Radicals revisited

Modern Machine Shop, March, 1996 by Mark Albert

A little more than five years ago, MODERN MACHINE SHOP carried a cover story about an innovative job shop in the northeastern Indiana town of Churubusco. Entitled, "The Radicals Of Churubusco," this article looked at some of the remarkably advanced management philosophies implemented at C & A Tool Engineering Inc., a job shop whose new cylindrical grinding facility exemplified the power of these concepts.

This shop had implemented self-directed work teams, a comprehensive quality program, a policy of employee empowerment, cross-training on a routine basis, and other bold ideas before most of them had become much used and abused buzzwords elsewhere. The shop's approach to high-precision cylindrical grinding was also unique.

Unlike many shops that think of grinding as a last step, C & A Tool saw it as the primary process for achieving the extremely close tolerances and fine surface finishes demanded by its customers for round parts. That grinding might come last only meant that other prior processes, such as turning, had to be structured to enhance and promote the effectiveness of the grinding process. And it didn't matter if the order was for one piece or 10,000 - this tool and die shop did lots of volume production work.

But that was five years ago, when their Schliefhaus (German for Grinding Shop) was brand new. Since then, C & A has continued to grow, adding new facilities and buildings clustered in downtown Churubusco. This collection of integrated manufacturing buildings [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 1 OMITTED] is what Dick Conrow, president and founder of the company, refers to as an "industrial village."

This village represents five interrelated "area disciplines" of Projects, CNC Milling, CNC Lathes, Cylindrical Grinding and Engineering. Metal Preparation and even the Maintenance Department have buildings of their own. How these areas work together to create an unusually dynamic job shop is an interesting and instructive story. It also tells a lot about the impact one company can have on an entire local community. In both regards, the effect is...well, radical.

A Walking Tour

Churubusco (population 2300) could pass for a thousand small towns in rural America. Many of the original downtown buildings, which date to the period between the Civil War and the turn of the century, retain a gingerbread quaintness that contrasts with the no-frills functionality of the modern buildings, which have been added to Main Street over the years.

Where Main and Whitley streets intersect to form the heart of town, you'll find C & A Tool's administrative offices in a row of refurbished storefronts. The offices are located at the top of a narrow stairway and are impressively unimpressive. No grand lobby. No shrine to a corporate logo. No grandiose mission statement or quality slogans emblazoned on the wall. It's obvious that Dick Conrow and the C & A management team have been concentrating on other things that are more important.

What those things are you begin to discover downstairs on the first floor of the same building complex. This is C & A's Projects Area. The tool and die makers are centered here. As we'll see, this is the heart and soul of C & A Tool.

Catercorner to these structures is the building devoted to CNC lathes (seven turning centers plus four bar machines) and right next door is Das Fraeshaus, The Milling Shop. Das Fraeshaus, opened last year, was especially designed and constructed to house CNC machining centers like those shown in Figure 2. Nine CNC machines are currently at work in this building.

Behind the lathe and mill departments are the Metal Prep house and the maintenance/shipping/receiving building. If you study the map, these buildings may look like they are off the back alley, but they are by no means back-alley operations.

Head back up Mulberry Street, where Churubusco's business district begins to blend into the town's older residential areas, to get to Das Schliefhaus, The Grinding Shop, which also has a vaguely Swiss exterior decor. Figure 3 gives a glimpse of its interior.

Across the alley on Whitley is a narrow corner building that houses C & A's "war room." This facility is a kind of informal conference area and auxiliary office space, but it once housed the company's CAD/CAM stations. This is now where project teams meet to accept, plan, and coordinate their activities.

C & A's downtown neighbors are small restaurants, dentists' and doctors' offices, car repair shops, retail stores, financial institutions, and all of the other amenities a small town has to offer. Having these establishments within walking distance to C & A's 150 employees is not just a convenience for them, it's a lifeline for the whole city. Mr. Conrow sums it up: "When C & A grows, Churubusco grows, too."

Back To The Future

"Village" may seem an anachronistic term to describe this collection of high tech machining facilities, but Mr. Conrow insists that it characterizes perfectly how they interact as fully-integrated parts of C & A Tool. "It's a throw-back to the traditions of the Old World, where the craftsmen's workshops were often clustered together to share skills and know-how, only here, we're sharing know-how with customers from around the world." (That the entrances to the new buildings make you expect to find Swiss clock makers inside is no accident.)