What Technology, Process or Strategy Made the Biggest Impact on Your Machine Shop?

Earlier this spring, I had the opportunity to tag along with members of the (NTMA) on a “European Tech Tour” throughout Italy. We visited the production facilities of several major technology providers, including Heidenhain, SMW Autoblok, and DMG MORI.

Driving between these locations on a chartered bus, I had the distinct pleasure of talking to the shop owners and leaders for whom the trip was organized. Seizing an opportunity, I decided to interview the NTMA members while they couldn’t escape. (Hat-tip to colleague Derek Korn, who did something similar a few years ago.)

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Thankfully for them, the interview was just one question long — and very similar to a question that appears on our annual Top Shop Benchmarking Survey. The question: Talk about a technology, process or strategy that has had a big impact on your business.

Responses have been edited for length and clarity. 

Alan Ortner, president and owner, Sirois Tool Co.: “The most important thing for us is our culture. We always say customers come first, but the employees are just as important. We don’t have much turnover because we treat people right — we pay 100% of medical, dental, disability, life insurance, and offer flexible hours and a good 401(k). Technology-wise, three years ago we bought a Grob G350 with two pallets, and that’s our first time really getting into automation since we do low-volume work. That machine opened our eyes to new ways of doing things.”

Michael Pasciuto, chief operating officer, Custom Machine: “Everybody talks about technology, but honestly the biggest impact for us is just belonging to an association like NTMA. People think you can Google everything, but Google can’t tell you how someone really solved a business problem. When my brother and I took over, we were 90% manual machines. Now we have around 60 CNC machines, five-axis machining centers, EDM, grinding, everything. And we didn’t get there by Googling. We got there by talking to people who’ve been there.”

Steve Elliott, president, Dugan Tool and Die: “The biggest thing for us is just getting it right from the quoting stage. If you quote correctly and make sure you have the resources to do the job, everything goes smoothly. We use ERP, and the jobs get checked throughout the process, not just at the end. We have really low turnover, but my biggest mistake was not replacing people sooner before they retired. You try to get young people into machining, but a lot of them last a couple months and then decide, ‘This isn’t for me.’”

David Boyer, president, Boyer Machine and Tool: “COVID was actually a turning point for us because nobody wanted to do repetitive work. So we put in our first cobot, which ended up running two machines, then one operator was suddenly running four machines. Now we’ve bought more cobots. Some of our employees get nervous when they see automation coming in, but we’re not replacing anyone, we’re just trying to get more efficient.”

John Newman, owner, Athena Manufacturing: “We’ve always had trouble finding good people, especially in Austin with unemployment around 2%. About five years ago, we started sponsoring the welding program at Elgin High School along with Austin Community College, so kids can graduate with certifications or even an associate’s degree in welding. Now every year we hire six to 10 young people right out of that program. Honestly, it wasn’t my idea — a customer started it and asked me to take over — but it’s been amazing. If you’re struggling to find talent, you have to partner with local schools.”

Grady Cope, president and CEO, Reata Engineering: “Everyone in this industry loves talking about automation on the shop floor, but the biggest improvement for us lately has actually been software productivity — quoting systems, ERP, machine monitoring, stuff like that. We started with Paperless Parts quoting software, which helped us get more accurate quotes faster. Then we added machine monitoring, which gave us data to see if our quotes were even right. And during COVID, with inflation and everything, that software helped us stay profitable. Honestly, our people weren’t freaked out by software as much as they were seeing a robot in front of a machine. That got a way bigger reaction.”

Bonnie Kuhn, vice president, Kuhn Tool and Die: “Our first five-axis machine in 2010, a DMG MORI that just totally changed who we were. Parts that took eight hours of manual setup now took 15 minutes to program and 15 minutes to run. And our machinists program and run their own machines — we don’t have separate programmers.” Ken Kuhn, President: “I’d say it’s not just five-axis machining, but our whole philosophy of grabbing onto new technology. We started with ERP before most shops our size. We jumped into wire EDM early. And we stay up-to-date by reading 91±¬ÁÏÍø — I’ve read it since I took it off my dad’s desk as a kid.”

Bruce Hanson, president and owner, Andrew Tool and Machining: “What makes us unique, honestly, is inspection. We learned this the hard way — we thought we were measuring parts right, then IBM sent a bunch back because we were off by 20 millionths. So we invested in electronic gaging, and now every critical part comes with a full inspection report measuring one decimal place finer than the tolerance. If we can’t inspect it, we don’t make it.”

Patrick Damico, team leader, Acutec Precision Aerospace: “The biggest thing we’ve done is going lean machining — arranging machines into cells and getting operators to handle multiple machines at once. In these cells we’re now consistently getting parts out in two weeks instead of a month. With labor shortages, we had no choice but to work smarter. Plus, we’ve got our own internal CI team that built custom scheduling software, and now we track everything. You see it in productivity and OEE. The numbers don’t lie.”

John Bloom, president, R&D Manco: “For years we kept adding new machines but never really saw throughput get better. So we created a dashboard that tracked how many quoted hours we were actually selling each day. Turned out we were running at about 37% efficiency, but six months after implementing this dashboard, we got that up to 50%. If I could tell other shops one thing, don’t get enamored with your shop rate. You win by maximizing total throughput.”