For this shop, world-class machining performed in a world-class CIM environment isn't enough. What really sets this shop apart is its world-class welding capability.

Almost every job shop is being asked to give its customers more than just expert machining. Customers are looking for extra value--along with precise and consistent machining, they want inspection, testing, finishing, assembly, special packaging, or delivery on a JIT schedule. And in most cases, they are looking for shops that offer these value-added services at a very reasonable cost.

So successful job shops have been scrambling to add new capabilities that will set them apart when it comes to what they can offer their customers.

An Outstanding Machine Shop

One job shop that recognized years ago that it had to develop not one but an array of job shop services in order to grow and prosper is Major Tool & Machine, located on the near northeast side of Indianapolis, Indiana. Founded in 1946, Major Tool & Machine began as a custom job shop specializing in the production of aircraft ground support equipment. It soon expanded into other fields and is now well-known for the design, engineering, and fabrication of components for the defense, aerospace and power generation industries.

Among its three main facilities, Major Tool & Machine has about 50 machine tools that you might find in the typical job shop--horizontal and vertical machining centers of various sizes, turning centers, boring mills and so on, 95 percent of them CNC. However, the shop also has some of the biggest machine tools you'll find anywhere, and this capacity to machine very large components makes Major Tool & Machine a very unusual job shop. Two of the most notable of these machines are spotlighted in Figures 1 and 2. Along with these Berthiez and Froriep machines, the shop owns large horizontal boring mills from Mitsubishi and Lucas, as well as vertical boring mills from Farrel and Berthiez.

Another outstanding feature of Major Tool & Machine is its computerized fiber-optics communications network. Virtually every workstation throughout the company is linked to a PC-based LAN (local area network) that integrates voice messages and electronic mail. In production, a bar-coded router system tracks all material through the shop. By scanning the bar code on the router and the bar code on his employee badge, an operator automatically logs in and the computer identifies where the job is in production. Information about the last operation performed and full instructions for the next operation are transmitted instantly. When the work is completed, the operator signals the computer to update production records, and a new bar code and router are printed on the spot, and the cycle continues.

Of course, all NC programs are downloaded via this communications network. All cutting tools for NC work are preset in the tool room, where a tool list with all preset lengths is recorded as a computer file to be attached with the corresponding NC program. NC programs are created in the company's CAD/CAM Department using Catia, Unigraphics, or Anvil 5000 software. There are no dry runs on the shop floor--tool paths are routinely verified using CGTech's Vericut before being released to the shop floor.

Yet most of the precisely formed and machined components that the shop produces, no matter how big or small they are, will be assembled into larger fabricated products.

This is where Major Tool & Machine's welding capability makes a major difference. And welding is not like CAD/CAM, CIM, or CNC. Welding is still largely an art requiring the talents of highly trained and gifted craftsmen. Although the company has several computerized welding stations featuring multi-axis programmable robots, most welding is done by hand.

As Jim Flanagan, Major Tool & Machine's executive vice president, points out, much of the company's sophisticated machining capability is off-the-shelf, although very few job shops have invested as heavily in this technology or put it together so comprehensively in a computer-integrated manufacturing environment. "The big machines are really impressive, but being able to weld is the real selling point," he says. And Major Tool & Machine is good at welding. Very good.

World-Class Welding

Major Tool & Machine's formula for being very good at welding could be applied to any technology. It's actually a good lesson in sound management principles. Essentially, the formula is a combination of having good people, giving them good equipment, and doing your own research and development.

Major Tool & Machine has about 80 certified welders on its payroll (roughly the same number of machinists). They do the whole alphabet soup of welding:

GTAW (gas tungsten arc welding) uses a non-consumable electrode and filler metal weld wire and is appropriate for all metals. At Major, it is primarily used for materials less than 3/16 inch thick.