Modular fixtures system for internal welding eliminates long lead times of machinery manufacturers

Modular fixtures system for internal welding eliminates long lead times of machinery manufacturers
Condition
Tom Onsrude, CEO and CNC Machinery Manufacturer CR. Onsrud owner and their construction manager Eric McAllister was tired of waiting. Welding their 70 CNC machined models through an outside shop was their standard practice, but in the process they had to wait 12 weeks for early delivery. And that’s the best position. If the part does not pass quality control after McAllister returns to the store, it will have to be sent back and they will have to wait another month.
“When a salesman says, ‘If we can deliver in x weeks, I can get a half-million dollar order for the machine,’ we have to line up with an outside seller, where good delivery is six weeks,” Onsrud said.
He knows that lost time will cost money, he knows the source of the problem and he knows how to solve it.
“They’s a good store, but no one cares about your belongings the way you care,” Onsrud said. It’s very simple. The company must bring the welding process home.
Clarity
“I met [Sales Engineer] Josh Hill at the Blueco Booth on IMTS. I sent him prints to see how he handles our parts, ”Ansrud explained.

Hill is back with plans for modular weld fixtures — five custom tables on floor rail systems that allow McAllister staff to slide back and forth according to each frame size. The plan looked promising, so Onsrud sent the base frame kit to Blueco and brought his team to test the system at a certification center.
“Our welders will glue it, weld it, convert it into weld bridges and send it back,” Onsrud said. “When it came back to us, we built it in our big mill and the machinists were very impressed with how accurate it was.”
Blueco installed the system at Onsrud’s Troutman, NC, plant, giving the company control over its timeline.
“Now we can rearrange the goods and build the frame in a week. We have to prioritize and not have to worry about the other customers in front of us anymore. It makes everything happen so smoothly.” This is helping his company towards the ultimate goal of bringing the entire manufacturing process home.
“We’ve got better products from Blueco, so it’s reducing the matching time, which is something we did not expect or expect,” he explained. “I have been getting reports from machinists that they are saving one to two hours on each basis so that we can get the accuracy we want on the Blueco table,” McAllister said. For machines that cost $ 400 per hour to operate, those savings are added.
With so many different components to make, the team at McAllister is constantly leaning towards fixtures and modular components to help speed up that process. “When we’ve made three to six runs at once, once we’m set up, it’s so easy to drop angles, slide them back, remove a piece, put in a new one and boom – it’s not like us. Instead of breaking the fixture every time they come back together,” he said. Explained.
The company has set up a second floor rail system to further reduce idle time.
“We joined because of the frustration of long-term leadership,” Onsrud said. “But we’ve got better production faster.”