A better set of tools

Modern Machine Shop, March, 1995 by Tom Beard

This California lab shop has grown rapidly through the shrewd deployment of a range of technical tools. They've found a formula that delivers both flexibility and efficiency.

What is it that makes a job shop successful? Is it their keen knowledge of how to work metal? Superior business acumen? The ability to successfully schmooze with customers? These days, the first two are mandatory and, truth be known, the third still doesn't hurt.

But if you have to in a word sum up what has pushed at least one very successful fabricating shop up a remarkable growth curve, it's probably flexibility. The shop in question is Spacesonic Precision Sheet Metal, an 88-person lab shop in Menlo Park, California.

Spacesonic's brand of flexibility is not just the ability to respond quickly to rangy customer requirements, though that's clearly a requisite attribute. It's also how they have systematically acquired the ability to serve customer needs, and be efficient at it. To be sure, a broad and deep understanding of fabricating processes lies at the heart of this company's competitiveness. But an equally essential component is how they have deployed and integrated equipment on the shop floor.

This command of technology allowed the company over a two-year period to double output on the same floor space, while adding just four people. Perhaps the most critical technical components of Spacesonic's competitive formula are the lasers and cells, and how they apply to just-in-time manufacturing. But the real secret is in how this shop marshals an array of technology, ensuring the capability to apply the right tool at the right time, for a diverse group of customers.

Humble Beginnings

Today the company does well over $10 million a year on 25,000 feet of floor space, and serves some 340 customers. Their equipment is some of the best you'll find anywhere, job shop or product line manufacturer. And they do far more than just make parts, actively participating in the design process for the sake of manufacturability, and doing quite a bit of assembly work as well.

But the company certainly didn't start out with such high aspirations. Company president Ignacio (Nacho) Palomarez founded the business in 1967 with a shear and a press brake. His son Nacho, Jr. more or less grew up in the shop, working there weekdays after school, and all day Saturday. Father taught son to weld, read prints, do layouts and set up the machines. Today, Nacho, Jr. is the company vice president, and the two men share responsibility for directing day-to-day operations as well as planning the company's future. (Nacho, Jr. is also who we spoke to for this story, and, for the sake of clarity, the source of all quotes herein.)

Spacesonic's first big investment was a duplicator punch press, which they thought at the time to be a superior technology to the emerging NC punch presses, and maybe at the time they were right. Ten years later they bought their first CNC machine, and that's when the business began to take off. It was growth built on the new capability for sure, but also predicated on their historical expertise in high-quality work and good customer service.

At this stage the business began to get more complicated, and the Palomarez family had to start thinking about the role of support technologies and about keeping their prime production assets in balance. It was an emerging management skill the company would later hone into its most potent competitive weapon.

The CNC punch press necessitated a better compressor, and then a belt sander for finishing their growing parts output. Around 1977, the shop added an auto-backgage press brake, and then a CAM system to keep the CNC machines' growing requirements for part programming. By 1984 they'd added another CNC punch press, and four more press brakes. Already, says Mr. Palomarez, they knew they were spending too much time moving material, but weren't yet quite certain what to do about it. Then they added another press and another brake.

But that path of technology acquisition was fairly typical for a growing shop. They more or less took stock of their production bottlenecks from time to time, and added capacity where they clearly saw the need. Then six years ago, Spacesonic embarked on a much more strategic approach. "That year we began an aggressive plan of machine tool buying," says Mr. Palomarez. The root idea was to take a proactive approach to the acquisition of technology - to systematically assemble an arsenal of tools that would enhance the shop's strategic position within what Mr. Palomarez judged to be the emerging market environment.

He believed the key performance attributes of a successful fab shop of the nineties would be quick turnaround of new designs and prototypes - the ability to get into production quickly at a reasonable (though not bargain basement) cost. And maybe most important would be the ability to work with customers to lower their total costs through more intelligent product design. That is, Spacesonic would take a customer's product design intent, and fashion it into a more readily manufacturable form.