Small-format laser helps high-mix, low-volume shop augment, optimize services

Among the advantages of a 3D Fab Light machine is ease of use. At American Prototype & Production, San Carlos, Calif., office manager and laser operator Cheri Perez needed just a half day of training to become proficient in using the machine.

The success of many projects depends on the amount of preparation that goes into them. No good house ever stood on a poor foundation, no decent ship was ever built on a crooked keel, and no successful career was ever launched without laying some groundwork, either through education, hands-on training, or both.

Blaine Bolich’s career as a shop owner, machinist, and fabricator was based on 14 years of preparation best described as superb. It started when he was a junior in high school. Although he wasn’t quite yet prepared to make a living working with metals, he landed a job in a machine shop, working as a helper. It wasn’t any old machine shop, but a shop that served as the main resource for the physics department at Stanford University (Stanford, Calif.).

He worked that job until he finished high school and kept at it while he completed a two-year course of study nearby at the College of San Mateo (San Mateo, Calif.). He worked his way up through the ranks at the shop and, because it served several other academic departments on the campus, Bolich worked on many sorts of projects for many sorts of applications. The department made big, robust parts that went into aeronautical engineering projects; small, delicate parts for brain implants for behavioral science studies; and everything in between.

Bolich was well aware that the university’s shops didn’t support all of Stanford’s work; some of it was contracted out to small machining and fabrication shops in the San Francisco Bay area. This sounded like opportunity knocking, and Bolich was listening. He bought a business that had a single manual Bridgeport milling machine, set out to find work to support his new venture, and in 1989 he launched the business as American Prototype and Production Inc. (APP).

Buying, Nurturing a Machining Business

The first few years of building a business are never easy. Just a short time into this endeavor, Bolich realized he needed to invest in an emerging trend: CNC. He didn’t have much in the way of credit or a solid reputation with a bank, but needed to figure out how he’d borrow $80,000 for a machine. He managed to do that by putting together a business plan and a justification for a loan—the package included a letter of reference from a Nobel prize winner—and one thing led to another. As time went on he was able to afford larger-capacity, higher-quality machines, incurring some debt along the way but making progress in establishing the company as a trusted source of machined parts.

More challenging still are the many other aspects associated with doing business in Silicon Valley. It’s full of challenges, and for the most part they don’t ebb and flow. They just ebb. For example, the cost of living and the cost of doing business were extraordinary decades ago and have gotten worse. The area’s reputation as a computer and software center made it an incredibly attractive location for new high-tech businesses in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

“My first building was just 400 square feet,” Bolich said. Although he started small and moved to larger facilities a couple of times, it seemed that the cost per square foot in the Bay area wasn’t just rising, but accelerating, making each move progressively more expensive per square foot.

“During the dot-com boom, I was competing against businesses of all sorts for more space,” Bolich said. Space that was increasingly expensive. Now leasing 8,000 sq. ft., he figures he’s not going anywhere. Apple and Facebook are within 20 miles or so of Bolich’s location, and Oracle—which stakes a claim as the world’s largest database management company—is within a half mile. There’s just no way a small metal machining and fabrication shop can compete with these titans. Real estate is at a premium.

“I’ve been in this place 20 years, and there’s no way I can afford a larger place,” he said.

Laser machines designed and built by 3D Fab Light need little in the way of setup. The system’s gantry and bed are aligned before delivery, so preparing it for use takes little more than wheeling into position and plugging it in.

Electrical power is another challenge. In California, the commercial rate per kilowatt-hour is more than 50% higher than the national average and more than double that of neighboring Nevada.

So the upshot is that APP can grow, but only if it does so strategically. Bolich can’t install a new machine without first removing an old machine. And efficiency matters; a machine that goes easy on the electrical power would be a substantial bonus.

A Machine With a Small Footprint, Low Power Consumption

California is a large, populous state, and its output is vast. If it were regarded as a separate entity, its economy would be the 5th largest in the world. It has a large and diverse manufacturing base, and as a prototyping shop and small-volume producer, APP’s work likewise is remarkably diverse.

Despite the variability in APP’s work, repeat jobs are common, and Bolich found that he was doing a lot of sheet metal work to make panels for rack-mounted instruments. They need very precise cutouts for various instrument faces and gauges.

“We do a lot of work in 1/8-inch aluminum, making panels that aren’t very big—often 6 to 8 inches wide, and 20 inches long,” he said. He’d order the material cut to the right width and just a little long, then use a machining center to get it to the right length, then make holes and rough out all the rectangular slots for the gauges and instruments. For each corner, he’d use a ¼-in. end mill to rough it out and 3/32-in. tool to finish it. It seemed like an awful lot of work and he figured he could do it more economically with a laser machine. He already had a laser machine, one for cutting 4- by 8-ft. sheets, but it was booked much of the time.

“The cost of a laser machine for a typical sheet metal shop can easily run $400,000 to $1 million and require $60,000 to $70,000 in electrical upgrades,” he said. He also needed to find some way to make a suitable tradeoff, considering the footprint of a typical laser machine. He needed something that didn’t exist—an industrial laser’s capability in a package not much larger than a typical garage workbench.

When Bolich heard of a laser machine that handles quarter sheets, 50 by 25 in., and uses a standard 120-V outlet, consuming about the same amount of power per hour as a hair dryer, he was beyond intrigued (and slightly skeptical). How could this be?

The machine he heard about, which was developed and built by 3D Fab Light, was designed specifically for the military. Some military repair centers make their own parts, especially those in remote locations, so this machine was intended to expand the capabilities of servicemen assigned to work in repair depots. Built to be loaded into the back of a cargo plane and flown anywhere in the world, these machines are lightweight, so setup is simple and they are easy on the power.

The more Bolich learned, the more interested he became, and eventually he made an investment in a FabLight 4500 Tube & Sheet fiber laser system. In addition to the aforementioned sheet size, it handles round, square, and rectangular tube from 0.5 to 2 in. dia. and up to 55 in. long (extendable to 80 in.).

American Prototype & Production uses its laser capacity for more than manufactured parts. Short-run items and one-offs includes signs like this one for the U.S. Forest Service.

Ease of Setup, Ease of Use

“We brought it in on a lift truck,” he said. It needed no specialized lifting equipment, no crew of riggers, no beefed-up foundation, or any other preparations. Unpacking it and placing it in its designated spot on the shop floor took almost no time at all.

“It took just five or 10 minutes to get it into position,” he said.

The reference part—the instrument panel—tells the story of the machine’s productivity. Making one panel by machining took 18 minutes. On the laser machine, it takes three minutes. It’s a single setup, so that alone makes it a faster process. The laser source, a fiber laser, makes quick work of thin aluminum. APP saves even more time because it can make several panels from each sheet, so loading a single sheet makes quite a few parts. This also reduces the amount of material handling, taking some of the hassle out of it.

The machine doesn’t have a loader or unloader, so these processes are manual. This isn’t necessarily fast, but this is part of the machine’s niche—it’s a low-cost machine with a small footprint. Also, manual loading is easy to do, given that the workpieces are quarter-sized sheets.

In keeping with the ease-of-use theme, the laser manufacturer has done what it can to keep the programming as simple as possible.

“Programming this machine is not a stumbling block,” Bolich said. “Often a machine programmer is highly specialized and commands good pay, $50 to $60 per hour, but on this machine, a person can be fully trained in half a day.”

At APP, that person doesn’t have previous programming experience or even a technical background. That person is the office manager.

Bolich keeps the machine running, in part, with a well-designed incentive package: The office manager runs the laser machine, and while it’s cutting, she handles accounts receivable and payable; and handles shipping and receiving; and does some kitting and packaging to support the shipping function. She runs her departments like clockwork and is incentivized accordingly (or, as Bolich describes it, she’s incentivized handsomely).

This doesn’t mean that every part is simple. Indeed, some parts need subsequent operations, like countersinking or threading, so the original part drawing might need additional sacrificial elements like tabs to hold the part in place while it’s machined. Steps like these take little effort and little time, Bolich said.

The owner of American Prototype and Production Inc., Blaine Bolich, noted that the spot diameter of a fiber laser is just 0.002 in., achieving intricacy in details that is hard to match relative to other thermal cutting methods.

Importing files to the machine also is a breeze. It imports common file formats, .dxf and .dwg, and then the machine’s CAM capability takes over. In relies on a material catalog, a database, that has cutting parameters for a great number of alloys and material thicknesses, so the operator doesn’t do much more than look at a part preview on the machine’s monitor, jog the cutting head to the start position, and begin cutting.

Of course, nearly every drawing file needs some cleanup, but this aside, it’s also a fast process.

“If all of my customers were to provide .dxf files to scale, with no dimension lines or title blocks, I could process 30 orders a day,” Bolich said.

And while the system’s hourly operating cost wasn’t high in the first place, Bolich found a way to bring it down a bit. The laser system initially used nitrogen as the assist gas. Bolich found that by using shop air through an air compressor (at 100 PSI) and then through an air booster that adds 50 PSI, he can get by without nitrogen, which saves quite a bit of money.

It gets better, in that this investment was strategic. It has helped Bolich expand APP’s reach in a couple of ways.

First, business is very good these days, so he needs all the capacity he can get.

“I have never seen semiconductor manufacturing and capital equipment customers so busy,” he said. For every panel that APP used to process by machining, the laser has freed up 18 billable minutes on its machining centers.

Second, the machine cuts round, square, and rectangular tube, which is a big deal at APP. Bolich formerly had to outsource this work or use machining centers, but having a laser machine in-house that can chuck tubes has opened new doors to more business.

The company offers a Solidworks plugin at no charge that automatically unwraps the tube, much like unfolding a bent sheet, to generate a flat pattern. The company’s program, FabCreator, imports this flat pattern and reassembles it into a tube.

And while it’s a 4-axis machine, the software replicates the action of a 5th axis, so the fitup is similar to that of two beveled surfaces. Although all of the cuts are perpendicular to the surface, the software allows the user to select the mating surface of the mating tube—the inside edge or outside edge—for a good, gapless fit.

A Golden Opportunity in the Golden State

California has drawn newcomers for many decades, which started in a big way during the gold rush of 1849, and the trend continued. Its population grew about fourfold, from 10 million to 40 million, from the 1940s to the present time. This was fueled in part by a continuous influx of people from different nations and cultures who brought a variety of experiences and perspectives. Some claim this contributed to the state’s freewheeling, dynamic business culture and its position as a leader in entrepreneurship, which contributes to a steady stream of new business opportunities.

Bolich agrees, citing two customers in particular, both of which dreamed up new ways of doing old tasks by taking the drudgery out of them.

One is a robotics-based system that makes hamburgers to order. It cooks the hamburger patties, slices toppings, toasts buns, adds spices, and does the assembly. Intended for very-high-volume venues, such as airports and train stations, it makes up to 400 orders per hour. Nearly every industry seems to be short-handed these days, especially in low-wage fields, so concepts like this one stand a chance to provide a little relief to the worker shortage.

Another is a dishwashing service in the Bay area. Its customers stack used plates in short storage towers, which the company collects and transports to its facility. Its automated dishwasher uses a robotic arm to pick up each plate and hand it off to a scrubbing station; the plate then proceeds to a rinsing station and finally to a racking station, and the rack of clean plates emerges at the other end of the machine. The company claims that it saves a lot of water, and in drought-stricken California, every bit of conservation helps.

These concepts might seem a little nutty at first, but innovations like these keep business moving forward. In addition to keeping an open mind for new opportunities, Bolich does what he can to attract more business from his existing customers. His instrument panel customers are a case in point.

“Any time we make a change, we let our customers know,” he said. “The part features, especially inside corners, are more precise because they’re laser cut, and the parts have a different finish,” he said. The big deal is the time savings, which translates to a big cost reduction. Bolich shared this information, and the cost reduction itself, with these customers. He cut the prices by 20%, he said.

It’s a virtuous cycle. Bolich helps the customer by coming up with a lower-cost process, he cuts the price, and the customer brings Bolich more business. And he can brag about making parts for automated food prep and dishwashing machines.