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FABTECH reporter’s notebook: A contract metal fabrication metaphor, in tube

Sloan MacKarvich (shown at left above) didn’t spend much time in his booth at FABTECH® in Atlanta last week. The president of the Industrial Laser Solutions Division of Tie-Down Engineering, a short drive away from the Georgia World Congress Center, spent most of the show on the equipment hunt. He needs more robotic welding cells to handle expended demand.

“The business is ridiculous,” he said. “Everybody in the Southeast seems to be really busy.”

Tie Down’s booth showed what I thought was an apt metaphor for the state of affairs in metal fabrication. Sitting on the floor was an exoskeletal racecar built on the frame of a 1990 Mazda Miata. Sold by Atlanta-based Exomotive, a Tie Down customer, the entire car kit consists of carefully cut and bent tube. Tie Down’s tube laser cut complex contours to make a tab-and-slot design, and its CNC tube benders formed the components so that every tab aligned properly with every slot.

MacKarvich beamed. “It’s fixtureless.”

Showing me a slideshow on his tablet, Exomotive Lead Engineer Warren Van Nus (pictured on the right) pointed to a flat table. “That’s our ‘fixture,’” he quipped.

Every piece slides into place just right, and the whole assembly is ready for welding, without a toggle clamp to be found.

Such innovative design epitomizes the cost savings made possible when you marry smart engineering with modern machine tools. The way all those tubes just fit together also reminded me a bit about the complicated variables of job shop and contract metal fabrication.

Managers need to juggle varying levels of demand from myriad customers. They remain on a continued quest for diversification, yet their best and largest customers continue to give them more business, which in turn can lead to high revenue concentration. And they need excess capacity to ensure quick response in a highly variable environment.

It’s not easy to juggle all these variables. But with a dose of modern technology and creative thinking—product design, shop organization, work instructions, part flow, communication, and all the rest—everything at the modern metal fabricator just fits, like a tab into a slot.

About the Author
The Fabricator

Tim Heston

Senior Editor

2135 Point Blvd

Elgin, IL 60123

815-381-1314

Tim Heston, The Fabricator's senior editor, has covered the metal fabrication industry since 1998, starting his career at the American Welding Society's Welding Journal. Since then he has covered the full range of metal fabrication processes, from stamping, bending, and cutting to grinding and polishing. He joined The Fabricator's staff in October 2007.