The many ways that ATECH-SEH keeps earning customers’ respect

It’s not unusual for people to get a phone call out of the blue from someone who says he has a business proposition for them. It is unusual when those phone calls turn out to be a pretty good deal.

David Munschauer got that call in 1998. He was a veteran of the Buffalo, N.Y. industrial scene for the previous 20 years after being laid off as a teacher in 1978. He spent more than a decade working for Niagara Machine and Tool Works, a company founded by his great-grandfather; a shorter stint working for a metal plating house; and then several years as part owner of a manufacturer’s representative business. Over the years Munschauer had done business with one of the owners of SEH Metal Fabricators, who started as an irate customer two weeks into his job at Niagara and ended up being one of the companies that Munschauer later represented at his agency. This fabricating shop owner was the person that made the call to Munschauer.

“He called me up one day and said he wanted to sell the business,” Munschauer recalled. “I said that’s interesting and congratulated him. Then he said, ‘I’m going to sell it to you.’”

Munschauer consulted with his wife Grace, who worked at HSBC bank at the time, and decided to pursue the business opportunity. They were going into the metal fabrication business with the eight other employees that worked there.

Needless to say, fabricating was quite a bit different then, even if it was less than 20 years ago. The shop’s top five customers represented 90 percent of the overall business, and most of the work was linked to the electronics industry in the region. The nature of the fabricating work also was much different than it is today.

“We would have guys sit down in front of a press brake for days back then,” Munschauer said. “One time we were talking about getting new chairs. We had a guy that worked in front of the brake, and he always complained that the chairs that he had to sit in were not soft enough for him. He would just sit in front of those brakes.”

Only six months after the purchase took place, Munschauer was called out to meet at the parent company of one the shop’s local customers, a top three account. It was a gathering of suppliers that were basically warned that their services were likely not going to be needed in the near future.

Putting aside anger and hurt feelings, Munschauer made his way to the front of the room where he could grab the attention of one of the Fortune 500 firm’s main buyers. Munschauer pleaded his case, saying that if the buyer gave SEH Metal Fabricators a chance, he wouldn’t be sorry.

Today ATECH-SEH Metal Fabricators delivers to this same customer, only to Colorado, not down the road to a subsidiary in New York. The twice weekly deliveries also are done on a kanban basis.

“It goes to show that if you do it right, you know what you are good at, and you have good communication with your customer, it’s amazing what the potential is,” said Grace.

A lot has changed since those early days. The company is now known as ATECH-SEH Metal Fabricators. (The ATECH was added to reflect the high-tech nature of the companies it wanted to serve, and it got the shop near the beginning of the listing for metal fabricators in the phone book.) Its top five customers represent only 35 to 40 percent of overall revenues, and the fabricator is serving customers in the health care, medical, telecom, and transportation industries, in addition to its electronics customers. Deliveries are being made to customers on the West Coast, down the East Coast, into the Midwest, and over the border to Canada.

Grace also purchased Deronde Doors and Frames, a metal door and frame manufacturer, in 2008 and located both companies at the current address two years ago. Grace, who is the company’s president, said the team has worked hard to restore Deronde Doors’ fortunes after the previous owner had struggled with running the business after purchasing it from the company’s founder. She added that the business complements ATECH-SEH’s offerings as the door and frame work calls for innovative designs, precision work, quality results, and prompt delivery (see Figure 1)—the same expectations associated with the contract manufacturing done for ATECH-SEH customers.

While that phone call that got the Munschauers into the metal fabricating business may seem fortuitous, the owner of SEH Metal Fabricators remembered David because he made an impression. ATECH-SEH’s turnaround and the expansion of the Deronde Door business are not because of dumb luck. The talent of 35 employees, cutting-edge fabrication technology, and a commitment to quality manufacturing and on-time delivery have helped to change this business for the better. These are some of the ways that they have made that transition.

Expertise Makes It Work

A metal fabricating company is nothing without employees, and the Munschauers know that. That’s why they value the experience on the shop floor (see Figure 2).

A good example of how this matters was a door frame job that didn’t necessarily meet the definition of a typical job for Deronde Doors. A customer was rehabilitating an old building and needed replacements for the older steel frames that were rusted and in disrepair.

Deronde Doors got the job. Of course, no drawings were available, and the press brake operator had only a section to work with as he looked to replicate it. But with his years of press brake experience, he was able to reproduce the bend pattern and actually consolidate the different parts to minimize the welding (see Figure 3).

Grace said that the shop’s experience is truly a hard-to-replace asset, but it’s the mix of employee input that really generates great ideas.

“What we like is having a melting pot,” she said. “We have those that are just out of school and those who have worked here awhile. We have found that what is most important to us is that every employee knows what they need to know, but they also realize what they don’t know. They then are receptive to feedback, and they look to their team to create the right answer.”

Quality Makes It Better

Final quality of a part is less subjective than coming up with a way to answer a production puzzle. It either meets the customer’s specification on the blueprint or it doesn’t.

That’s why the management team seeks to put employees in the best possible situation to make the part correctly the first time. “This is not a culture where we want to say someone messed up,” Grace said. “We want to ask what caused you to fail.

“The majority of problems come from the lack of clear and precise instructions,” she added.

That’s why all job packets are properly coded (see Figure 4), giving the fabricators an idea of just what they can expect. The packets also contain all supporting information, including a visual guide, to remove any doubt from what needs to be done (see Figure 5).

If errors do occur, corrective actions are taken. The process investigation gets to the heart of why the mistake was made, and then a resolution is proposed to keep the mistake from happening again.

In one instance, the corrective action called for the investing in an automated Haeger hardware-insertion machine. This equipment keeps track of the hardware being inserted and provides a visual graphic to guide the operator. It also has two bowls to feed different inserts into the assembly operation.

Technology Makes It Faster

Just as a new hardware-insertion machine made a big difference in tedious and challenging assembly work, new fabricating equipment is making a difference elsewhere.

A Bystronic 3-kW fiber laser with a new automated sheet material loading/unloading system is helping to get parts cut faster and out the door more quickly. For some stainless steel parts, the laser-cut edges are much better than the quality a CO₂ laser could deliver, according to David. The higher quality has allowed ATECH-SEH to cut out a secondary grinding step that these parts used to undergo. He added that the laser cutting machine also can cut brass, which comes in handy for the occasional work the company gets for jewelry displays.

An LVD Easy-Form press brake, capable of generating 150 tons of force and bending 12-ft. parts, has a laser angle verification system that checks for the correct bend angle on each bend (see Figure 6). This was one of the first pieces of equipment acquired after the Deronde Doors purchase and has proven useful for both sides of the business, especially for working with long and awkwardly shaped blanks.

A new LVD Dyna-Press electric press brake has given the company a chance to boost its production in the bending department by making it much simpler to form small parts in a fast-acting brake, eliminating the need for forming those parts on larger brakes better suited to other jobs. With the addition of some new tooling extensions on this new press brake, an operator now can complete a challenging bending job in one setup, David said.

“How do we keep our prices down and satisfy our customers?” he asked. “We continue to look for different ways to do things. We find a better way to do it.”

The investment in new technology is not limited to machinery. DriveWorks, an add-on to the company’s 3-D modeling software, expedites quoting and machine programming. Currently being used by Deronde Doors, the software automates the creation of part designs and flats for the CNC machines. The configurator software is similar to the online tools that allows you to specify a customized product like cabinets. Once the proper code has been written to support a particular kind of fabrication, in this case doors, the programmer only has to plug in key part measurements. When that step is complete, the software produces the prints for the job and the guidance for the CNC machines.

Better Designs Make for Stronger Relationships

Not all fabricators find themselves in a situation where they feel like they can offer up design advice. Even if a design revision could lead to material savings or improved design for manufacturability, some shops feel they should stick to the print.

ATECH-SEH has fostered good relationships with many of its long-time customers, so it doesn’t feel trapped in its place in the supply chain (see Figure 7). David said that this type of design intervention is one of the main ways the engineers can offer real value to the customer.

He recalled the time an industrial equipment manufacturer had asked ATECH-SEH to fabricate a stainless steel part with a diamond-pattern mesh, which was needed for venting purposes. Well, working with the mesh was not the easiest task, particularly when it came to bending.

ATECH-SEH designers suggested a stainless steel part that had a distinct pattern punched into it. It would be one-piece of metal, which would be sturdier than the previous design and still have the venting capability. Also, the redesign would be more cost-effective to fabricate.

“It was a home run. It was so good we now see our competitors doing it four years later,” David said. “We see our diamond pattern on all these other parts.”

Sometimes input is just a simple suggestion, instead of a radical redesign. Having worked with A60 sheet metal, which is a hot-dipped galvannealed material, on several other projects, ATECH-SEH engineers recommended the material as a potential replacement to another customer. The change was made, and the customer found out that its painted parts looked a lot better than they did before the change. The material switch also was done without an increase in cost.

Smarter Material Management Makes for Cost-Savings

The BySoft software that came with the Bystronic fiber laser has opened the door to more aggressive material nesting (see Figure 8), which is leading to some dramatic material savings.

For instance, laser cutting machine operator Ryan Ponosny used the software’s nesting engine to cut five different parts for two different customers in 15 full sheets instead of the almost 22 full sheets that once were needed. In another example, the nesting engine was able to combine pipeline orders, automated files for kanban parts, and stock door components to laser-cut 1,008 parts in 20 sheets rather than the 24.5 sheets that were originally allocated for these jobs.

Ponosny also has used the software to improve drop tracking. As remnants are left from a laser cutting job, they are labeled, placed in a nearby rack, and registered in the nesting system. If a special order is required, the laser operator can consult the nesting software to see if the material is available as a remnant. The check and subsequent decision whether to use a remnant takes seconds.

Scorecards Make the Difference

To stay on top of customer satisfaction, ATECH-SEH actually employs a customer scorecard. Seven of the top 10 customers have them and fill them out on an annual basis. They are unique to each customer and contain performance metrics that are important to the account.

Grace said the scorecard allows them to identify areas in which they can improve that might not be brought up in any other way. It could be something like putting fewer parts in a box, but if they can remove even the most minor irritations, the fabricator-customer relationship becomes that much stronger.

And when ATECH-SEH gets a glowing report, that’s cause for celebration in the shop.

“We like to share these stories. That’s what is important,” Grace said. “As a result, the employees are thinking about what is happening next.”

Actually, the entire company is focusing on the next five years. It’s time to prepare a new five-year strategic plan, and that means getting input from everyone and prioritizing what sort of investments are going to be made. This might involve more automation, such as robotic welding, and further attempts to diversify the business mix.

No matter how busy planning and production get, however, ATECH-SEH is going to be ready to answer the phone. You never know when opportunity will call.

ATECH-SEH Metal Fabricators, 716-874-2022, www.atech-seh.com

Deronde Doors and Frames Inc., 716-895-8888, www.deronde.com

Bystronic Inc., 847-214-0300, www.bystronicusa.com

DriveWorks, +44 1925 757585, www.driveworks.co.uk

Haeger, 800-878-4343, www.phillipscorp.com

LVD 716-542-4511, www.lvdgroup.com

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