Time For Metal Forming To Shine

Time For Metal Forming To Shine

Kent Djubek

A Message Of Inspiration From Ajax President Kent Djubek.

America has a remarkable ability to land on its feet. That will once again be the case as we fight past this current pandemic.

The management group here at Ajax remains very confident in our ability to emerge from this crisis stronger, smarter, and better prepared. Our 75 arduous but productive years have hardened us against challenges. We know we can win.

Three years ago, we teamed up with Heartland Equity Partners, a community-minded investment fund with an outstanding record of stewardship. We’re fortunate to have a leadership team this experienced and resourceful.

On the people side of the equation, there’s even more to appreciate. Our department heads are proven individuals who are committed to their assignments. Our colleagues on the plant floor are demonstrating impressive bravery as they press on despite uncertainty.

We also view this moment as a rare opportunity to form our young people into the manufacturing leaders of the future. They’ll fall back on this experience and use it to project confidence each time a storm gathers on the horizon. They’ll also learn critical steps for maintaining the wellness of a workforce as they witness everything we’re doing at both our locations to prevent spread.

Most importantly, our essential industry customers continue to demand the parts and services Ajax provides. With guidance from the National Association of Manufacturers, the Centers for Disease Control, the Precision Metalforming Association, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, we have followed guidelines perfectly and have maintained our critical supplier status.

Due to the nature of COVID-19, air handling and purification is an area of immediate need among health care providers. With decades of experience serving heating, ventilation, air conditioning, and refrigeration companies, as well as medical instrument manufacturers, Ajax will continue to provide our customers with the formed parts they require to meet this demand.  Ajax is indeed part of the solution.

My belief that America has the resources and the will to endure is shared by many. Congress is taking action to pump new life into the American economy. Our manufacturing community has the perseverance to get past this character-building moment.

It’s time for the metal forming industry to shine.  All it will take is teamwork.

2018 Ajax Newsletter Issue #1 Now Online

2018 Ajax Newsletter Issue #1 Now Online

Download the most recent issue of the Ajax Innovator and get caught up on the latest Ajax Metal Forming News. This special issue leads off with a great story about the convergence of capital, technology, and know-how. Don’t miss it! (more…)

Workcells Boost Efficiency, Cut Waste

Workcells Boost Efficiency, Cut Waste

Since the publication of “The Machine That Changed the World” by James Womack, Daniel Jones, and Daniel Roos in 1991, companies have sought to improve on the workcell idea. Also known as the kaizen process, workcell benefits are undeniable: minimal waste, reduced production bottlenecks, and — best of all — lowest possible final cost of production. What’s not to like.

The first beneficiaries of workcells were automakers. Their huge production runs of similar, internally planned products yielded immediate rewards. But companies like Ajax face different challenges. Ajax produces products specified by our customers. That means Ajax’s workcell development must be responsive to customer requirements.
Using RIEs To Implement Work Cells

RIEs (Rapid Improvement Events) isolate key departmental managers and tasks them with improving a single business process in a short amount of time. The event is not considered complete until the process improvement actually takes place. RIEs require quite a bit of advance planning to be successful. Most of the prep work involves gathering decision-making data so that the process does not stall. Top management must also make sure the RIE team feels free to make important decisions. Some of these decisions may require significant changes within the organization. That can cause disruption.

“REIs aren’t necessarily easy,” said Ajax Vice President of Sales and Marketing Don Wellman. “It’s all about making our processes better for our customers.”
“We place emphasis on the rapid part of RIEs,” Don continued. “Corporate speed makes a big difference when working with world-class OEMs. We need to move as fast as they do.”
Don said Ajax plans on doing at least three RIEs this year. “Workcells are a priority with our RIEs, since they yield so many benefits that directly improve customer service and value”.

Forming Ajax Careers, Now And In The Future

Forming Ajax Careers, Now And In The Future

Curt Jasper and Courtney Mickelson devote huge amounts of time and energy to the people side of the business.

HR Manager Courtney Mickelson and Director of Operations Curt Jasper

”The Ajax team is proactively learning how to grow the company’s talent pool by volunteering on local organizations’ boards or discussion panels to understand colleague and employer issues.“ We always look for new avenues to approach our next career objective,” Curt said.

The Company’s #1 Talent Builder – The Skills Matrix

Ajax Plant Manager Brandon Holmes is a perfect example of how development programs can identify and grow talented people quickly. Brandon joined Ajax in 2007 and worked his way up through production, fabrication, logistics, and management roles to become the company’s newest Plant Manager.

HR Manager Courtney Mickelson and Director of Operations Curt Jasper
Brandon is a credentialed Class A Journeyworker whose professional development includes creating, attending, and instructing the M-Powered manufacturing program at Hennepin Technical College and the sheet metal program at Anoka Technical College, both in Minneapolis. Brandon has completed coursework in lean manufacturing and six sigma process improvement and is a Certified Professional Project Manager (CPPM).

The Ajax Skills Matrix is a color-coded grid that shows a composite of production skills needed and mastered by members of the Ajax workforce. This at-a-glance talent management tool, posted prominently in the company break room, inspires workforce members to learn new skills and become the multi-skilled team that boosts production efficiency. Managers can also assess the available skills at any given time and contrast that to the production schedule, enabling them to quickly identify and correct any future gaps.

Benefits To Workforce and Customers Alike

Put yourself in the Ajax customer’s shoes (if you already have, thank you!) and imagine you’ve just handed off a critical project on a tight timeline. Wouldn’t you be happy to know the many ways the Skills Matrix improves performance on your project? Here are just a few examples.

  • Increased workforce competency and greater personal commitment to your project’s success.
  • Greater management understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of people assigned to your project.
  • Increased production capacity and efficiency through earlier detection of skills shortages.
  • Improved recruitment efficiency through hiring and training people with backgrounds in areas of need.
  • Better project planning based on the projected availability of skilled people.
  • More consistency and stability, keeping the company, and your projects, moving forward.
  • Better product quality and reduced production bottlenecks.
  • Inspires workforce members to build their talents because the company’s steady growth yields new career opportunities.
Ajax Production Manager Brandon Holmes

Ajax Production Manager Brandon Holmes

It Starts At The Top

The Skills Matrix only works when company management is committed to seeing it through and keeping it embedded in the minds of people at all levels of the company. Vice President of Sales Don Wellman said the Skills Matrix must become part of the Ajax core culture. “It starts with us,” he said. “Management needs to prioritize the Skills Matrix in order to get the most from it.”

Don said once people begin to see the benefits of the Skills Matrix, the cultural embedding gets easier.  “The good news is that everyone can see how well it works,” Don said. “That gives the entire Skills Matrix project plenty of momentum to keep it rolling forward.”

Engineering From The Ground Up

Engineering From The Ground Up

The Ajax Metal Forming quality assurance team has continually invested in new scanning technology that enables them to meet and exceed tolerance specs.

The FARO ScanArm, a technology that the Ajax QA team has been working with for more than a year, features opticallysuperior blue laser technology with fast scanning speeds to deliver high resolution point cloud data and the ability to seamlessly scan challenging materials.

The device is lightweight and very maneuverable for convenient desktop mounting in the QA lab. This is ideal for metal formed parts scanning.

What’s new these days is that the Ajax QA team can now use the latest ScanArm software to generate CAD files and documentation as part of a reverse engineering process.

The QA team can quickly digitize a part and create a fully surfaced CAD model which can then be used for tooling, manufacture, project costing, and redesign.

This process is ideal for a multitude of metal forming and reverse engineering applications including the development of virtual simulations, rapid prototyping, and composite surface inspections.

The ScanArm’s PolyWorks software is a full-featured reverse engineering software that combines history-based CAD with 3D scan data to create feature-based, editable solid modeling.

Tool Design – Ajax Metal Forming Newsletter

2017 Issue #1 of the Ajax Metal Forming newsletter is ready to download!  This issue includes a feature story about tool design and tight tolerance machine tooling.  Plus updates on our 2017 events and a message from Erick Ajax. (more…)