaces for heating and forging, followed by heat treatment to improve the materials’ mechanical properties. Machining takes place after the materials are prepared.

A 30 Percent Production Jump

When it comes to quality and productivity for customers like General Electric, Rolls Royce, and Caterpillar, a shop can’t scrimp on its equipment. Located in Mexico, a manufacturer of rolled rings saw the need for better cutting and found a band saw that fi t its requirements.

Frisa Forjados SA de CV, in Santa Ca-tarina, Mexico, about 10 miles southwest of Monterrey, Mexico’s third largest city, makes rolled rings for clients such as Timken, Siemens, Westinghouse, and Caterpillar. The rings are used in industries such as oil and gas, transportation, power generation, and mining.

Production at Frisa increased about 30 percent last year, so stepped-up productivity and improved quality was needed. Horacio Rodríguez Goujon, vice president of materials and logistics, said it was time for Frisa to fi nd improved band saws.

Frisa had a history, since the 1990s, of using sawing equipment from Amada Cutting Technologies, Inc., La Mirada, CA, so Goujon first turned to the trusted supplier. Frisa had started with an Amada HFA400 and built its inventory to 10 Amada saws, including the HFA700, the H1300II, and the H1600II. The saws cut material that ranged from as small a 8" in diameter to pieces with diameters as large as 53". 

Equipment Challenge

Frisa had to find the right equipment to meet its needs.

“We faced the challenge of increasing productivity while maintaining a good blade life,” Goujon said.

But, purchasing the new equipment wasn’t as simple as finding a band saw in a catalog and placing an order. To be sure the new cutting equipment would fit Frisa’s production and quality demands, the company worked with Amada to find the best fit. Frisa sent samples of the kinds of stock it would be cutting to Amada for testing in La Mirada. After working with the alloys provided by Frisa, Amada’s staff was able to determine which saws best suited Frisa’s needs.

From Amada’s recommendations, Frisa selected two automatic HFA530 band saws. The HFA530s replaced three older saws.

“They are the quality we demand. The new saws offer the high-speed we need for expanded production and provide improved blade life for increased efficiency,” Goujon said.

Workhorse of a different color

The replacements doubled productivity and became the workhorses of their department. They adroitly handle the challenging grades of metal Frisa uses.

The HFA530s have the capacity to cut round and square material up to 21". The saws’ blades are 21' 10"×0.063"×2.625" and operate up to 394 ft/min. The blade has a 10-hp motor and automated tracking guide that brings support close to the material.

“The HFA530s have become the cutting department workhorses,” Goujon said. The HFA530s perform about 40 percent of the approximately 17,000 cuts made every month by the company.

The saws are more efficient than the saws they replaced. Each saw does double the amount of work compared to the previous machines, Goujon said.

Another, unexpected, benefit accruing from the upgrade was more available floor space, always an important factor in a shop. Not only did the two HFA530s replace three other pieces of cutting equipment, each of the new saws had a smaller footprint than each of the saws they replaced. Each HFA530 measures 118.7"×73.4"×77.4". Their relatively compact size, compared to Frisa’s previous saws, means the issue of floor space demand is lessened for the near future.

An Unexpected Side-Effect

The efficiency of the new saws was expected, but had a surprising effect: Frisa’s method of chip disposal didn’t match the saws’ production. Because the new saws run faster than the older saws, Goujon said, workers sometimes are unable to keep up with removing the chips. While the HFA530s have double-wire brushes that automatically adjust to keep the blade clear, manual removal of the chips sometimes lags. Goujon said Frisa is investigating the installation of a conveyor system to remove chips faster than the manual method. Amada

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Working Smarter

He considered adding another employee to relieve him of some of the machining load so he could devote more time to business development, but that wouldn’t increase his shop’s efficiency.

“A lot of shop owners, especially when they start expanding their employee base, find it easier to give work to an employee and not care how efficient or inefficient that person does the job, as long as it gets done,” Pierson said.

Instead of another employee, Pierson searched for a workholding system that would allow the machine to run unattended while he took care of business responsibilities.

“I went to WESTEC, looking for a solution and found I would have to piece together what I wanted,” he said.

With no single solution on the market that would satisfy his needs, Pierson began developing a workholding system to use in-house.

“Once I created it, it really did allow me to walk away from the machine for two hours at a time while it was cutting 30 parts, instead of manually doing two at a time,” he said.

Stress Relief

“It took a lot of stress out of my life. My profitability almost doubled. It let me be more hands-off of the machine and more hands-on the business side, making the business more efficient and doing things like building a quality website. That fi st workholder evolved into my company manufacturing workholding systems.”

Pierson’s workholding system consists of a universal cast-iron base that bolts like a vise to the machine table. The holding mechanism is spring-powered and the release is air-powered.

It holds aluminum pallets from 6"×12" to 10"×16".

“Early-on, I would custom-cut these pallets to hold different sizes of bar stock and different part shapes. I would hold parts with Mitee-Bite Pitbull clamps and ID expansion collets. It allowed me to flick an air valve and take 30 parts out instead of having to loosen a vise and take out one or two parts at a time. Fifteen seconds later, I could put in another 30 parts, close the air valve and start another run.

“There were fewer tool changes since it wasn’t changing tools on just one part. I could also walk away for 15 times longer than with a vice. I made it affordable. I’m a one-man shop. I know what it’s like to consider buying new equipment.”

Pierson used his invention in-house and profited through his increased efficiency, but the law of unintended consequence appeared again.

“My rough versions of the workholder were for in-house use. They didn’t look pretty,” Pierson said. “A couple of neighbors in the job shop business here in the industrial park stopped by, saw me using it, and asked me what it was. I showed them. Their eyes got big and I saw they ‘got it.’ They asked that if I made any more, that I should make a couple extra and they’d buy them.”

The “Eureka” Moment

“That’s when the light bulb went off over my head,” Pierson said, “and I decided to market the workholders.”

He improved the units’ engineering, adding more features, and made them more robust. He prototyped and tested them to improve and make them more accurate, then started selling them.

First he listed them on eBay and sold enough to interest a distributor. Pierson then designed some brochures and took them to WESTEC with the distributor who showcased the system. It caught on. In fact, creating and selling the workholding system is now 70 percent of Pierson Industries’ business.

“I didn’t intend to sell workholding systems, but it paid off. I’ve come full circle. I have a product that allows me to run more efficiently, so I can manufacture more efficiently, and sell at a price with which the big players in the workholding industry can’t compete.

“I wanted to hold true to my original dream of creating and selling a product, and now I have.”

Revenue from the pallets in the past year are about 70 percent of his shop’s total revenue. Pierson, with a part-time employee, dedicates one month to machining the components, and spends the rest of the year marketing.

“Sad to say, the machines are sitting quiet, but cash is coming in,” he said. “I’m okay with that. We hit all of our goals for marketing.”

A starter version of the kit sells for $2,500. That includes a base, two pallets, and a connection kit. Pierson promises that it can be used within 30 minutes of opening the box.

“We’ve run case studies with our customers,” he said. “In real dollars, a shop will increase efficiency by about 40 percent in its workholding. For my shop, our rate was about $60 per hour, so I was saving $25 per hour. It saved in labor and every cycle time was faster. For me it translated into the equivalent of a new and faster machine.”

It took some time for Pierson to realize the success his invention brought his Simi Valley, CA, company.

“Most of my sales come from the website,” he said. “That surprised me since I consider it passive marketing. Sales have been about even between web and local sales.

“For What?”

“I remember the first time someone called and said he wanted to place an order. I said, ‘For what?’ He caught me off-guard. He wanted the starter package, then I caught on. I’ve sold to the East Coast, Chicago, the southwest, and pretty much in every time zone.”

Pierson said he finds it easier to do follow-up sales to local customers. His business neighbor is his biggest customer.

“He comes by and sees the new products and buys the prototypes,” he said. “My first three customers were here in Simi Valley, otherwise, sales are pretty balanced around the country.”

The sale of the workholding system has come at some cost to Pierson’s job shop customers.

“This is a big growth segment for my company,” he said. “There was a point where I realized I couldn’t afford to keep some of the customers I had and continue to do the manufacturing.”

He kept some of his first and most loyal customers, such as the microwave product designer.

“The biggest obstacle now is wondering where we’ll be spending our marketing dollars. That’s something new to me,” he said. “I’m five years into this company, but learning things once again, this time, marketing. I’ve considered taking night classes in marketing, but there’s a lot of good minds out there that have written a lot of good books; so it’s a matter of studying those the way I did machining.”

He’s also looking beyond the U.S. for markets for his Pierson Palleting System.

“I’ve got our machining and manufacturing dialed-in and streamlined. I’d like to expand our product internationally. That’s the dream. That’s a pretty big task. I tend to shy away from shipping internationally. There’s also the question about foreign patents. We have room for marketing improvements, but the other aspects of company are solid.”

Not for Everyone, but for Enough

Pierson said the Palleting System targets a niche market.

“I geared it for efficiency in a shop like my own, a one- or two-man. It’s 6"×12" because it matched the 12" travel of my Haas mini-mill. It’s designed for a shop which doesn’t want to invest $20,000 or more in a complete pallet shuttle system.”

Many of Pierson’s customers are desperate for increasing their efficiency.

“How fast can you ship it?” is a common question for Pierson. Often, customers are at their wit’s end when looking for a product like the Palleting System.

“A customer called in December and wanted to know how quickly I could get a system to him,” Pierson said. “I could hear the desperation in his voice. He’d been working on an order for a couple of thousand small parts. He had three vises across the table and was holding two pieces at a time. He was only getting six parts per cycle. He wanted to know what my system could do for him and how soon I could get it to him. ‘I’m dying here!’ he said.”

Luckily for the customer, Pierson Industries does custom engineering, so he designed a system that held 32 parts per pallet.

“I sent him a drawing,” Pierson said. “He said it was perfect and ordered it and asked that I send it as fast as possible. He got it two or three days later and was happy with it. He went from desperately tired from running the job to a more acceptable pace. I was really happy I could help the guy.”

Freedom Riding

Pierson’s goal has been to have the freedom to be his own boss.

“I wanted to do something with my life that allowed me the flexibility to set my own hours,” he said. “Owning my own company may be the answer, but I’ve put in a lot more time getting the business started and making it successful than I’d anticipated.”

He said that he expects more flexibility in his personal time as the business matures.

“I don’t expect it to be carefree,” he said. “Being my own boss means I’m responsible for everything. I’m to blame if I miss deadlines. But, I find it rewarding to please a customer. That’s a benefit I really appreciate.”

Pierson Industries’ current revenue is about $100,000 per year.

“From the example of others who have gone into similar businesses – a friend invented the Twister speed lathe, a desktop lathe for polishing and light deburring,” Pierson said, “my goal is to have an annual revenue of about $500,000 after five years or so.

“This is a niche product and works well within it,” he said. Pierson Industries

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