Addicted to high

Fabricating Solutions, Twinsburg, Ohio, believes a high-powered laser cutting machine gives the company a competitive advantage over other metal fabricating companies. In April 2021, owner Dewey Lockwood installed a 15-kW Bystronic machine, replacing a 10-kW machine he had purchased only 14 months before. Images: Galloway Photography

As a business owner, Dewey Lockwood keeps one eye on operations and the other on metal fabricating technology advances. Specifically, he's locked on the increasing power and performance that today's high-powered fiber laser cutting machines can deliver.

Want proof? A 10-kW fiber laser cutting machine was installed at his 34,000-sq.-ft. shop, Fabricating Solutions, in February 2020, and 14 months later he traded in that laser and replaced it with a 15-kW Bystronic machine. The speed improvements were too great to ignore, and the incorporation of mixed assist gases opened the door to more efficient processing of 3/8- to 7/8-in. mild steel.

"When I went from 3.2-kW to an 8-kW fiber, I went from cutting 120 IPM to 260 IPM in 1/4 in. Well, I got a 10,000-W, and I was cutting 460 IPM. But then I got a 15-kW, and now I’m cutting 710 IPM," Lockwood said.

He's not the only person that notices the improvements. Other metal fabricators in the area do as well. Lockwood said that nearby OEMs and metal processors are more than happy to seek out Fabricating Solutions, Twinsburg, Ohio, because they know its high-powered laser cutting machine is going to help them get a cost-effective deal on laser-cut parts and the turnaround time on the job is going to be just a matter of days. It also helps them to enjoy the benefits of modern laser cutting without having to invest in the technology.

Lockwood is satisfied with that arrangement. He doesn't have to employ a salesperson to drive around all day and knock on doors seeking new business. The business is coming to him. It's a pretty good scenario for an entrepreneur who once thought he would be working in his garage with a laptop and a press brake for the rest of his life.

Lockwood's great-grandfather was a blacksmith, and his dad and uncles were millwrights. It was probably destined that he’d end up working in the metals industry.

Early on, however, his metals experience was related to the heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning industry. That's where he got his education in cutting and bending metal.

"I had more fun making the ductwork and the cabinets than anything else," he said.

From there he migrated to the metal fabricating industry, but not as part of a job shop. He went to work as an application engineer for a machine tool vendor. That experience provided him with exposure to the latest in metal fabricating technology and how it was applied in the real world of manufacturing.

That experience stuck with him, and he decided to launch Fabricating Solutions in 2003.

An automated parts sorting system minimizes the risk of laser cutting becoming a bottleneck because parts are sorted and stacked for delivery to downstream operations.

"I always had some kind of entrepreneurial bug. I always worked two jobs, and I was always driven to follow my passion. It's an evolution," Lockwood said.

Fabricating Solutions began with one press brake and a desire to provide bending services to nearby metal manufacturers that didn't have enough bending capacity in their own facilities. That worked for a while, but evolution doesn't only apply to personal growth. Fabricating Solutions had to evolve to keep up with its manufacturing reality.

Customers increasingly were asking for cut and bend services. Also, the ability to laser-cut parts and bend them would allow the shop to be a much more valuable supplier of metal fabricating services. That's when the company purchased its first laser cutting machine, a 3.2-kW model with a then state-of-the-art CO2 resonator.

Lockwood quickly noticed the impact that high-powered power sources made. With the increased cutting speeds, he knew that his shop could stand out from nearby competitors. That's why the 3.2-kW turned into an 8-kW machine, then the 10 kW, and now the 15 kW.

"If you can justify 50% of the purchase of the high-powered laser, then you might as well buy all of it as far as it relates to power," he said. "That's the ‘Field of Dreams’ mentality: If you build it, they will come."

Lockwood added that the 15-kW machine is earning its keep, processing thicker steel more efficiently, but also said that the use of a mixed laser assist gas during cutting has helped to elevate the quality of the end product as well. During cutting with pure nitrogen on high-powered laser cutting machines, the dross on the part's back side was hard and difficult to remove. (It's why an automatic deburring machine and edge rounder often is paired with these lasers.) Lockwood said that he thinks the small amount of oxygen in the mostly nitrogen gas mix helps to produce smaller and not-as-strong burrs that can be easier to deal with.

A similar but slightly altered gas mix has shown benefits for cutting aluminum as well, according to Lockwood. Cutting speeds can be increased while still maintaining acceptable edge quality.

Currently Fabricating Solutions has only 10 employees, so finding and retaining employees, especially in today's post-pandemic economy, can be a real challenge. It's one of the reasons that when the shop had the 15-kW machine installed in April, an automated load/unload and part sorting system was included.

"That's made a big difference for us as well because we don't have to find someone to remove the parts," he said. The sorting system removes the parts from the skeleton and places them on a pallet for delivery to bending or shipping.

Lockwood said competitors have taken notice of his shop's laser cutting prowess. In fact, he calls these other shops "collaborators" because they regularly send him work.

An investment in a panel bender made sense for Fabricating Solutions because of the machine's small footprint and its ability to deliver the forms on a majority of the company's parts. Images: Galloway Photography

"They don't want their customers to come and find me," he said.

All of those laser-cut parts aren't heading directly to customers. A large percentage of them require further processing. That's the reason Fabricating Solutions isn't bulking up just its cutting department.

The shop currently has 80- and 320-ton Bystronic Xpert press brakes and is looking to add two more 320-ton brakes. It also upgraded its panel bender recently, replacing an older, manual machine.

The Prima Power panel bender has a manipulator that grips and moves the workpiece into position for each bend. Lockwood said that the cycle time for a four-bend part on its old bender might be 110 seconds, while the new machine needs only 48 seconds. That's helped to keep parts flowing through the bending department.

The panel bender can accommodate a 2-m part, which represents about 90% of the jobs being processed through the bending department, according to Lockwood. It also has a small footprint, which helps Fabricating Solutions make the most of its shop floor space.

Welding is another bottleneck because the job shop is growing that side of the business. The early days of the business centered around cut-bend-and-ship projects, but the company is taking on more turnkey work for which welding is part of the package. Fabricating Solutions employs two full-time welders.

To eliminate downtime during welding, Lockwood said that his company invested in a Fronius "two-headed" gas metal arc welding torch. With these guns, a welder doesn't have to change out the liners or wires. If the gun is set up with the wires for two different successive jobs, when a welder is finished with the first job, he can change the program on the power source and switch over to the other wire for the second job. If all is set up correctly, a welder can go from welding steel to aluminum in about 30 seconds.

Lockwood added that the shop also is in the process of installing a 25-ton crane over the welding area to assist with material movement. Being that most of the welding work is on larger pieces—one of the reasons that the shop hasn't invested in a robotic welding cell—the crane will make moving the weldments much easier. It’ll also minimize the risk of injury to the welders.

Although the company has no formal quality department, it does emphasize attention to quality during production. Instead of one person dedicated to quality control, the company relies on each person to inspect his parts before they are sent downstream to the next process or shipping.

"This makes them realize that their internal customers are equally as important as their external ones," Lockwood said.

Fabricating Solutions is always looking to improve its shop floor productivity. A recent investment has been made in a welding power source that can be matched with two wire feeders, allowing a welder to switch quickly between two distinctly different jobs.

An incentive program keeps everyone focused on producing quality work. For any rework or rejected parts, the cost needed to correct the situation is deducted from the bonus pool. In a small company, you don't want to be the cause for reducing bonus payments, especially with your colleagues working right next to you on a daily basis.

The desire to make the most of people's efforts is a constant exercise at Fabricating Solutions. The goal is to make sure that employees are focused on activities that generate value for the customer.

Lockwood pointed to a plan for a new ERP system that will have a portal where customers will plug in their own order details and that information will populate material orders and schedules. It gets the order into the system, into the production queue, and ultimately into the customer's hands faster than it would if the order-entry process relied on human intervention and redundant inputting of order information.

"I think automation is as critical in the front office as it is in the back," Lockwood said.

Even with two press brakes on order, Fabricating Solutions is still looking for other possible investments. The current laser cutting machine is coupled with a dual-cart material handling system, with each cart accommodating about 6,000 lbs. With the 15-kW power source, that machine can run through 12,000 lbs. of 16-ga. steel without human intervention in a couple of hours. That means a lot of visits to the shop with his dog over weekends to restock the pallets and set up the machine so it can continue to laser-cut in a lights-out mode. Needless to say, Lockwood is thinking about what kind of material storage system would help to feed the hungry beast that is his laser cutting machine.

He might want to act sooner rather than later when it comes to addressing the material storage situation. Lockwood already is thinking about what a 20-kW laser can do for his shop, and that certainly will require more weekend visits to the shop to keep such a powerful machine fed.

The dog apparently is OK with the current setup.

Taking into account the company's fabricating talent and new technological investments, Fabricating Solutions believes it produces as much or more than other fab shops with more employees.