Cut out for the part: a steel company, once known for just cutting steel, added a laser cutter that let it move into parts production.

Benjamin Steel Co., Inc., Springfield, OH, has been saw-cutting, shearing, and oxy-fuel and plasma cutting carbon-based plates, sheet, shapes, hot-roll and cold-drawn bars, grating, pipe, and tubing products for decades. Since future success in the steel service-center business is based on the ability to provide value-added processing, the company decided to expand its capacities to offer more for customers.

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"We bought a machine without having one customer that we knew for sure was going to order product from us," Nick Demana, president of the company, said. "The little bit of analysis we did led us to believe that this is the right direction for us to go, because it is clear that our industry is doing more and more manufacturing-like activities. And, it's clear that value-added processes are going to continue to be important to our future."

Prior to the addition of the FabriGear 150 3D laser cutting system from Mazak Optonics, Schaumburg, IL, Benjamin Steel saw-cut bars to length and delivered them to customers.

"Now, we can make parts," Demana said. "The advantage of the machine is that it can replace various steps that require multiple machines and multiple logistics to produce a part. We are now able to handle that in one process."

This machine is a multi-axis, automated rotary laser that can fabricate tube, pipe, and structural shapes with all the contours and bevels needed for tight fits on a wide variety of pipe joints and additional intersecting or adjoining pipes. To achieve these 3D shapes, the machine's 64-bit CNC controls a five-axis laser cutting system and four programmable rotary chucks. The dimensional accuracies that result from laser cutting can eliminate time and costs in such downstream operations as fitting, welding, and weld prep.

Benjamin Steel saw these results. When the machine became operational, the company saw approximately $5,000 in monthly processing revenue. That quickly jumped to $10,000, to $20,000, and then $25,000 in the first six months that it had the machine. More than a year later, Benjamin Steel exceeds $30,000 each month in processing revenue from the FabriGear 150, which operates on three shifts, around the clock, five days a week.

"About a year after installation, we decided to add a third operator to let us run production on the equipment on all three shifts," Demana said. "At first we were producing about a truck load of steel parts per month. We're now averaging three or more truckloads of finished parts per month."

New Capability, New Customers

The increased processing capabilities led to new customers, which increased Benjamin Steel's material sales as well. According to Demana, 80 to 90 percent of the material run on the machine is from existing customers, 10 to 20 percent is new business. The ability to perform intricate processing also has led Benjamin Steel to offer design assistance to its customers in order to make the best use of the FabriGear.

Not only is the machine making customer satisfaction easier, but it is resulting in increased processing sales, increased material sales, and the addition of informal customer design work.

"We've got to work hand-in-hand with customers to help them develop their designs and the design process," Demana said. "We saw this as an important opportunity early on but we did not anticipate this concept would become a reality in our every day selling and marketing as it has."

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As a result, Benjamin Steel's sales force is becoming more manufacturing oriented and Demana is considering adding a sales engineer position. In the meantime, the sales force is planning to take advanced training to give it a better handle on the machine's capabilities as they relate to customer needs.

"Our processing services are value-added activities and something we've been focusing on as a whole in the last few years," Demana said. "They are extremely important to the success of our company."

Steel bars, structural shapes, tubing, and pipe, in addition to sheet and plate are the company's core products.

"The FabriGear fits with what we value in terms of continuing to increase our processing sales," Demana said.

Among the products that Benjamin Steel now processes for customers, because of the new machine, are structural components for a tower that houses agricultural equipment, parts for jail cell doors, lift truck parts, crane parts, exhaust tubing, parts for manufacturing plant racking and storage systems, truck bed ramping and framing, and various heavy equipment and conveyor equipment. The company also is able to do some prototype work and produce samples that Demana said is an investment in the future. Mazak Optonics Corp.

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