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FABTECH keynote insight: ‘Don’t get stale’

Seven key characteristics of the progressive metal fabricator

Attendees during FABTECH 2021

The show is on. The fabrication industry arrives at FABTECH on opening day.

“Don’t get stale. Products change. Technology changes. Manufacturing has to change with it.”

So said Keith Otterstatter, director of operations at Medina, Minn.-based Polaris, during the early hours of the FABTECH show today. He was part of the FABx Tech Talks, which featured several features from various manufacturing disciplines, from hot rod manufacturing to big data and artificial intelligence.

Otterstatter focused on seven key takeaways that, taken in sum, help describe the current state of the progressive metal fabrication shop floor.

1. Flexible layout: Don’t create monuments that can’t be moved or reconfigured. As the pandemic recession proved all too clearly, anything can happen, and the progressive shop floor must be ready for anything. That’s difficult to do in a shop floor constrained by monuments.

2. Use your in-house experts. “The great folks who do that operation eight-hours-plus a day have great improvement ideas,” Otterstatter said. “Develop a continuous improvement environment that enables them to work on their ideas.”

3. Use a visual, pull-based material flow. “If you sell an orange razor, we want to feel the tug to make us fabricate another orange razor,” he said. “We don’t want to make a blue razor, just because it’s easier.”

4. Don’t suboptimize at the expense of the larger, more complex process. “Sure, [your operator] might grumble when he has to change over his punch press,” Otterstatter said. But running the same punch program over two days optimizes and simplifies the punching operation, but it creates complications elsewhere in the operation and steals capacity for what’s needed now.

5. Use the technology to your advantage. “Do the research to develop a realistic objective, start small, and don’t wait.”

6. Don’t fear change. “Start now before your competition does,” he said. “We encourage our team to start small. Pick five parts. Now, what can you do to make those parts better?”

7. Avoid getting stale. That’s what today’s FABTECH attendees are doing today. The best can’t compete in a we’ve-always-done-it-this-way silo.

Otterstatter spoke of the company’s move toward automation and digitization, about the firm’s new laser tube cutting and bending system that allows for smooth flow between the two processes. Part velocity has increased and the process has been greatly simplified.

But he also reiterated one of his main points: Start small. Pick a few parts, see how they’re made, and ask how you can make them better. “And start now, before your competition does the same.”

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.