Metal fabrication on the move

The people at Koester Metals Inc. know what it’s like to be on the move. In 2009 the custom fabricator, based at the time in Defiance, Ohio, had just leased a large facility 55 miles away in Fremont, Ind., with the option to buy. As part of the deal, KMI acquired the building’s powder coat line that could handle various colors simultaneously (see Figure 1). It was a bold move, but managers felt that making the investment then would position the company for future growth.

And grow it did. In 2010 KMI grew by 100 percent, surpassing prerecession revenue in 2008. In 2011 the fabricator grew again—by another 25 percent.

But business didn’t grow the way managers expected. At its Defiance location, KMI specialized in large enclosures, some the size of cargo containers. That work plummeted (along with everything else) during the recession, and it never came back. Meanwhile, demand grew in other areas, and KMI staff members were stretched between two facilities 55 miles apart.

“We intended to operate in both locations,” said Gary Koester, company president. “But after a few years, we knew we were too small of an organization to handle 200,000 square feet spread across two different cities.”

The fabricator’s experience is a postrecession growing-pains tale in three parts. First, KMI had to regroup to serve new customer demand. Second, it invested in training to rebuild its fabrication expertise. Third, it tackled part flow problems by investing in both new technology and continuous improvement.

The Move

During the economic recovery it became abundantly clear that having two locations was more of a liability than a benefit. For several years the shop worked to drum up business in Defiance to replace the large enclosure work it had lost. Unfortunately, KMI kept getting more work that was a perfect fit for the Fremont location and its flexible powder coat line.

So in 2013 managers made another bold move: That April they shuttered the original Defiance plant and moved everything to Indiana. Many managers and front-office staff lived in between Defiance and Fremont, so many remained with the company.

“But we did lose some people,” Koester said. “We lost accountants, HR people, and a number of inside salespeople. It was a struggle, but we were able to find good people [in Fremont]. It wasn’t a disaster. Our bigger problem had to do with skilled positions [in machine operations and maintenance]. We did lose a lot of those people. There was a lot of turnover and a lot of training challenges. It was a struggle. 2013 was our worst year ever, but we recovered pretty quickly in 2014 and 2015.”

The Training

In 2013 the company’s lasers and press brakes were aging, but the firm didn’t have the financial resources to make significant equipment investments just yet.

Besides, managers saw that buying new equipment really wouldn’t address the core issue. Sure, machines were old, and moving them all to Fremont was a challenge, but these issues alone didn’t cause them to go down unexpectedly. The real problem was the lack of operator knowledge.

This spurred KMI to invest in outside training—that is, paying for an expert to come in and show employees the technical ropes. It did this at first out of necessity; after leaving Defiance, the company didn’t have enough expertise left to train people effectively, especially in laser cutting. But now, several years later, KMI continues to invest in outside training, which complements conventional shadowing and other internal training methods.

“We changed the way we onboarded,” Koester said. “We weren’t looking as much for people who had skills. We instead focused on trying to find people who were a good fit in the organization’s culture. Once we found them, we hired them, and then trained them on difficult pieces of equipment. We really spent a lot of money on training.”

This goes against the grain. According to a recent survey from the Fabricators & Manufacturers Association International, a vast majority of shops rely on inside training, which is often informal, with new employees shadowing veterans for a period of time.

But as Koester explained, there’s a fundamental problem with this. Experienced operators may have followed certain procedures for years, and those procedures may even be documented to meet ISO requirements. But just because it’s documented and “the way it’s always been done” doesn’t make it good.

“Also, if you don’t have formal training, and just pair people with veterans for a certain period, you really don’t know what it is they’re learning or how much training that person is really getting,” Koester said, adding that outside trainers bring a fresh perspective. You could call it an external audit of metal fabrication best practices.

The Equipment

By 2015 KMI’s existing machines were so old that, in order to compete, the fabricator really needed to take the plunge and invest in new machines (see Figure 2).

So it bought a Bystronic press brake and fiber laser—and just in time, as it turned out. Around the time the new fiber laser was installed, two old CO₂ systems required major repairs—so major that they just weren’t worth it, so KMI sold them.

Between the new laser and brake, parts are tracked throughout. The new laser etches QR codes onto the parts themselves, so when they reach the brake, the operator scans the code, and the controller brings up the bend program, already made and simulated offline. For the people on the shop floor accustomed to old machines and frequent maintenance, it was a different world.

KMI did not, however, invest in a material handling system for the laser, which goes against conventional thinking: Why have a fast fiber laser if the machine has to be idle for loading and unloading?

“One of the concerns we used to have with our old CO₂ machines was: Can the man keep up with the machine? If the machine is waiting for a man to load it and unload it, then it’s not cutting parts,” Koester said. “But we’re low volume. Now with this fiber laser, our longest run is a half hour, and we’ve got runs as short as a minute and a half. That shortest run is comparable to a cycle time for a load/unload system. But if we can keep up with it with two people, we can get just as much productivity.”

But what about labor costs? And can people be as consistent as automation? Koester countered that this is a small price to pay for better organization. “When my parts come off, they’re identified, they’re checked for quality, and they’re passed on to the next operation without having to go through a pile of skeletons.”

Now the staff focuses less on machine upkeep (and the firefighting that came with that) and more on part flow and identifying bottlenecks, including one in powder coating. For coating, parts are hung for pretreatment and drying, after which the line separates into four, each one leading to one of four separate automatic or manual powder application booths.

Each load station has a PLC where the worker effectively “programs” the carrier to go to a specific booth or multiple booths, should parts need several colors or a topcoat (see Figure 3). This allows KMI to run up to four different colors at once—a huge benefit for a high-product-mix operation.

Still, the setup was ripe for traffic jams, thanks to the high mix of products flowing through. It may take no time at all to hang a few parts on certain carriers, while it may take a long time to load other carriers densely packed with small parts. These different carrier loading times throw the flow off-kilter, and the resulting backup at the loading station starves the entire coating operation.

Another traffic jam: Workers sometimes loaded too many parts of a single color. A lot of black parts hung in sequence would overload the black booth and again starve the other booths, where painters stood and waited for the next part to come along.

If only there were a way to track parts through the process; that is, to know which carriers go to which booths, and where the carriers are in the system at any given time. This would facilitate a way to control and balance the line and improve overall system throughput.

“We have a PLC that controls the line, and the information was actually in that,” Koester said. “We just weren’t using it.”

Now they are using it. With this information, operators sequence parts for optimal flow—one carrier that’s quick to load followed by a carrier that takes longer—and alternating colors to avoid overloading a particular booth. If a worker tries to load too many parts of the same color, the PLC stops it and instead tells the worker that it needs more parts of a different color.

Still Training

When KMI bought its fiber machine, Koester walked to a cubicle in the front office and ask its occupant, “How would you like to run a laser?”

Because a modern laser churns out so many parts, KMI needed someone on the team who knew the machine inside and out. This individual in the front office happened to exhibit a certain aptitude and attention to detail that Koester felt would fit the new laser perfectly. So he sent him to extensive training. As Koester recalled, “I said to him, ‘I want you to own this machine. If anyone has any questions on this machine, I want them to come to you. You’re going to be our fiber laser guru. You’re not going to run the machine, but you’re responsible for the people who will be running it.’”

The new machine did not eliminate the need for expertise, he said, but it did allow people who may not be high-level laser cutting experts to initiate cutting programs.

Koester described a similar story about the new press brake (see Figure 4). This time he chose a brake operator with experience. She was sent to training—especially to learn and get comfortable with the machine’s new control—and now she has become the guru of KMI’s new press brake.

As the shop continues to adopt new technology, will it continue to send every machine operator to outside training? Or will it evolve to where certain lead people, such as the laser and press brake gurus just described, are sent to training, and then pass on the knowledge to everyone else?

Koester said that the investment in outside training will continue, regardless of how advanced the machines on the floor become. Yes, a few people will receive machine-specific training and become the technology gurus, but everyone will receive outside training on the basics, including proper maintenance and other best practices.

After all, no matter how advanced machines become, they still only do what they’re told. Such expertise should keep parts flowing on the floor. And especially these days, keeping good parts flowing is what metal fabrication is all about.

Photos courtesy of Koester Metals Inc., 260-495-1818, www.kmienclosures.com.