Switching gears, Tooling to Production

Builders;

Over the last 18 moths, and particularly the last 5 months, I have put a great effort into upgrading the tooling in my hangar and workshop. The goal has been to bring more manufacturing in house, to have better control over costs, timelines and quality. The first two factors play into a very important issue: Availability.

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Its no secret that all kinds of mechanical items have been selling really well, and this has caused long lead times in our industry, and material price increases. I listen to builders everyday, and frequently ask them what their concerns are. Many people would guess prices, but in a word, the greater concern is availability. Builders are concerned about budgets and costs, but in the end, the parts have to be available when builders need them, and as long as pricing stays reasonable, available remains the paramount goal.

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Just deciding to increase the levels of stock will not cure availability. Just increasing stock requires price increases, because the costs of carrying more inventory is not offset by discounts for quantity manufacturing at our volume. Even getting machine shops I have worked with for decades to produce more is difficult, as they are now flooded with lucrative orders from companies cut off from overseas suppliers. The real solution in more in house manufacturing, and that means heavy investments in tooling and time investments in bringing these systems into productive use. Good news, we are almost there, and the next 90 days before Oshkosh will see a steady increase in availability of all catalog items, as more and more of the production comes from raw materials I put into my own machines, here.

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Above, a look at the centerpiece of my machinery investments. This is my MillWright 48×48 CNC. I have had it a year, it required expanding the climate controlled section of my hangar to house it. It was a good machine, but to really have it produce parts unique to my product line, it underwent very extensive upgrades and modifications in the last 3 months. The start of the video pans over its control system; This was designed and installed by 601/Corvair builder and pilot Ken Pavlou. If you know this stuff, it is a 2hp 220V 3 phase spindle controlled by the VFD in the cabinet. It is a 5 axis Masso controller, as it needs 4 controllers because it has 2 screws on the y axis. Ken when out of his way to design systems and controls that made sense to me, a technology imbecile. He was a bit tired of hearing me whine about the non user friendly software that originally came with the unit. If you look close, the fixtures from left to right are for machining ring gears, top covers and alternator brackets. This machine can now do many tasks efficiently, not just flat shapes.

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The CNC is just one of the machines that I have brought on line here, starting with My boring bar, continuing on to the Winona seat and guide machine and the latest, the Sunnen precision hone. There will always be further additions and refinements, but now, I’m switching to production as the primary work in the shop.

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The next few stories will cover inventory increases, many of which are made directly possible by the machines here, or made possible by the increase in business providing the resources to carry more inventory. If you are one of my builders who has waited for a part to become available, thank you, know that I take providing all the parts you need, very seriously.

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William.

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