Page 30 - MetalForming November 2011

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sophisticated metal products. It serves customers in diverse industries such as air cargo, office equipment, munitions, trucking, telecommunications, chem- icals, pharmaceutical, public utilities, aerospace, feed and grain, entertain- ment and sound control.
The U.S. military frequently taps the company for rapid-prototype devel- opment, including recovery trailers and protective turrets that sit on top of Humvees as shields for soldiers who serve as gunners. And Schleich notes that the speed and flexibility of its laser- cutting machines play a significant roll in attracting this business.
The shop over the years has run sev- eral generations of CO2-laser-cutting machines, the latest of which are a pair of 4000-W machines. Both models are Trumpf TruLaser 4030 models that fea- ture 80- by 160-in. worktables, and which, says Schleich, “cut 1-in. steel beautifully.”
Some 80 percent of the material processed through E.S. Metal is cut on its laser-cutting machines. “All of our customers request the edge quality that only lasers can provide,” Schleich says. “At one point we were laser cutting stainless steel about 90 percent of the time, when our customer base includ- ed numerous companies serving the plating industry. When a lot of that work went to Mexico, we reinvented ourselves. Now, a significant percentage of our work is cutting mild steel for customers in a variety of industries, including automotive and green-ener- gy applications. We don’t try to steer the boat, we just follow the current.”
E.S. Metal’s active customer base numbers around 50. Sixty percent of those customers are big repeaters, the remainder small one-off work. “We have a lot of people from the commu- nity stop in and ask us to make a single part for them,” says Eric. And while those types of requests certainly aren’t profitable, E.S. Metal’s founder says he tries his best to honor them.
After all, he points out, “That’s why we’re in this business. We’re here to help people.” MF
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28 MetalForming/November 2011
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