In custom metal fabrication, nothing is typical

Those in custom metal fabrication work with some eye-popping technology. Modern machinery has increased throughput tremendously. I’ve visited some shops in which I see parts on carts move from one process to the next within minutes. There’s no grouping jobs or overproducing to save on setup. In many operations, the once so dreaded machine changeover is now no big deal.

Despite all this, one metric has remained stubbornly steady in recent years: on-time delivery. Every year the Fabricators & Manufacturers Association International publishes its “Financial Ratios & Operational Benchmarking Survey,” and in it respondents report their on-time delivery rate for the previous year. For the past four years, the on-time delivery average has remained near 87 percent.

According to a separate research supplement The FABRICATOR published in November, in partnership with Amada, one big reason jobs are late is demand variability. In custom fabrication, when it rains, it pours. A majority of respondents said that several of their largest accounts shared similar demand cycles, meaning demand comes in big waves.

Modern machinery has evolved to handle those big waves quite handily. Lasers produce blanks faster than ever, and modern press brakes can be set up in minutes. But according to the November survey, the greatest bottlenecks on the shop floor occur in the front office, in sales, quoting, engineering, programming, purchasing, and scheduling.

Admittedly, “scheduling” does imply problems on the shop floor, specifically when it comes to knowing the true capacity of certain work centers. This may not be due to the machine speed itself (only 5 percent in the November survey said machine processing speeds were too slow), but instead to excessive time between jobs, which in turn was caused by other problems: waiting or searching for materials or tools; incomplete, inaccurate, or out-of-date information in the job traveler; and so on.

Regardless, demand spikes remain the biggest issue, with 57 percent of respondents saying it was the principal reason many jobs are late. During the busy times one misstep can throw a complicated project off course.

This dovetails into another area that causes jobs to be late: customer miscommunication; in the survey, 30 percent said it was a main reason for late deliveries. Here software may play a role in overcoming this problem, even in the smallest of shops.

Consider a customer who emerges from the jet way after a long flight. He gets an e-mail and text: There’s a design for him to review. Still walking with his phone, he opens a secure web page where he can zoom in and manipulate a 3-D solid model. He views the specifications, the materials, and likes what he sees—so he taps the button to approve it, then walks on to baggage claim.

That transaction wasn’t with some Fortune 500^® manufacturer. It was from Killstress Designs (KSD), a firm of about a half-dozen employees. The Anaheim, Calif.-based company specializes in fabrications for the marketing and entertainment industry. If you happened to walk the halls of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last year, you probably saw some of the company’s work.

To keep things on track, KSD offers customers transparency. At any time they can log on to an online system and see the current design iterations. They can view all the project details and communicate any changes. In essence, it’s a documented way to communicate the design and timeline details about complex work, with no “I thought you said this” misunderstandings.

Tyler Smutz, president and lead designer, founded KSD in 2009. Before that he spent 12 years designing and managing automation systems, not in manufacturing but for the stages in traveling Broadway shows. It was a world of extreme deadlines and constantly changing demands. The on-time delivery rate had to be 100 percent, period. If a system were late, it was useless; the show already had moved on to another city.

This is the environment KSD operates under now. Entertainment is a time-based business. The show must go on. If one of its designs arrives late to a show, tradeshow, or any other entertainment venue, it’s worth nothing.

For one job KSD produced precision mounts for an array of LED displays, all of which had to be lined up just so. The fabricator doesn’t install on-site. Instead, it sends comprehensive visual instructions with each job, designed with images and as few words as possible. The displays have modular mounting systems that make assembly simple and quick, designed always with the installer’s tool belt in mind.

In most ways KSD’s products couldn’t be more different from each other. Its small workshop is the epitome of high-mix, low-volume fabrication. The company outsources cutting and bending, but performs welding in-house using flexible fixturing (including a fixturing system from Stronghand Tools). It needs to coordinate and collaborate with myriad organizations, order materials, work with other fabricators and machine shops, deliver it all efficiently, and ensure any trained installer can build it quickly with the tools he has on hand.

In many ways, this is high-mix, low-volume fabrication on hyperdrive, always delivered on time. On the surface KSD is far different from the general custom fabrication job shop, but these days its underlying principles really aren’t.

As Smutz put it, “The principle of our company is that we can take all of our customers’ needs and lead the charge to deliver their products. There’s nothing typical, and that’s where we thrive.”

Sound familiar?

Killstress Designs, 1340 N. Dynamics St., Anaheim, CA 92806, 714-884-3799, www.killstressdesigns.com

To participate in the 2016 “Financial Ratios & Operational Benchmarking Survey,” visit www.fmanet.org/frob16. A company need not be a member of FMA to participate. For more information on FROB and other benchmarking surveys from FMA, visit www.fmanet.org/surveys.