A shop floor that needs both the old and new

A panoramic view of Faspro Technologies in Arlington Heights, Ill., reveals a timeline of manufacturing technology. The fabricator has focused on the thin-sheet fabrication needs of electronics prototyping. It performs photochemical etching, also called photochemical machining (PCM), which etches away kerfs and other geometries for material between 0.001 and 0.050 in.

Those thin parts are then sent to a forming area quite different from a brake department at a typical custom fabricator. Instead of a row of press brakes, the company has rows of manual presses where a good portion of the company’s operate to put forms in extremely small components. These components are designed to protect microchips on PC boards, serve as an internal antenna on a smartphone, and serve numerous other purposes in the micro-electronics assemblies that run our world.

To make a prototype of a smartphone still requires old-school mechanical aptitude. Technicians learn on the job. They learn the feel of making a tiny draw feature in material just a few thousandths thick.

Adjacent to this is a laser/turret punch press combination machine and a large CNC press brake with automatic tool changing capability, complete with mechanized fingers that remove and place punch and die sections into place.

The company purchased these systems to provide additional services for its core customer base in the electronics business. An electronics company may need a thin shield to protect microchips, but also 0.125-in.-thick sheet metal enclosures or racking components.

These two operations—one for conventional sheet metal up to 0.125 in. thick, another for 0.001 to 0.050 in.—paint a good picture of U.S. manufacturing’s ability to respond quickly. Automation plays a central role in all this, but it’s not the only role. Sometimes the best tools available for quick response don’t come with a CNC. When available, automation can do wonders for quick changeovers, a vital part of a job shop’s productivity equation. But to tackle certain niche areas, manufacturing still requires a manual, hands-on approach.

People may be manipulating parts in front of a manual press or in front of a computer screen. Nevertheless, in all cases the technician still needs mechanical aptitude, a visual kind of creative thinking that helps turns a sheet metal blank into a precisely formed part.