Electro Impact
Font size:
Reconfiguring something old to make it new
A highly-specialized mechanical engineering firm took an old concept and made it new again, laying the foundation years later for its turn-key aerospace automation and assembly tooling system. Globally and nationally recognized as the go-to guys in the industry, ABJ’s Antonia McGuire speaks to Electroimpact to find out what pushed them to the top of their class.
When it comes to designing mechanical parts for transportation and industrial factory automation and tooling systems, Electroimpact is the company to call. If you are already in that business you probably already know that, as recent new business has come by word of mouth, according to Ben Hempstead, mechanical engineering lead with the company for the past 15 years.
“We’ve been in business for 22 years now and our core patent is the electricmagnetic riveting process, which was originally patented by Boeing,” tells Hempstead.
Back in the 1980s, this specialized riveting process wasn’t being used by the aerospace giant Boeing because it was considered dangerous in its original configuration, causing harm in the workplace. “This technology was just sitting on the shelf when our president, Peter Zieve, a graduate student at the University of Washington at the time, came across the patent and redesigned it so it was safer and sold it back to Boeing. That was the foundation of our business plan,” explains Hempstead, who adds the Washington-based company has international deals from the U.K. to Israel. Recent customers include: Boeing, Airbus, Kawasaki, Vought, Spirit, Mitsubishi and Shorts Brothers.
One-stop shop its the bill of requirements
Developing this riveting technology was a springboard for Electroimpact’s successful growth pattern. “After figuring out we could do these rivets, people began to ask: where is the hole where these rivets go? Can you make us a spindle to drill the hole? Sure. Then, the question is, can you drill the hole that we want up in space, farther than a person can reach? Can you make us a machine to go and squeeze the components together, drill the hole, put the rivet in and form it? Yes. A couple of years later, the question is well, what’s holding these airplane parts that all need drilling and riveting? Can you make us a tool to hold all the airplane parts? Yes, we’ll make you a tool. Now, we make the jig and the machine that process the wing parts. Then, the question is how many jigs do we need to build our wings for the customer? This leads to entire manufacturing layouts,” recounts Hempstead.
An engineer’s ideal workplace
About 22 years later, the company’s forte is turn-key factory automation for the entire production line of wings and also, fuselage tools designed mostly for commercial aircraft. However, the founder Zieve didn’t go into business to develop this technology. “He went into business so that he could build the ultimate engineer’s company. His initial plan was to have a company where the engineers are the key personnel and have all the flexibility, so they have the power to do their best work,” tells Hempstead, adding the unique corporate culture attests to the yearly $80 million gross revenue. At Electroimpact, the engineers have ultimate personal responsibility for their work, which includes concept design all the way through their analysis to simulations, fabrication drawings, assembly drawings, manufacturing, assembly, test and on-site installation.
The engineers at Electroimpact are permanent fixtures in the office with so-called vertical responsibility from top to bottom. “From a management point of view, it’s fantastic. If something doesn’t work, I only have to find one person. From the employee’s point of view, when things go right they get all the credit,” explains Hempstead. The company structure is a win-win situation, but it does come with a high price tag. For instance, there is some loss of efficiency if 250 people are all purchasing at the same time.
“We have to charge a lot of money per hour in order to support this company,” tells Hempstead. “On the other hand”, he says, “when you are the best at what you do in the industry, clients see it as a worthwhile investment.”
Reputable services pread by word of mouth
In order to stay on top of a highly competitive and specialized industry, Electroimpact has maintained a three-fold strategic approach to push out the best products and tools.
“Our primary strategy is while we’re in a factory on a customer’s site and installing a product we’ve designed, we typically take an opportunity to walk around the facility to see what else is going on,” tells Hempstead. By simply looking for ways to add value, he says, it easy to approach the facility manager to offer a solution to an obsolete process, for example, that saves money, is safer and faster. If the company agrees to entertain a proposal, the company goes forward with preliminary drawings to build a business case.
The other strategy is to present technical papers at conferences, where you can also network and find new business. “We go and hang out with our competitors to see what they’re doing,” tells Hempstead, adding sometimes exhibitors with state-of-the-art products inspire them to find a way to incorporate new improvements into our products. “And it goes both ways,” he says. But perhaps what is most rewarding for Electroimpact is the interest generated simply by word of mouth. “We just got a call from plant manager in Florida, who makes parts for Boeing and Airbus. He had heard that we did a really good job in sister facilities in Nashville and asked if we’d come down to talk about automating their factory,” he explains.
The answer was yes, of course. In fact, this is a recurring scenario for the company.
Broadened customer ase expands market share
Referrals typically lead to a whole new line of products and new work. “As our reputation gets better each year, the broader our market penetration gets,” says Hempstead. “For many years, Electroimpact’s main client was 80 percent Boeing. Then, the pendulum swung the other way and for awhile it was 80 percent Airbus. Now, we have large contracts with Short Brothers in Ireland. We sell equipment to all the Tier 1s that supply to Boeing,” says Hempstead, adding they have a customer base that includes Airbus, Kawasaki, Vought, Spirit, XAC in China, Mitsubishi and Shorts Brothers in Belfast, Ireland.
New contract presents opportunity to diversify
What is exciting the engineers now is the anticipated launch of Bombardier’s a newest jet called the C-series. The manufacturing and assembly work has been sub-contracted to companies like Electroimpact. “The Irish factory said, ‘We need a wing factory, who does that? Electroimpact.’ We got the sub-contract with them. That’s one way to diversify,” tells Hempstead. “We do military work as well; about 10 percent,” he says, adding from structural elements for the C-17s, a Boeing product, to the F-18 and F-22 fighter aircraft. “There’s not as much automation on the military side versus the commercial side. The volumes are lower,” tells Hempstead. Looking at the company’s share in the pie, about 60 percent of their contracts are Airbus, 16 percent Boeing, 11 percent with the Shorts Brothers in Belfast, 5 percent Spirit, with the rest at other end-customers such as, USAF, KHI and Vought.
When it comes to the outer bounds of aerospace, Electroimpact plays an exciting part. “We make the world’s largest satellite dollies and transporting containers. Usually there aren’t any rocket launch sites near the manufacturing facilities where these satellites are built,” explains Hempstead. “We just did the most expensive satellite ever launched; that is, one of our containers was used this past July, which was cool,” he says.
Re-positioning to get a hold of the hottest new sector
These days, the brass ring that everyone is trying to grab is automated fiber placement. “If you think about the airplanes of yesterday made with aluminum with metallic wings and fuselages, well, the new direction that major airplane manufacturers are going in now is carbon-fiber wings and fuselages such as, the Boeing 787s and the A350 Airbus,” tells Hempstead. “This shift would cut into our traditional customer base or business model because we make riveting tools and assembly for metal structures,” he says. No fear, Electroimpact now specializes in that too.
A highly-specialized mechanical engineering firm took an old concept and made it new again, laying the foundation years later for its turn-key aerospace automation and assembly tooling system. Globally and nationally recognized as the go-to guys in the industry, ABJ’s Antonia McGuire speaks to Electroimpact to find out what pushed them to the top of their class.
When it comes to designing mechanical parts for transportation and industrial factory automation and tooling systems, Electroimpact is the company to call. If you are already in that business you probably already know that, as recent new business has come by word of mouth, according to Ben Hempstead, mechanical engineering lead with the company for the past 15 years.
“We’ve been in business for 22 years now and our core patent is the electricmagnetic riveting process, which was originally patented by Boeing,” tells Hempstead.
Back in the 1980s, this specialized riveting process wasn’t being used by the aerospace giant Boeing because it was considered dangerous in its original configuration, causing harm in the workplace. “This technology was just sitting on the shelf when our president, Peter Zieve, a graduate student at the University of Washington at the time, came across the patent and redesigned it so it was safer and sold it back to Boeing. That was the foundation of our business plan,” explains Hempstead, who adds the Washington-based company has international deals from the U.K. to Israel. Recent customers include: Boeing, Airbus, Kawasaki, Vought, Spirit, Mitsubishi and Shorts Brothers.
One-stop shop its the bill of requirements
Developing this riveting technology was a springboard for Electroimpact’s successful growth pattern. “After figuring out we could do these rivets, people began to ask: where is the hole where these rivets go? Can you make us a spindle to drill the hole? Sure. Then, the question is, can you drill the hole that we want up in space, farther than a person can reach? Can you make us a machine to go and squeeze the components together, drill the hole, put the rivet in and form it? Yes. A couple of years later, the question is well, what’s holding these airplane parts that all need drilling and riveting? Can you make us a tool to hold all the airplane parts? Yes, we’ll make you a tool. Now, we make the jig and the machine that process the wing parts. Then, the question is how many jigs do we need to build our wings for the customer? This leads to entire manufacturing layouts,” recounts Hempstead.
An engineer’s ideal workplace
About 22 years later, the company’s forte is turn-key factory automation for the entire production line of wings and also, fuselage tools designed mostly for commercial aircraft. However, the founder Zieve didn’t go into business to develop this technology. “He went into business so that he could build the ultimate engineer’s company. His initial plan was to have a company where the engineers are the key personnel and have all the flexibility, so they have the power to do their best work,” tells Hempstead, adding the unique corporate culture attests to the yearly $80 million gross revenue. At Electroimpact, the engineers have ultimate personal responsibility for their work, which includes concept design all the way through their analysis to simulations, fabrication drawings, assembly drawings, manufacturing, assembly, test and on-site installation.
The engineers at Electroimpact are permanent fixtures in the office with so-called vertical responsibility from top to bottom. “From a management point of view, it’s fantastic. If something doesn’t work, I only have to find one person. From the employee’s point of view, when things go right they get all the credit,” explains Hempstead. The company structure is a win-win situation, but it does come with a high price tag. For instance, there is some loss of efficiency if 250 people are all purchasing at the same time.
“We have to charge a lot of money per hour in order to support this company,” tells Hempstead. “On the other hand”, he says, “when you are the best at what you do in the industry, clients see it as a worthwhile investment.”
Reputable services pread by word of mouth
In order to stay on top of a highly competitive and specialized industry, Electroimpact has maintained a three-fold strategic approach to push out the best products and tools.
“Our primary strategy is while we’re in a factory on a customer’s site and installing a product we’ve designed, we typically take an opportunity to walk around the facility to see what else is going on,” tells Hempstead. By simply looking for ways to add value, he says, it easy to approach the facility manager to offer a solution to an obsolete process, for example, that saves money, is safer and faster. If the company agrees to entertain a proposal, the company goes forward with preliminary drawings to build a business case.
The other strategy is to present technical papers at conferences, where you can also network and find new business. “We go and hang out with our competitors to see what they’re doing,” tells Hempstead, adding sometimes exhibitors with state-of-the-art products inspire them to find a way to incorporate new improvements into our products. “And it goes both ways,” he says. But perhaps what is most rewarding for Electroimpact is the interest generated simply by word of mouth. “We just got a call from plant manager in Florida, who makes parts for Boeing and Airbus. He had heard that we did a really good job in sister facilities in Nashville and asked if we’d come down to talk about automating their factory,” he explains.
The answer was yes, of course. In fact, this is a recurring scenario for the company.
Broadened customer ase expands market share
Referrals typically lead to a whole new line of products and new work. “As our reputation gets better each year, the broader our market penetration gets,” says Hempstead. “For many years, Electroimpact’s main client was 80 percent Boeing. Then, the pendulum swung the other way and for awhile it was 80 percent Airbus. Now, we have large contracts with Short Brothers in Ireland. We sell equipment to all the Tier 1s that supply to Boeing,” says Hempstead, adding they have a customer base that includes Airbus, Kawasaki, Vought, Spirit, XAC in China, Mitsubishi and Shorts Brothers in Belfast, Ireland.
New contract presents opportunity to diversify
What is exciting the engineers now is the anticipated launch of Bombardier’s a newest jet called the C-series. The manufacturing and assembly work has been sub-contracted to companies like Electroimpact. “The Irish factory said, ‘We need a wing factory, who does that? Electroimpact.’ We got the sub-contract with them. That’s one way to diversify,” tells Hempstead. “We do military work as well; about 10 percent,” he says, adding from structural elements for the C-17s, a Boeing product, to the F-18 and F-22 fighter aircraft. “There’s not as much automation on the military side versus the commercial side. The volumes are lower,” tells Hempstead. Looking at the company’s share in the pie, about 60 percent of their contracts are Airbus, 16 percent Boeing, 11 percent with the Shorts Brothers in Belfast, 5 percent Spirit, with the rest at other end-customers such as, USAF, KHI and Vought.
When it comes to the outer bounds of aerospace, Electroimpact plays an exciting part. “We make the world’s largest satellite dollies and transporting containers. Usually there aren’t any rocket launch sites near the manufacturing facilities where these satellites are built,” explains Hempstead. “We just did the most expensive satellite ever launched; that is, one of our containers was used this past July, which was cool,” he says.
Re-positioning to get a hold of the hottest new sector
These days, the brass ring that everyone is trying to grab is automated fiber placement. “If you think about the airplanes of yesterday made with aluminum with metallic wings and fuselages, well, the new direction that major airplane manufacturers are going in now is carbon-fiber wings and fuselages such as, the Boeing 787s and the A350 Airbus,” tells Hempstead. “This shift would cut into our traditional customer base or business model because we make riveting tools and assembly for metal structures,” he says. No fear, Electroimpact now specializes in that too.
del.icio.us
Digg
NewsVine
Mixx
FaceBook
Twitter
Email this article
Print
Plain text
