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In metal fabrication, the truth abides

When cutting, bending, and welding tangible products, the truth emerges

Man holding a fabricated metal part

When dealing with tangible products that you can cut, bend, and weld, truth is harder to hide. That’s what makes metal fabrication so great. Getty Images

When I heard Eric Fankhauser, vice president at Toledo Metal Spinning (TMS), tell the story about how his father acquired the business in 1964, I smiled and nodded. After hearing it, I kept thinking, No wonder some folks catch the metal fabrication bug.

Eric’s father Ken began his career not as a job shop entrepreneur or as a tinkerer in a garage, but as an accountant. As a contractor for the accounting firm Ernst and Ernst in the 1960s, Ken audited TMS and did such a good job, the company president and founder, Rudolph Bruehner sent him a check for $100.

“That put my dad in a quandary,” Eric said. “It would have been a conflict of interest if he cashed that check.”

He spoke to his contacts at Ernst & Ernst, who told him to endorse the check over to the company partners. “Rudy got really upset,” Eric said. “He called my dad into his office and told him he was upset he didn’t keep the money. My dad explained to him that it was a conflict of interest.

“Rudy thought about it, then eventually said, ‘You’re the type of guy I’d like to have own this company. Would you be interested in buying it?’” Ken, together with his brother Bill, an aeronautical engineer, eventually did just that.

A German immigrant, Bruehner launched TMS in 1929, a heck of a year to start a business. But the job shop survived, growing off a foundation of old-school sheet metal artisanship. Even to this day, many metal spinning operations can’t be fully automated, thanks to material property variation and all the subtle interactions that can happen between the roller and a spinning metal disc or preform on a lathe.

Former FABRICATOR columnist and longtime industry consultant Dick Kallage used to say, “Truth happens on the shop floor.” He wasn’t the first to say it and he probably won’t be the last. So much of modern business is built upon the intangible. The entire financial services sector is built upon intangible human inventions. And when business is built on the intangible, it becomes easier to hide the truth.

Accountants certainly can hide the truth, as can managers who are appraised and rewarded not based on how well parts are made or how reliably they’re delivered, but on how good the numbers look. Several years ago, I spoke with Change Management Associates’ Drew Locher. He described a common occurrence at many manufacturing plants called the “hockey stick scenario,” with the end of the stick (revenue) conveniently heading upward near the end of the financial reporting period—an odd coincidence, considering sales hasn’t landed new orders or booked more sales from existing business. Instead, managers perform a little accounting magic. They ask production managers to ship a large, profitable order due much later (after the financial reporting period).

“Forget about our current commitments,” Locher said. “Forget about on-time delivery. We need to make the numbers this month.”

Walk to the shop floor and the myth of the hockey stick vanishes. Operators and supervisors know they’re being told to put current, even late orders on hold. They shake their heads in resignation and focus on the process, the tool cutting and shaping the metal. In this arena of tangible actions and physics, truth can’t hide for long, especially if those looking for it know the process inside and out.

Sure, process ignorance can keep the truth in hiding. In a laser cutting department, for instance, someone might complain that the material he’s cutting is subpar and shows poor cut edges as proof. So the supervisor and lead operator observe the laser in action. Even long, thin parts don’t seem to be springing up terribly after cutting, so residual stress doesn’t seem to be a problem, at least for this material grade and thickness. The observers ask when the last time the cutting head’s protective cover glass was changed. The operator, it turns out, just swapped it out a few days ago and reset the cutting parameters, which had been tweaked slightly as the cover glass aged.

The laser operator lead looks at the cutting parameters and raises his eyebrows. When someone tweaked the cutting parameters to get a bit more life out the cover glass, they changed the default settings. So, when an operator changed the cover glass and reset cutting parameters, they didn’t revert back to the originally established defaults. The laser lead changes the parameters, initiates the program, and burr-free parts emerge. The truth has come out of hiding.

A successful metal fabrication job shop needs knowledgeable people who search for the truth. The closer those people are to where the tool (or laser beam) contacts metal, the better.

Bruehner saw that appreciation for truth in Ken and Bill Fankhauser in the 1960s. No doubt, he wouldn’t be surprised that the shop is still thriving nearly a century after its founding. At TMS, and in thousands of successful metal fabrication job shops that dot the country, the best people share this appreciation for unfiltered truth. To riff off The Big Lebowski, in metal fabrication, the truth abides.

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.