Woods Equipment Co. builds a variety of attachments and implements for agricultural, landscape, and construction vehicles. In a search to increase the productivity of its welding efforts amidst an ever-growing product line, the company discovered modular welding tables from Bluco Corp.

Domex 700 MC, an extra-high-strength HSLA steel, can use milling and thermal cutting to prepare a joint for welding and most common fusion welding methods to joint it -- but a few specifics regarding filler metal are important to know before welding this steel.

Miller Welding & Machine isn't a typical job shop for a lot of reasons. This family-owned and -operated company, in business since 1963, employs almost everybody in the Miller family -- and tackled its complete inexperience in finishing by investing in a full powder coating and wet paint line in a new facility to serve its customers, who started demanding finishing services five years ago.

Jeff Adams may have taken the nontraditional route in manufacturing by starting out in the laser equipment vendor community, but he has since moved to the job shop side of the industry, using his laser knowledge and expertise to help grow his 12-year-old laser job shop in Libertyville, Ill.

"Okay Industries, New Britain, Conn., serves diverse market segments including medical, automotive, electronics, defense, and specialty industrial. The stamper produces a roller finger follower for automotive applications. There are 14 stations on the die. The TD process is used on three of them," DeVecchis said. "It has given us better product quality, less scrap, faster throughput, longer die life, and reduced die dressing."

For Johnson Enterprises of New Brunswick, Canada, the waterjet cutting system with shuttle table has opened the door to business opportunities more diverse than the materials it can process.

Sumitomo Metal Mining USA (SMMU) Inc. has supplied cathode ray tube frams to some of the largest, high-end television manufacturers in the world from its Oceanside, Calif., facility. Despite the trend in moving manufacturing overseas to take advantage of cheaper labor pools, SMMU believes it is poised to remain competitive while maintaining its U.S. base of operations.

The system Sanmina-SCI uses to produce rails for Sun Microsystems' large servers is a key factor in Sanmina-SCI's competitiveness when it comes to processing a large, heavy-gauge, complet part, delivered in large volume on an as-needed basis for computer server systems and other similar applications.