Introduction to Automation in Manufacturing featuring Paul Reetz + Jason Strange

Cutting Tool Manufacturing & Robotics

Adam: So Paul, what’d you bring in?

Paul: Toys. It’s not always easy to
describe our cutting tools, so I brought a little bit of things. This starts
out life as a carbide blank. Then depending on what the customer wants, we
match it to the part they’re trying to accomplish with the print process.
Standard end mills we make, but custom cutting tools — that’s more of what we
do on a regular basis. That’s what we built our business on. It’s a wide
variety of things, and leading into the robotics, it’s our next step.

Adam: And you’re using robots to load
and unload the CNC machine?

Paul: Yes. As we got deeper into the
cutting tool business, we always thought we’d have operators and machinists
who’d be able to fill those roles. It’s been harder and harder to find people
with the want to learn and make adjustments. Since 2019, we’ve added four
different robotic CNCs within our factory. It’s a necessity — we still have
talented machinists who can program it and get everything set up, and then just
let the machine take it from there. Tolerances are much tighter on these
machines. You spend a lot more to make high-quality cutting tools, but then to
be able to mass-produce them — kind of like Field of Dreams: if you build it,
they will come. We made investments well before we should have. The accountants
were like, don’t do it. But now it’s starting to pick up a lot of momentum, and
we’re set for the future.

Adam: How long does it take to build
one of those?

Paul: It runs through a couple
different departments. First department grinds the blank down to diameter.
These blanks we buy cut to length, but you can get 12-inch lengths and cut them
to whatever size you need. Something like this is probably a 45-minute cycle
for the spur portion of it. With fluting and spinning, we have probably closer
to two hours of grinding into something like this, which is why the price ends
up a lot higher.

Adam: Does it go quicker when you have
it automated versus manual?

Paul: It goes quicker because the
machine doesn’t take breaks. Or visit. Or talk. Or get COVID.

Automation at Wells Vehicle Electronics

Adam: Jason, would you consider that
automation? Because there is a fundamental question of what is automation.

Jason: Yeah, I consider that
automation. Before you had a machine to do that, there’s versions of that —
whether somebody’s whittling on a bench versus a more automated machine. When
you’re putting robots in there and you’re not having human interaction on it, I
would consider that automation for sure.

Adam: Wells is essentially an
automation company at the core of your engineering here in Fond du Lac. It’s an
amazing facility. Describe what Wells looks like, what a cell looks like.

Jason: Our automation team builds the
aftermarket and some OE products on the electronic side — voltage regulators,
ignition modules. A lot of small-scale automation. Our robots aren’t picking up
50–100 pounds; they’re picking up small pieces. We build all the stuff
in-house, which is nice because if a customer says they need something tweaked,
we have a tool house in-house that can make the tooling, and then we can adjust
the automation — make tweaks to robots or the assembly line. The fixture
itself, what holds the part in space in the same spot all the time — we’re able
to do that.

Jason: Typically, an operator loads
the part, and there might be a process that we can automate within there. The
next station will be automated. In some cases, we’re working on a new line
where the person loads the parts, it goes through a full automation process,
and then they just unload it. They’re loading and unloading all day long.

Paul: So your automation is way
different than ours. Our typical job is two to six pieces. If we have a big
job, we can set up our robots and have it run overnight, maybe into a second
day. 55 hours is the longest run we’ve ever had.

Jason: For us, we can’t just push a
button and it goes. There has to be some interaction with that line — either
bringing materials to it or taking materials off and loading. We don’t have
packaging at the end, so we have an operator pulling parts off and doing spot
checks — making sure there’s a date code, checking different features that
might be critical that we can’t do with the vision system.

Adam: Is there a technician that
oversees the technical aspects?

Jason: We have technicians who support
it. They’re the ones doing changeovers on the line. They’re watching the
process and can tell if glue patterns aren’t going correctly or if a cover
isn’t fitting. They can make adjustments along the way. Then we have engineers
on site — manufacturing engineers and design engineers. If it’s an issue with a
component, they’ll go and either make changes or give us solutions. We were
just working through an issue this morning — a meeting saying, here’s what we
can do to modify the parts. It’s an offline operation so we keep the lines
running.

Jason’s Background: UW–Platteville to Wells

Adam: Is your background electrical
engineering or automation engineering?

Jason: Electrical engineering. I
graduated from UW–Platteville in 1998.

Paul: I think you’re a couple years
before me, right?

Jason: You were at Platteville too?

Paul: Absolutely.

Jason: I started at Wells in 1998 when
I graduated. I’ve been there ever since. They’ve been good to me. I started as
a test engineer, building automated test equipment — mainly on ignition modules
at that time. I learned the fast-paced part of assembly and making sure lines
are staying up all the time, because that’s where you make the money. Then I
transitioned to our main plant, which used to be on Brook Street, and I
supported our Rosa, Mexico facility. That’s where I think I learned the most,
because I was the only guy supporting that. I was flying down there, building
equipment, learning on the fly. That’s where I excelled with the interaction
and the training.

Adam: Was there a language barrier?

Jason: There was, but our facility in
Mexico has a lot of good bilingual people. I tried to learn Spanish — took
classes at the tech school — but it never really panned out because you’re not
in it every day. I’d go down and try to speak it, and they’d be like, just
speak to me in English, it’s easier. You’re only going to be down here for
three or four days. We can get more done that way.

Paul’s IMTS Story: Buying the Show Floor Machine

Adam: Paul, you told a story a few
weeks ago about being at a trade show where something clicked in your mind
about going down the robotics path. What did that look like?

Paul: From my background in sales, we
talk to customers often — what’s coming next, what’s the next great thing we
need to get ahead of? The more prints we were seeing, the more tight-tolerance
tools customers were requesting. We realized they can’t find operators either
to make the parts they want. They have to have a perfect cutting tool and a
button-pusher to run the parts. So we had to invest in tighter-tolerance, more
expensive equipment.

Paul: A year ago at the IMTS show in
Chicago — we were at the trade show booth on Wednesday and looked at a new
piece of equipment. Fortunately, it was from one of our current suppliers, just
a different arena — more of the spinning portion of it. The other two guys I
was standing there with were pretty much in awe of what it could do. I sent
three more operators down on Friday. They called me in the afternoon, I got on
the phone and did the pitch: don’t send that machine back to Detroit, send it
up to Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. We’re going to buy it. The machine that was on
the trade show floor.

Adam: Were your operators excited
about that? Or was there a cultural shift to go from manual to robotic
operations?

Paul: They were giddy. They knew it
was going to open a door for us. The way it works with our company, the
operators become more of the conversation on what opportunities we can bring
in. Get five guys around the table — can we do this, what are the obstacles?
They were seeing the same thing over and over: our machine just can’t do it.
When we finally saw the machine that could, and I made all the people who
normally sit around that table go to Chicago and take a look, it was an easy
decision. A couple months later, it was on our floor, plugged in, ready to go.

Adam: Did that replace a piece of
equipment?

Paul: No. We just moved things and
tightened things up within our facility. The oldest machine is still there, and
there’s five machines to get to the brand new shiny one. It’s a history lesson
— you’ll have to come to our shop. That’s absolutely part of the equation — you
do have to realize there are feelings, egos, seniority involved. But it’s to
enhance and put our company in a better position for the future. It’s job
security for everybody who’s there and wants to learn about that piece of
equipment. And the younger guys love that type of stuff.

Standardizing Equipment & Vendor Support

Adam: How did you pick that piece of
equipment at IMTS?

Paul: We have 10 CNCs from the same
manufacturer. This is just another one, another piece of their product. We knew
where the training was going to take place, we knew what the technical support
was going to be. We’ve dealt with them since 1999. They’re experts in our
industry.

Adam: That’s key too. We’ve done the
same thing — we have a lot of Denso robots in our facility and we’ve started
looking at some of the Epson ones. But what people don’t look at is the
support. You might buy cheaper, but then what kind of service are you going to
get?

Jason: The big thing I learned was the
user groups and the stuff that’s out there online. That’s how you learn a lot.
Once you go to school, they only teach you so much. A lot of it you’re going to
learn out in the field. If you have a good staff of application engineers you
can reach out to and a company that’s established — and even if there are other
companies in the area that use the same equipment, they’ll usually help.

Adam: It’s almost shocking how helpful
some of these vendors and resources can be. We’ve got a couple companies
working with us now, tens and tens of hours, and we haven’t spent a dime. We’re
working with their application engineers. We’re a small company, we’re not
going to be buying hundreds of robots, but they’re incredibly helpful.

Jason: You might pay a little bit more
for that piece of equipment, but if you have the support and if it does go
down, you could lose all that extra money you saved in a matter of days.

Over-Automating & 3D Modeling

Adam: Have you ever over-automated?

Jason: I’m trying to think. The thing
with automation is, you might have an idea, put it in the model, draw it up,
start running parts, and you typically don’t know how that automation is going
to run until you get maybe 500,000 parts. Then you might find out — oh, this is
— things wear out, or a part over time starts catching or scuffing. Plastic
pieces start coming out, maybe start sticking. In theory and in thinking
through things, we have drawn up over-automation, and we’ll scale back. You’re
simulating the whole thing. When I started designing test equipment, a lot of
stuff was still 2D. Now everything is 3D. You can draw in the whole model, know
exactly how everything’s going to fit. With 3D modeling, it’s incredible.
Things would be so much harder without it.

Adam: It ends up being a pretty
mechanically heavy engineering discipline — a lot of time spent in SolidWorks
or modeling software.

Jason: That’s where we have the key
differences. We have the mechanical guys and the electrical guys. In our
groups, you have the manufacturing engineers, the test engineers, and the
automation engineers. The automation engineers typically have a more mechanical
background, with some programming. If you’re going to get an electrical guy
like myself, you’re going to lean more towards the testing end of it or
programming. You can get a mechanical or electrical degree and go different
ways. We’ve got mechanical guys that do automation and are good programmers. It
just depends on your thought process.

Paul’s New Facility: Show Off the Investment

Adam: Paul, you have a really great
shop — clean, climate-controlled. What was the driver behind that?

Paul: Our previous building, the
previous owner moved there in ’98. It was an L-shaped building that hosted
three businesses. It was chopped up — saw department, manual department, CNC
department — and it just didn’t flow well. If you brought in a customer, the
first thing they saw was our antiquated manual department, and our CNC was the
last thing they’d see. So we said, if we ever get to a new facility, we’re
going to show off our most recent investments in equipment and make it
appealing. So whether we know what we’re doing or not, we look like we do.

Adam: You go through Wells, it’s like,
wow, these guys know what they’re doing. I think that’s part of opening up the
kitchen. The best restaurants are where you can see into the kitchen. The best
manufacturing facilities are willing to have people walk through.

Paul: You can have the best web page
in the world, but they still can’t get a feel for your shop until they’re
there. Once customers walk through all of our facilities, they’re hooked. Even
with the high school tours — one of our recent hires was a student from Waupun
who went to our facility a year and a half ago on one of the Project Grill
tours. They liked it. We didn’t even have a position open, and they said, I’d
like to come, I’m looking for a job, I’ve graduated now. Within five minutes,
we were offering them the job. They said they wanted to work here because of
what they saw during the tour.

Adam: How many people do you have
working there?

Paul: We have 28. We have three youth
apprenticeships right now. First and second shift in our CNC department — only
four guys work second shift. And it’s ideal working hours — we’re working
4/10s.

People, Retention & Attitude

Becca: Paul, you also have really nice
people. When we came in for that interview with WMC and did that video shoot,
your guys on the shop floor were so friendly. They were willing to talk,
explain it, walk me around and show me the different equipment so I could
understand the total process from A to Z. They were just lovely people.

Paul: Of 28 employees right now, 22
people are on our wall for dedicated years of service — meaning they’ve been
there 5 years or more, from between 5 and 35 years. Our company’s been around
for 36 years. Once people show up and see this is a good place, they stay. We
pay fair for the market, our benefits are tremendous, the hours work out really
well. But we look for people who have the right attitudes. We’re not looking
for all the electrical engineers on the planet. You come with the right
attitude and we’re ready to go.

Equipment Maintenance & SolidWorks

Adam: How do you maintain all the new
equipment?

Paul: We have checklists — monthly. We
rarely have to do yearly maintenance on any of our CNCs. For instance, with the
piece of equipment we just bought — one of our ANCA CNCs — we sent two guys to
the manufacturer in Detroit for a week’s worth of training. They learned how to
do basic fixing if there’s a breakdown. Otherwise, we wait for a technician. We
don’t have a person on staff specifically trained for breakdowns. We’ve learned
that investing in better equipment means we don’t have the breakdowns.

Adam: On the design side, you have two
process engineers?

Paul: Two process engineers — guys who
came from the floor. They don’t have degrees, but they’ve gotten training from
the manufacturers themselves. One big leap we talked about before was
SolidWorks. We just implemented that in January. There was plenty of training
from SolidWorks in December and January. Before that, we were using Turbo CAD,
CAD Key — basic two-dimensional things. But we had to get to 3D. And the
operators learned it. It’s about perception, too — when the customer sees a 3D
model versus a 2D drawing, who are they going to go with? These guys got it
going with 3D.

Open Doors & Collaboration

Becca: I think it’s really cool
looking at the table — you guys are all sitting there in your logoed shirts.
Three different manufacturers from Fond du Lac. The open-door policy that Adam
talks about a lot — not just the best kitchens are the ones you can see, but
the idea that we don’t need to be so secretive. This is exactly what Wells and
Integrity and WiLL are doing. You’re opening the doors, collaborating, working
with each other, not against each other.

Jason: Wells has been good about that
ever since I’ve been there. Nobody’s been like, you can’t take pictures or
you’ve got to be careful. We’ve been pretty open with people. That’s how you
collaborate and learn. We don’t really have any competitors in the area. It’s
like, hey, you want to see how we use this robot, or what kind of tooling, or
how we picked that part up? Come on over and check it out.

Adam: Typically, manufacturing is just
the opposite — a big box nobody’s allowed to walk into. There’s so much that
everybody can learn from each other. We had our committee meeting a few weeks
ago, talked about automation, and I got back to the office and emailed Paul
immediately — can I come see the robot? Sure enough, we’ve been working with
that particular company now for the last few weeks, and we’ve designed a whole
painting system that can paint 30-foot light poles five or 600% faster than an
operator. It’s just based on a lot of that collaboration.

Adam: Since we got our MIT group
together and started doing tours of local businesses, it’s really opened up
eyes for all of us. Even Mercury Marine — you’d think they’d have everything
locked down. No — as long as there’s enough people for a tour, they’re more
than happy to share. If we can get everybody in the area on board with that —
people would want to move to Fond du Lac County. That’s what this area is good
at: the engineering, the manufacturing, the hands-on technical things that
happen below the radar. It doesn’t get a lot of press typically, but that’s
changing, and being proud of that history and doubling down on it is important.

Adam: Thanks a lot, guys. Thanks for
all you do in the area. We’ll keep promoting the engineers and the builders and
the manufacturing companies, and good things will happen.

Jason: Absolutely.

Paul: Thanks for having us on.