Higher Tech

At Prompt Machine Products, owner Josh Wernli knows how advanced technology in manufacturing can streamline operations and ultimately give his company a competitive advantage.The Chatsworth machine shop makes subcomponents primarily for the commercial and military aerospace industries and does so using the latest automated equipment.“This is the only way for us to keep up as an industry,” Wernli said of the automated five-axis palletized machines that the company uses. “It’s not as though we wouldn’t hire anybody, but our needs are being met with the automation. It does require a higher skilled employee, but it does require fewer.” The employee count at Prompt bears that out.

Three years ago, the company had about 23 employees. Today it has eight.

“We can ship the same dollars with this same group and with the automation,” Wernli said.

Automated equipment is just one of the new technologies that manufacturers in the Valley region use to lower costs or create new products. Additive manufacturing, also known as 3D printing, is another one.

Then there are the nano reactors made by Cavitation Technologies Inc., a publicly traded Chatsworth manufacturer. These devices, described by Chief Operating Officer Neil Voloshin as a pipe 2 to 3 feet long, are used to treat water and other liquids to remove impurities.

“We sell this technology on a worldwide basis – from Japan to South America, to the U.S., Europe, you name it,” said Voloshin, who also serves as chief financial officer.Founded in 2007, Cavitation Technologies takes its name from the process that is used by its devices. Cavitation is the phenomenon when a liquid’s static pressure is reduced to below the vapor pressure, leading to the creation of small bubbles.

When those bubbles are subjected to higher pressure, they can collapse and damage machinery. Carefully controlled, however, cavitation can be beneficial in filtering and purifying liquids. Cavitation Technologies’ nano reactors are used in vegetable oil manufacturing and to serve the oil and gas industry to treat water used in the fracking process.

In the company’s reactor, there are no moving parts, simply tools with various configurations of small openings that use pressure ranging from 150 psi (pound-force per square inch) to 1,100 psi, Voloshin said.

“Because of how the parts inside are configured, the fluid goes from a high-pressure zone to a low-pressure zone. And it takes within seconds,” he added.Voloshin continued that going from high pressure to low pressure with the device, the fluid gets broken down at the molecular level and that accelerates chemical reactions.

The devices are made at the company’s 4,000-square-foot Chatsworth manufacturing plant, with input from some local subcontractors.

Cavitation’s business model is to develop the technology and then partner up with industry experts to make it applicable to existing operations or introduce it to new processes, Voloshin said.

“We simply supply the technology,” he added. “The integration, the vertical sales force and everything behind it – our strategic partners handle that.” Costs versus savingsAt Prompt Machine, the investment by Wernli for machinery quickly runs past the million-dollar mark.

The robotic arm he purchased to go with an existing piece of equipment cost between $250,000 and $350,000. The palletized machines can go from $650,000 to $1 million and more, he said.

What Wernli has at Prompt is a 10-station, 90-tool automated machine. He said he can get the same brand in a 35-station, 520-tool version for about $1 million “Then you have to put in all the tooling, all the cutting tools, the holders,” Wernli added. “You are talking another $500,000 right off the bat.”But the investment is worth it because it puts the company 10 to 15 years ahead of competitors in an industry where everybody else is transitioning to automation because they cannot find employees, Wernli continued.

When it comes to automated equipment, it is not just buying the machine and putting a person in front of it.  “You got to learn how to automate,” Wernli said. “There’s a certain skill set that comes along with that. For us, we are just bridging that gap earlier than everybody else.”David Goodreau, president of the Small Manufacturers Institute in La Cañada Flintridge, said that companies are using automation to overcome the fact that they cannot find people to work for them.

“It is not happening at the level you would think,” Goodreau said. “It is really slow growth because it is such a cultural change to work with automation and how you fit it in with your existing contracts.”At Prompt, Wernli said the real story for his company going to automation over hiring is because he knew it was the only answer.

He had worked with many local colleges and high schools to come up with training curricula to get new staffers in the door ready to do the work.

“We could never get it to work,” Wernli said. “We cycled through a lot of employees. The turnover is costly and it’s also not dependable. We need the consistency; if we are going to take on orders, we need to be able to deliver.”So he bought the palletized machines to take the high volume, repeat work away from a human machinist.

“That will take some of the burden off our shop,” he explained. “That way if we do have staffing issues it won’t hurt so bad.” The difference between a manned and unmanned manufacturing machine is in the ability to check the part after it is made and make adjustments. That is why when using automated equipment, a skilled person is necessary to program and fine-tune the programming and dial in the setups to repeat the work over an extended period, Wernli said.

Not every job done at Prompt is expensive, but in the case of one part that cost $967 per piece of raw material, if 10 parts are made overnight and something goes wrong, the company is out nearly $10,000.

“That’s a big hit,” he added. “You can see where the risk level is, but with the higher skilled guys you really lower that and you don’t need the staff that you needed before. We have been able to navigate that pretty well. That will be the challenge for most people when they go to automation.” The goal at Prompt is to have the automated machines run 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Wernli said that he expects each piece of automated equipment to require not more than two hours’ worth of set up labor for every 24 hours that it runs.

“So, one guy could do three pieces of automated equipment in one day,” Wernli continued. “All three of those machines will run for 24 hours. That’s where we set our bar. That’s where we want to get, which is a tall order – it’s really hard to do. But if we can do that, we can have that reliability, that consistency to deliver to our customers.” Additive acquisitionColin Osborne is the chief executive of Samuel Son & Co. Ltd., a Canadian firm that owns Burloak Technologies Inc., an additive manufacturer that recently acquired a facility in Camarillo.

Formerly operating as CalRam, the facility and equipment were acquired from Carpenter Technology Corp.

in Philadelphia. Carpenter bought the company and its 25,000-square foot plant in early 2018.

In an email to the Business Journal, Osborne said he views Burloak as a company that can compete globally in additive manufacturing.

“Our expansion in Camarillo is an important next step in Burloak’s development,” Osborne wrote. “It will allow us to have a local presence in a key market.” Samuel Son already had a working relationship with Carpenter, so when the opportunity presented itself for the Canadian firm to acquire the facility, it was thought there was no better way for Burloak, also in Ontario, Canada to establish an address in the United States, Osborne added.“Having a U.S. presence will allow us to work locally with many of our customers and will create significant opportunities for us,” he wrote in the email.

In addition to this transaction, Burloak and Carpenter Technology have formed an agreement to collaborate on future product design and development opportunities, and Carpenter Technology will become the preferred powdered metals supplier for certain DFAM (Design for Additive Manufacturing) projects led by Burloak, the company said in a release.

With significant opportunity for Burloak in the U.S., the parent plans to use Camarillo as the base for much of this activity, Osborne said.“This will include investment in new equipment and additional people as we continue ramping up,” he added.

Additive manufacturing technology involves a 3D printing machine that builds a part by laying down plastic or even metal in thin layers, much as a regular printer distributes ink on paper. This makes the part by adding layer on top of layer, as opposed to taking away material as occurs in traditional manufacturing.

3D printing is fast and cost effective, Osborne said. One can go from a design idea to prototype to a proof of concept in a matter of weeks versus months or years.

“And then of course, Samuel can scale up quickly to commercial production,” he added in the email.

Burloak serves the aerospace market, having inked deals with Boeing Co.

in Chicago and satellite manufacturer MDA Ltd. in Brampton, Ontario. It also has development work underway in automotive, nuclear, energy, medical and other end use markets.

The company’s approach is focused less on part cost as much as it is looking at a complete set of components or systems to design for manufacturing. That means potentially combining multiple parts and connections into a single 3D printed part, Osborne said.

“This improves overall performance, decreases weight and often improves cost as well,” Osborne added.

Osborne credited the company’s success in additive manufacturing to its partnerships with original equipment manufacturers and end users.

“What is really unique about Samuel and Burloak in this context, is that we can partner with the customer through the whole lifecycle: design and modelling, prototyping and proof of concept, scaling up to full commercial production, and then maintenance support near the end of the lifecycle,” Osborne wrote in his email.