Tube bender fortifies automation strategy

A high-mix, low-volume fabricator through and through, Custom Tube Products has developed a core competence in automation. Image provided

If you were to compare Custom Tube Products Inc., Edgewater, Fla., in 2021 to the company as it was founded in 1986, you probably wouldn’t believe it’s the same place. Originally a two-man machine shop called D & S Aviation, it focused almost exclusively on aircraft repair. It was owned and operated by William Love, a machinist who held Federal Aviation Administration certifications for airframe and powerplant repair and inspection. A sole permanent employee, machinist Jeff Simmons, was the only other person on the payroll.

Occasionally it was a three-man shop. David Love, son of the owner, spent summers working there during his high-school and college years. Because the shop was small and focused on a tiny niche, the younger Love didn’t see a future for himself as a machinist or company owner. He wasn’t even interested in pursuing anything related to manufacturing or technology when he was considering a college education. Accomplished at playing classical guitar, he enrolled in an undergrad music program.

But all that changed when David got a chance to tour a large manufacturer’s facility. He saw machining on an entirely different scale than in his father’s shop. It was a big place that left a big impression, and it changed his perspective on pursuing a career in manufacturing. He immediately did a U-turn and enrolled in an engineering program.

Did he pursue tube fabrication after he transitioned to be the business owner? No. It wasn’t like that at all. He was interested in metal fabrication long before he took over the company. He actually worked up a quote on a fabricating project while he was still attending classes at the University of Florida, majoring in industrial and systems engineering. He won the bid and had to hustle to buy the equipment, procure the raw materials, and learn some of the ins and outs of tube fabrication so he could start making parts to fulfil the contract.

In the ensuing years, he’s learned a lot more about fabricating small-diameter tubing and quite a bit about automating such processes.

Striving for Market Diversity

“When we added tube fabrication to our machining capabilities [in 2000], we were still about 99% involved in aviation,” Love said. By 2007, when The Tube & Pipe Journal interviewed Love for an article titled “A high-flying metal fabricator,” aviation accounted for about 75% of the business. Love had leveraged his manufacturing savvy and branched out to a few other industries, and he has continued on the path to diversification, establishing a reputation for itself in the medical and commercial fields. Medical work includes components and assemblies for cryogenic cooling systems, oxygen delivery systems, and medical devices. The company’s commercial work includes components, kits, and assemblies for various sorts of machinery, compressors, air-vacuum systems, control panel tubing, and myriad other applications.

CTP has done well on this journey. The company’s shares in other markets have grown, and these days aviation accounts for about 25% of its revenue. Love’s goal is to position the company so that no market accounts for more than 10% of its business.

The company’s strong focus on aviation in the early days provided an excellent foundation for branching out into other markets. Few industries have quality standards as stringent as those in the aviation industry, so CTP started with a high bar in this regard.

The company also has done as much as it can to diversify the services it provides. It does far more than fabricate tube (bending and end forming), doing quite a bit of assembly work—essentially without limits—adding components, and doing any brazing or welding necessary. If a customer needs an off-the-shelf fitting added to a bent-and-flared tube, CTP has an extensive list of suppliers. If a customer needs something unusual, the company has 10 CNC machining centers—lathes and screw machines—and can provide all sorts of threaded nuts, ferrules, flanges, and adapters.

The company’s latest investment in tube bending technology, a CRIPPA model 1042, is a good fit for its core competence, culture, and vision.

The fabricator also prides itself on flexibility in deliveries. For a product with inconsistent demand or one made from a difficult-to-source material, it maintains a small inventory and in some cases makes shipments on the day the order is placed.

Love also is careful to keep the company focus on industrial applications. He sees these as the foundation of a sound business. He stays away from anything oriented toward consumer sales and the retail environment. Consumer tastes can change without warning, fads come and go, and many products in this market aren’t destined to last.

Automating a Way Forward in Small-diameter Tube

Success doesn’t come by accident; Love has a vision for the company.

“We always keep a few key selection criteria in mind when we’re considering new business,” Love said.

Beyond the focus on tubular parts in diameters from 0.125 to 2 in., the executive team looks for medium to high volumes. The company has been known to make parts in volumes as small as one unit, but it strives for volumes that are substantial. This is related to the next criterion: automation.

CTP isn’t a large shop, employing just 30 or so, and many executives who run shops this size have difficulty justifying the time, effort, and cost involved in developing a fully automated workcell, Love said. He understands this perspective, acknowledging that a common benchmark for automation is a part volume of 1 million pieces annually.

However, considering everything else in favor of automation these days—a lack of skilled labor with good attendance records, high machine capability, and ease of retooling and reprogramming those machines—Love looks at it from the opposite direction: Not automating a process is a much bigger risk than automating it.

A related concern is how to automate the process. In some cases, it’s a matter of adding a new process to an existing automated cell; in others, creating a new process means creating an entirely new cell. Of course, these are two completely different projects in terms of equipment investment and floor space, but no matter—the executive team at CTP has been at this so long that they have few uncertainties in accounting for everything that goes into an automation project. The company’s experience in automation is so extensive that it often justifies such investment on part volumes that are one-third or even one-quarter of the common annual benchmark.

Another critical consideration is how any new project will match the work environment at CTP. Like many modern manufacturing facilities, it’s a clean and modern workplace, one in which workers tend to be digital natives, comfortable running three or four machines at once. Some process steps are manual, such as cleaning and kitting parts, but the key for CTP is to incorporate as much automation and as much variety as is practicable.

“Many of the younger workers these days are computer-savvy and don’t want to be just laborers,” Love said.

Of course, the reliance on automated (often robotic) systems means that CTP runs most efficiently when parts are cut and fabricated consistently. Decision-making isn’t a forte of automated systems, at least not yet. Robots tend to perform one set of programmed motions repeatedly, so consistency and predictability in part dimensions are essential.

Love pointed out that automating a tube bending process wasn’t as easy 15 or 20 years ago as it is today. Back then most benders were hydraulic, and the output of any hydraulic system tends to change as the hydraulic fluid’s temperature changes. The introduction of servo drives and the accompanying rock-solid process consistency ushered in a new era of fabrication more than a decade ago. CTP has been using robotic loading and unloading systems since 2009, Love said.

Furthermore, a smooth-running operation that produces parts with little dimensional variation is a big help in the welding and brazing areas.

Another Step in Bending Automation

The company’s latest investment in tube bending technology, a CRIPPA model 1042, is a good fit for its core competence, culture, and vision. The machine, which bends tube up to 1.65 in. dia. by 0.079 in. wall thickness, has two bending heads for right- and left-hand bending without unloading the workpiece. The bender repositions the tube during the bending cycle when necessary, and bending sequences have the coordination and accuracy that come from a Siemens controller coupled with digitally controlled servomotors. It has nine axes of control and can bend on six planes, so it can do essentially anything CTP needs it to do.

To that end, Love needed a machine with stacked tooling so changeover from one part to another wouldn’t require shutting down the machine and swapping out the tooling. Love also looked for a machine that would provide enough versatility to bend 10-ft. lengths of tube. Depending on a machine’s design and bending capability, a long part might strike the floor or the machine itself during the bending process. Its bending versatility is the crucial element in handling 10-ft. lengths without interferences.

Another essential criterion is that it provides automatic loading/unloading, so it is a good match for the automation ethos at CTP.

“We have too much volume to consider manually loaded machines,” Love said.

Love is long on experience with equipment for fabricating and machining, so when he’s interested in making a new equipment investment, he knows what he wants.

“I like CRIPPA’s holistic view of engineering,” he said.

Growing in a Smart, Conservative Way

As an entrepreneur, Love is always interested in growth. Having an in-house machine shop means the company can make its own tooling, and its long history of developing automated workcells has put it in a position to design and build its own equipment from time to time. In other words, the company has few limitations in how, and how much, it can grow.

“We don’t shy away from a challenge,” Love said.

Still, he proceeds with care. Love takes a serious view of his role as a fabricator and where CTP fits into the grand scheme of things. He has been working diligently for 20 years to develop the company’s areas of technical expertise and ensure that the business continues to play to its strengths. He and his management team proceed carefully in everything they do, always focusing on the few fundamental principles that guide CTP’s decisions.

First, the folks at the top have no interest in diluting the company’s core competence, always focused on tube fabrication in small diameters. CTP’s aforementioned machining capabilities are varied and comprehensive, but it doesn’t go looking for machining work. It invests in machining technology in support of existing customers or to augment its tube fabrication contracts, and that’s where it stops.

This doesn’t mean that machining is an afterthought. Far from it. This is where the company started, after all. It just means that tube fabrication is its primary focus.

Second is automation. In 2007 Love said he had difficulty finding and retaining skilled labor, citing it as a challenge. In 2021, he said it’s a crisis. Perceptions of manufacturing certainly play into this, as does the scarcity of good vocational programs in most high schools, and CTP’s location—next to the permanent distraction of 400 miles of Florida beach—doesn’t help. The business simply cannot grow without automation. It’s not a stretch to say that automation is a core competence at CTP, one that is just as critical as its expertise in fabricating and machining. Automation isn’t something extra or bolted on. It’s an integral part of the company’s culture.

A third criterion, one that is probably just as important as the first two, concerns finding the right customers.

“We choose our customers carefully,” Love said. Everyone in manufacturing wants trusted partners and everyone wants to grow, which means a supplier like CTP wants to grow right along with the OEMs it serves. If Love senses that a potential customer relies too little on fabricated tube, he takes a pass. He doesn’t want to stray from tube fabrication, and he doesn’t want to leave his customers high and dry either.

CTP’s latest investment has helped the company take a few more strides along the path Love has envisioned, fulfilling the first two criteria. OEMs interested in its services are likely to be just as interested in the third criterion as Love is and can rest assured that CTP forms new partnerships with the long haul in mind.