Shipping containers for sensitive goods pose a challenge, both for design engineers and the manufacturers that produce them.
Products as varied as musical instruments to baked goods need protection during shipment, but imagine a customer with this set of requirements: a low-cost, impact and abrasion-resistant sheet metal container that must seal its goods from dust, dirt and moisture while enduring rough handling, extreme temperatures and weather.
As if that requirement wasn’t tough enough, the container holds possibly the most challenging of all sensitive goods: man-portable guided missiles.
Protecting a combination of explosives and highly flammable propellants as well as sensitive electronics presented a serious challenge for Florida-based Precision Metal Industries (PMI).
“We’ve spent $3.5 million over the last four years automating our systems”, states PMI president Greg Wilson. “Our company has won two awards over the years for 100 percent quality and 100 percent delivery.”
Wilson attributes PMI’s overall success directly to advanced automation. “The way we’ve automated our systems make us very consistent, which is conducive to quality. With automating our systems I’ve requoted jobs that we’ve actually lost to China and have got some of these jobs back. It shows that PMI can be competitive with countries like China or Brazil that I used to lose business to.”
Wilson notes that the automation program has directly resulted in double the dollar volume at PMI. “If we didn’t make these moves we would actually head towards obsolescence. A lot of companies don’t get into the latest technology. If they don’t, they will become obsolete.”
Quality parts and quality jobs thanks to automation
While many believe automation replaces skilled workers, the PMI experience is that advanced automation in fact protects jobs, setting the stage for future expansion.
Shearing, a standard prep stage for following forming and welding steps in sheet metal work is an example, says Wilson.
“I had an operator on every machine. At one time I had 129 employees. Now I have an operator load up 100 sheets of material, hit the button and the machine will run all through the night. I’ve got 80 employees right now that are producing twice the dollar volume as I did with the 129 people because of automating our plant. Our intention is to do it again where we plan on doubling the size for our revenues over the next three years.”
Wilson cites a major investment in laser cutting as the turning point for PMI’s productivity plan.
“We replaced (blanking presses and shears) with a $1.1 million automated laser cutting machine. Now instead of cutting blanks through a series of smaller machines, I send in the whole sheet, which is 4’x10’ or 12’, sometimes 5’x10’. With software, I tell the machine that I want 25 of one part number, 50 of another part number and so on. It figures out how to lay out the cut for maximum material utilization. I’m getting parts that used to have to be loaded one by one and now it’s done by a group. That machine replaced three other machines and probably nine operators. It was probably the best thing I ever did in my life in manufacturing.”
Holding tolerances in sheet work is never easy, but welding adds another level of difficulty. Secure welds need full penetration, but heat easily distorts thin sections – something that couldn’t be tolerated for the missile container application.
PMI uses robotic welding to eliminate that source of variation. “I’ve never had a failure from the welding robot, which I find amazing,” relates Wilson. “I’m producing air tight welds that protect the guidance system of a very expensive missile. If there’s any kind of leakage, moisture gets in and it will negatively affect the quality of a product that is going to war fighters.”
On the forming side, PMI has invested in robotic brakes and enjoys similar productivity as the blanking and welding operations.
Wilson recently moved from programmable back gauges to full forming automation: “We just upgraded in the last eight months to a machine that we can load with 100 sheets of material and just hit the button. It will go through and form parts perfectly. It used to take 15 minutes to form the part with two people, so I spent 30 operator minutes forming this part. Now the machine is actually doing it in 3.5 minutes perfectly with no operators.”
Next on the list for PMI is automation on the finishing line.
“Every operation I have automated, has been dramatically improved. The next thing I’m looking at is painting parts on our automated line with a robot. I’ll be looking at the technology at FABTECH; it’s one of the areas that I’m anticipating that I can make substantial improvements.”
PMI’s Secret Weapon
Wilson has another secret weapon driving quality and productivity that has nothing to do with industrial automation: “As of June 30th of last year I sold the company to the employees, which is an ESOP program. This makes the employee an owner in the company and they participate in the business itself. The stock improves and has actually doubled since 2007. This includes a retirement plan. PMI people really care about the company; that really makes the difference in our business. It gives us the competitive edge. Our people put 25 years of their lives into this company and they will actually be able to leave with something as if they were a partial owner. That’s really important to me and I’m really happy that I did that, but it also gives our company a lot of strength in quality, profitability and service in our customers.”
What’s the key takeaway from the PMI experience? Tactical use of advanced automation can erase the labor cost advantage of overseas competitors, while delivering profitable, low cost, made-in-the-USA components while preserving employment and generating quality, skilled jobs.
Wilson relates: “It was 10 years ago that I started losing a lot of business to China. I can actually think of $6 million worth of work that I had lost at one time because their wages are $100 a month, versus my wages at $100 a day. I can’t compete with that.
“I lost audio-type sheet metal jobs, video, anything that had to do with the commercial market. It was done cheaper in China. It hurt American manufacturing.
“I actually wrote to all of my Congressman and Senators and I told them what was going on, that they needed to do something. They needed to level the playing field and they didn’t get it. Just recently, I think they’re starting to understand that American manufacturers are good at what they’re doing. They’ve got the ingenuity, they’ve got the know-how; we just need the tools to compete with them. China has shown us that they can come up with very cost effective products, especially in sheet metal, machining and screw machining, but when we automate with a better process with the latest in capital equipment, we can compete with any other country.”
To download a copy of PMI’s Failure is Not an Option: The Importance of Military Containers whitepaper, click here.
Precision Metal Industries’ has sponsored this post. It has no editorial input to this post. All opinions are mine. – Kagan Pittman