Metal fabrication and the buying experience

Metal fabricators have a history of growing through word-of-mouth. Many companies go for years, sometimes generations, without hiring a single salesperson. It&#;s just the nature of this manufacturing sector dominated by small, multigenerational family shops. Few say their company is &#;sales-driven.&#;

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Rob Honeycutt is one of those few (see Figure 1). He&#;s CEO of SixAxis LLC, a manufacturer of a range of industrial portable steps, loading platforms, and related products, all customizable to the nth degree. A decade ago the company couldn&#;t afford to pave the factory floor. By next year it will have almost 225,000 square feet of space, with a customer showroom leading to a manufacturing space with four tube cutting lasers, a punch press, a press brake, drill lines, and band saws, all feeding a multitude of welding cells, including several robotic cells, and an automated powder coating line.

How did the company grow like this in such a short time? According to Honeycutt, it was because he focused on giving his sales team the tools they needed to solve customer problems. He said the company wouldn&#;t be where it is today without in-house fabrication. But it also wouldn&#;t be where it is without something a bit more unusual for a 380-employee manufacturer: homegrown software. It shortens the sales, estimating, quoting, and order entry time&#;not by just a little, but from weeks to minutes.

About Solving Problems

Walk into the sleek front office at the company&#;s Andrews, S.C., manufacturing plant, go upstairs, and you&#;ll see a small room with a handful of engineers. Adjacent to them is a large open area: the sales department. Next to this is a new theater, which will be used for in-house training as well as customer training on the proper use of the company&#;s products.

The sales department has a glass wall through which you can see a portion of the 95,000-sq.-ft. plant, with a TRUMPF punch press and press brake and two BLM tube lasers feeding parts to joining, assembly, coating, and packaging departments (see Figures 2 and 3).

In Honeycutt and his business partner Fred Harmon looked out at a near-empty spec building with a dirt floor, a small horizontal saw, and a magnetic drill. They moved everything around with a single forklift. Nine years and two tube lasers later, the company has plans to install two more within the next year, along with a lot of other new equipment. It&#;s all part of a $20 million expansion that will add another 120,000 sq. ft. to the factory.

Just four years before, the two founded the company after quitting their jobs at another company that sold similar products.

Why did they quit? Their employer at the time, a family business, was under a new generation of owners who had a sales philosophy that Honeycutt and Harmon didn&#;t agree with. Before, they had taken the consultative sales approach: Visit customers, ask questions, talk about problems, and find ways to solve them. Now they were told to sit, make calls, be direct and brief, ask if they needed their product, and if not, move on to the next number on the call sheet.

While the approach may work for some, it didn&#;t work for Honeycutt and Harmon. So they struck out on their own and started a company called SafeRack, named after their first brand of industrial loading platforms.

&#;All Fred and I wanted to do is to be relevant in the industry,&#; Honeycutt said. &#;We weren&#;t enterprising and trying to create the next big thing at the time. The intention was just survival. Basically, we put our money together, mailed out a catalog, and prayed for the best.&#;

The first year was smooth-sailing, at least from an operational perspective. &#;You don&#;t really have problems until you sell something,&#; Honeycutt said. &#;You have money problems, of course, but you don&#;t have any product problems until you actually get a sale and deliver.&#;

The consultative sales approach got the company off the ground, though, unfortunately, the area around Andrews didn&#;t have a large number of reliable, high-quality fabricators. So they brought manufacturing in-house and moved into a spec building in rural Georgetown County. The building had been empty since .

&#;[The county] helped us finance it for a few years until we got on our feet,&#; Honeycutt recalled. &#;In short order, we were in the plant, we had electricity, and we were able to pave a little concrete.&#;

The company started shipping more products, and as the money started to come in, Honeycutt immediately started investing in sales. &#;We had more than a half-dozen salespeople who joined us. In fact, we had more sales than we had anything else, and that saved us, because we focused on getting orders. Nothing happens until you get an order.&#;

He added that the team &#;felt quite liberated, because we had our own factory. We weren&#;t depending on other companies. There were a lot of unknowns, but at least we were in control of our own destiny.&#;

The sales team landed more orders, and the company grew extraordinarily quickly. &#;We didn&#;t know what we didn&#;t know, so we ran blindly toward it,&#; Honeycutt said. &#;We were all for technology, and all for doing things that customers cared about, which was fast delivery of products that solved their problems ... And the injection of sales into the manufacturing organization turned out to be one of the most powerful components of what we leveraged, though we didn&#;t know it at the time.&#;

As orders kept coming, the owners plowed all the money back into the business&#;and even paved the floor. Then came December . &#;That was our Black Monday,&#; Honeycutt recalled. &#;We had the financial downturn, and then ethanol went down. All of our business was tied up in biofuels.&#;

Processing plants needed large platforms, a large capital expenditure that, thanks to the financial crisis, wasn&#;t being made. So the team regrouped. They needed to develop more products and diversify, to serve not only more industry sectors but also sell less expensive products that weren&#;t necessarily classified as a capital expense. To build a large platform in a processing plant or railyard requires a capital expenditure; a $7,000 portable stairway probably doesn&#;t.

From this effort eventually came a list of other brands: ErectaStep portable stairways, RollaStep rolling stairways, AeroStep stairways for aircraft, and more. To sell these different brands, the parent organization was renamed SixAxis, after the company&#;s first six-axis tube laser, which happened to make many of these new product designs possible.

Today SixAxis&#; shop floor has minimal work-in-process (WIP), even in its state of transition; once the expansion is complete next year, the plant will double in size. The only place with any extensive WIP in the plant are parts coming back from plating. The plating lead time requires a small inventory buffer.

Walking on the shop floor, Honeycutt shows off a laser tube cut design he patented to prevent competitors from using the designs on their products. With V notches cut into it, the tube can be easily bent by an assembler, eliminating the need to create fixtures and weld components individually.

He touted another laser tube-cut design that unitizes several parts into one. The spiral cuts turn a rigid tube into a flexible tube: more welding eliminated, more costs taken out of the product (see Figure 4).

The Software Story

SixAxis has a bumpy history with software companies. It took two years, from to , to get its ERP platform working, and once it did, they realized how incredibly complicated its user interface really was. &#;It looked like you needed a four-year degree to push a button on it,&#; Honeycutt said.

He knew, though, that employees really didn&#;t need access to much: They needed to clock orders in and out, record quality checks, and find the next job on the schedule. Although the ERP user interface made it look like rocket science, it really wasn&#;t.

So he took a leap and hired a few software engineers to write code and create a simple interface layered on top of the ERP platform. The strategy worked. &#;That was the beginning of our software effort,&#; Honeycutt recalled. &#;We weren&#;t scared of it now.&#;

He then moved toward customer relationship management (CRM) software. Being so sales-focused, Honeycutt felt it just made sense&#;and he also felt that the move would be (compared to the ERP implementation) relatively painless. After all, he had years of sales experience, and CRM should have been well within his sandbox. Wrong again. SixAxis went through five different CRM implementations, and all of them fell flat.

Being a manufacturer, Honeycutt knew his sales team needed more than just a glorified Rolodex. He and his team thought about what people in industrial sales actually do. Before leaving on a sales trip to visit a customer or strong prospect, the salesperson may look to see if any other prospects are in the area. Wouldn&#;t it be great if he could look at a CRM app to see a map showing him not only where his customer was, but also other prospects in the area? Wouldn&#;t it also be great if the software could automatically generate an telling his contacts he&#;ll be in the area and request a meeting?

This would all make the salesperson&#;s job easier&#;all good things. Still, the customer experience wouldn&#;t change. Moreover, project-based sales have always had one major hangup: returning accurate, comprehensive quotes that give a clear picture of what exactly the customer is buying. The customer makes certain demands, the salesperson records the details, then says, &#;Let me check with my engineers and get back with you.&#; Days pass, engineers work with estimators to fill in the gaps, and the salesperson finally gets back to the customer with a quote.

What if a salesperson could somehow communicate a complicated project, verify the details, and then produce a quote immediately?

SixAxis&#; software engineers got to work, and the result ultimately changed how the company&#;s sales force works (see Figure 5 and 6). Now when salespeople visit customers, they bring their iPads. What type of platform do they need? The salesperson shows them a 3-D model on the screen. If the product will be installed somewhere or integrated into another structure or vehicle&#;like a rolling stairway or platform to an airplane or railcar&#;a 3-D model of the vehicle and surrounding environment appears on the screen as well.

Does the customer need this platform to be a little longer? He touches the screen, and the platform extends so many inches. Need it an exact length? He can type in the dimension. And all revisions are done with certain engineering rules baked into the software.

When the customer is happy with the design, the software produces flat print views and a quote automatically, then updates the customer file on the CRM platform.

Engineering reviews and approvals are still required on complicated projects. But for simple projects, when a salesperson submits the order, it actually bypasses engineering and goes directly to the ERP, which releases bills of material.

No Layoffs

Despite a severe drop in sales, SixAxis didn&#;t lay off anyone during the Great Recession. &#;We just didn&#;t make any money for a few years,&#; Honeycutt said. &#;But that really became a building block for our company culture.&#;

When the company implemented its software that effectively automated a good deal of engineering work, it didn&#;t lay off its engineers either. It instead transferred them to a newly created R&D department.

Those engineers were and still are highly skilled and creative individuals. And according to Honeycutt, the company now is better utilizing those engineering skills. Before, engineers spent most of their days answering questions, tweaking designs, and revising 3-D CAD files. They weren&#;t engineering something from the ground up; they were just altering existing designs. That work can be tedious and mundane.

Now engineers focus not on the simple jobs, he said, but instead on complicated projects as well as entirely new products. Put another way, engineers are not focused on where the company is now, tweaking designs to help sales provide quotes; they&#;re focused on where the company is headed.

Throwing the Spear

Today SixAxis sells its homegrown product configuration, quoting, and CRM software through Atlatl, a subsidiary named after an Aztec invention that was a kind of fulcrum to propel spears at high speed. &#;Atlatls helped the Aztecs win the wars,&#; Honeycutt said. He hopes software will help salespeople do the same.

The company sells its quoting and CRM tool through the QuoteBooks brand and its product configurator as Visual3DPro. The 3-D configurator can be adapted for a range of businesses, from pool installers to warehouse designers to various product-line manufacturers.

Still, Honeycutt added that the software isn&#;t really suited for the make-to-print job shops or contract shops that work on various projects. It&#;s instead best-suited for manufacturers making customizable products that have common or modular components.

The Buying Experience

Honeycutt believes in sales. When the company head count expanded by 76 in , he touted the fact that most of those new hires were in sales&#;people who were in direct contact with customers. Today the organization employs 380 people, and 60 of them are in sales.

Honeycutt conceded that this approach really wouldn&#;t work, at least in the long term, if his salespeople didn&#;t have support, both on the software side to streamline the front-office engineering and order processing and the in-house manufacturing technology.

He also said that it also wouldn&#;t work as well as it does without the &#;buying experience.&#; The immediate nature of seeing the product on-screen, and the immediate quote, resembles experiences consumers have had online for years.

Honeycutt added this will only become more important in the coming years. &#;The millennials really care about the sales, service, and buying experience.&#;

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So many manufacturers are focusing on the order-to-ship cycle, shortening the time between when a customer places an order and when it ships. That&#;s great, but what about the time before the order is placed, the time spent going back and forth with the customer, ensuring all details are accurate? The time wasted when, after quotes are submitted, orders fall through?

Here, Honeycutt said, is where the buying experience plays a vital role.

SixAxis LLC, 866-761-, www.sixaxisllc.com

&#;Who Does Your Marketing?&#;

SixAxis salespeople kept hearing this time and again as they handed over their slick brochures, catalogs, other print literature, or led customers to the manufacturer&#;s various websites devoted to individual brands. They told them that, in fact, they produced this material themselves.

&#;We were making waves,&#; said Jason Wilder, who several years ago was SixAxis&#; head of marketing. &#;They like our products. They like our software. So let&#;s spin off our marketing department and offer it as another service.&#;

Whence came Red7Media, a marketing firm owned by a 380-employee manufacturer&#;not a small mom-and-pop, but no GE either. After the spinoff a year and a half ago, Red7Media (which began with seven employees, hence the name) began hiring specialists in technical writing and social media. The marketing firm now employs 20 people led by Wilder, now Red7Media&#;s president and chief creative officer.

Today the majority of Red7Media&#;s work is for its parent company. But Wilder and his team hope to expand its client base and, ultimately, provide another steady stream of revenue for SixAxis.

If you&#;re new to the metal fabrication industry, looking to get into this industry, or even a casual bystander who happens to be curious, the term &#;metal fabrication&#; might be confusing. What is it, what does it mean and how is it done? Like many industries, the meaning of metal fabrication is often misunderstood by those who aren&#;t a part of it.

Today, we want to break things down for you and explain the world of metal fabrication in clear, simple language. We&#;ll define metal fabrication, talk about how it works, what it does and what different types of metal fabrication there are.

What Is Metal Fabrication?

While the term &#;metal fabrication&#; can be used to refer to a multitude of different processes, all of these different procedures have one thing in common. They all involve taking metal and re-shaping or forming it into something else. In other words, metal fabrication is the shaping and designing of a metal product according to pre-determined specifications.

This is not a very specific definition, of course, but that&#;s as it should be. Metal fabrication is a vast industry that produces an incredible range of different products and uses a wide selection of different sub-processes to make this happen.

What Are the Different Metal Fabrication Methods?

Metal can be manipulated, shaped, cut and molded in a variety of different ways. There is not a single homogeneous method that always involves the same process of cutting and bending &#; metal fabrication can look vastly different depending on the situation.

This is because metal fabrication is capable of creating objects of nearly every size, shape, color or texture imaginable. To achieve this level of dexterity and variety, metal fabrication needs to employ an expansive range of different methods and tools.

Skilled workers use some of these methods by hand. This is typically in smaller settings, where the item in question does not need to be mass-produced. If production is required on a larger scale, usually a machine will take over these same tasks.

A few of the methods that fall into this category include:

• Welding
• Shearing
• Grinding
• Rolling
• Machining

In addition to these more mechanically-rooted processes, metal fabrication can also use a computer to complete more precise tasks. In these situations, a worker will program a computer to give the correct commands to shape the metal according to the specifications. Some of the methods that fall under this computer-controlled label include:

• Forming
• Punching
• Bending
• Laser Cutting

In many cases, it may initially seem that the mechanical methods are the same as the computer-automated ones. To the casual observer, this may sound foolish. After all, why create two different processes that do the same thing? Take something like cutting, for example. A mechanical process might use shears to cut the metal, while a computer-based system might employ laser cutting. What is the difference between the two methods and which, if either, is better?

The answer is that each type of process is well-suited to specific tasks. For example, shearing might be appropriate for a situation where precision is not extremely important and quite simply isn&#;t worth the expense of laser cutting. When the utmost precision and delicacy is necessary, laser cutting is more appropriate. In this way, neither process replaces the other, and each has their place. Instead of asking which is better than the other, it might instead be more appropriate to ask, &#;Which is better suited to the task at hand?&#;

Through solely mechanical processes, solely automated ones or a combination of the two, pieces of metal are transformed into products which can then be used by a variety of different industries for a whole host of purposes. For this reason, metal fabrication falls under the umbrella of value-added processes, so called because it is a process where value is added to the metal through shaping it into a useful design.

How Does Metal Fabrication Work?

With a basic understanding of fabricated metal is, the next question is what the process as a whole looks like, from start to finish. First up, before any fabrication can take place, there&#;s the bidding stage.

1. Bidding

Many manufacturers will complete their own metal fabrication in in-house. They&#;ll have the necessary tools and facilities to do so, and it simply makes sense to keep the process all under one company&#;s roof. However, this isn&#;t always the case. Smaller companies, or those without a metal fabricating facility of their own, will often need to contract with dedicated metal fabricators to get the job done.

If a company has a metal product that they need fabricated, they may offer the work to several different fabricators. These different shops will then bid against one another for the job, with each fabricator offering their designs, drawings and plans of what the final product would look like when they were finished with it. The company in question will choose the shop that gets the product, the bidding stage completes, and the project advances to the next step.

2. Planning

This is a critical phase where there isn&#;t any metal fabricating happening yet, but the stage is being set for the work which will commence later. During this stage, designers, engineers and workers plan exactly what the finished product will look like, as well as how to achieve this goal. They&#;ll plan which different tools they&#;ll need to use to cut, fold and shape the metal in question. They&#;ll evaluate whether they will need to use computer processes or not and if so, they&#;ll program these.

During this step, raw materials will also be ordered as needed for the project. Items such as castings, fittings, wire, plate metal and more will be assembled until everything is ready to go.

While it might be easy to look at this stage and assume that nothing is happening, this is arguably the most vital step in the entire process. If this stage goes well, then it sets the tone for a smooth and steady production. If this stage is neglected, rushed or not given adequate attention, there&#;s a strong probability of a troubled production.

3. Production

This is the stage where, to the outside eye, the real work actually happens. During this phase, raw metal and materials are transformed into something beautiful or useful. And as we mentioned before, the success or failure of this phase is in direct correlation with the success or failure of the planning stage.

Firstly, the metal will typically be cut, through the use of water jet cutters, laser cutters, CNC machines or a similar process. It will also be formed and shaped through the use of devices like dies or punches. If any part of the metal needs to be rounded, a rolling machine might be used. This is a highly versatile set of processes that will be different for every specific item being produced.

Once the basic tasks of cutting, shaping, rounding and rolling are done, the final step is to assemble the different pieces into the final product that will leave the fabrication facility. Workers will now weld all the individual fabricated components together to create the larger metal product. They&#;ll cool the metal, sandblast it, paint it, and complete whatever finishing touches are necessary for the product to pass inspection.

Finally, it&#;ll pass through quality assurance professionals, who will make sure that the product is up to standard and is in no way unsafe or harmful. With this completed, the product can then make its way to the company that ordered it and eventually to the consumers it was designed for.

What Is a Metal Fabricator?

The simple answer is that a metal fabricator is a person who works in metal fabrication. However, the real answer is slightly more complicated.

In many professions, there&#;s a one-to-one correspondence. For example, a teacher is someone who teaches. A retail worker is someone who works in retail. Metal fabrication, however, doesn&#;t just employ a large group of people known as &#;metal fabricators.&#; Instead, this industry relies on many people across a variety of different industries.

Together, these groups of people with different trades, abilities and areas of expertise work together to pool their skills and resources to fabricate various metal products. Just a few examples of some of the types of people you might find working at a metal fabrication facility include:

• Welders: Welding is a vital process that&#;s imperative in the final stages of production. Without a welder to join all the finished parts together at the end of the process, there would be nothing but a few disjointed pieces of metal instead of a completed and polished product.
• Ironworkers: These professionals handle the raw iron, particularly in the early stages of production, and may be responsible for things like shaping and cutting, depending on the process and facility.
• Blacksmiths: These are individuals who are experts at re-shaping raw iron into more useable shapes. While in some cases, the work traditionally done by blacksmiths can be done by machines, these workers are still vital for much of the raw material handling and manipulating that&#;s necessary for production.
• Machine setters and operators: With the sheer amount of equipment and machinery present in a metal fabrication shop, it should come as no surprise that there is a high demand for people to work these machines. These workers will reset machines, place materials into the equipment, remove them when the job is done and step in to fix problems when they arise.
• Computer programmers and experts: We mentioned earlier that a large amount of metal fabrication work is done on computers, by way of advanced technology such as laser cutting and CNC machinery. None of this would be possible without individuals who are well-versed in this technology and are capable of programming it to achieve the desired results.
• Managers and supervisors: No team of workers would be possible without a cohesive and responsible group of managers to oversee things and make sure everything stayed on track, and everyone&#;s needs were being met.

Based on this impressive roster of workers alone, it should come as no surprise that metal fabrication accounts for high numbers of jobs. Approximately 1.425 million individuals are employed in metal fabrication in the United States. This includes workers at every level, from ironworkers and machine setters to programmers and management staff.

What Are the Raw Materials Used in Metal Fabrication?

Based on the name alone, we can easily guess that metal fabrication relies heavily on raw, unshaped metal as its base material. This is far from the only component used, however. Many more materials are shaped, molded and attached to the basic metal, and these materials are all manipulated together to produce the final result.

A few of the common materials that are commonly used in tandem with metal fabrication include:

• Plate or Sheet Metal
• Welding Wire
• Castings
• Fittings
• Flat Metal
• Expanded Metal
• Additional Hardware

What Are the Applications of Metal Fabrication?

Finally, it&#;s worth asking what the purpose of all of this work is. Who is commissioning these metal fabrications and which industries are using them as a vital part of their operations?

It&#;s impossible to mention every single industry involved in this work, but a few of the highlights include:

• Construction and architecture: Fabricated metal is a vital part of building skyscrapers, office buildings, fire escapes, catwalks and so much more.
• Shipping: The shipping industry uses fabricated metal for everything from building the ships themselves to crafting the crates, containers and tanks that the items being shipped will be stored in.
• Automobiles: Auto parts are made from small, specially fabricated pieces of metal. From new car dealerships to corner auto-repair shops, they all need fabricated metal.
• Computers and electronics: In case you thought fabricated metal was all about creating, bulky, heavy items, think again. It&#;s also used in tiny, delicate pieces in the electronics industry.
• HVAC: The equipment needed to keep heating and cooling systems running is highly specific, and in many cases, it comes directly from metal fabrication shops.
• Aerospace: Fighter jets, commercial airplanes and even rockets would be impossible without the precise work of metal fabricators.
• Farming: Farming is yet another industry that is only as fast, efficient and productive as it is because of the fabricated metal products they rely on.

Beyond the industries included on this list, so many of the items we encounter in our daily life are the product of metal fabrication. Silverware, lamps, cans, blinds, door handles, chairs, locks, keys, pots, fans, hinges and so many more innumerable items that we all use every day are all the direct result of this fascinating process.

Get the Welding Services You Need at Prime Source

While metal fabrication as a whole is an enormous, complex and multi-faceted process, it&#;s only as strong as the individual methods and procedures that contribute to the final product. One of these vital services that help produce fabricated metal is welding.

Are you in need of welding repair services? Here at Prime Source, we know how important it is to keep your equipment and machinery running smoothly. To help you do just that, we offer top-of-the-line welding repair services. Learn more about the services we offer and how you can benefit from our knowledge, attention to detail and excellent customer service.

For more Metal Chassis Fabricationinformation, please contact us. We will provide professional answers.