Thomas Steel Doubles Shop Output with Peddinghaus

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With young blood driving the company, Jake Thomas has been able to double the output of the shop while simultaneously cutting material handling time in half. “Prior to investing in Peddinghaus machinery, we were focused on higher hours per ton work and only producing anywhere from 2,500-3,500 tons of steel annually. Now that we’ve partnered with Peddinghaus, we’ve gone up to 7,000-10,000 tons annually."

..and I've got no labor now tied in on with this machine. So for every day I'm making $1,500 using the new machine.

Looking at the industry as a whole our biggest competitors are not other steel fabricators. It's wood and concrete and foreign metals. So as a company our goal is to continue to set the bar higher and keep providing steel as the best possible building product that's available on the market. When I first purchased the company we had a small single spindle drill line and it did its job, but we knew it was going to be coming to an end. So after some encouragement and working with Peddinghaus and their design team, though made the process very simple.

We finally came up with a good layout for the shop and made the investment in the new system. The biggest improvement that I've seen with the machinery, while the processing side is absolutely amazing. I mean we can run 60 holes in a column in six minutes. The biggest thing is the material handling and the conveyor systems. So we were able to reduce our overall handling in the shop by over 50 percent and by doing so we were actually we're able to double the output of our shop.

It's really hard to say which one has been the most beneficial to the shop. Each one brings a different dynamic that we did not have before. The blaster has taken us from blasting material at six inches per minute to over 10 feet per minute. The drill has improved accuracy. It's improved speed. The saw is quick, it's accurate, it's consistent and the coper has allowed our layout guys to focus on what they're good at. Which is building and laying out steel.

Everything that we've done to the process has made a big difference on the speed of our product going out the door. We relatively have the same amount of employees here and we're putting out four times more work. You used to continuously have guys when they're laying it out by hand with the tape measure either an inch off or a foot off reading the tape measure. You don't have that anymore. The Peddiblaster is crazy fast. You know, like I said, my thought on the return on investment, if you figure that our cost is $75 an hour and I was running the old machine for 20 hours a day, right. So you know you do that math. That's what $1,500 bucks a day is what it was costing me to run the old machine and I've got no labor now tied in on with this machine. So for every day I'm making $1,500 using the new machine

The biggest advantages of the Advantage-2 drill has been probably the scribing and the ability to mill slots, large lifting holes. I mean it really kind of sets this machine apart. With the scribing we're able to put piece marks on layout lines, center points. I mean having that flexibility to use it when we want to and make that decision has been really great. When I worked out in the shop it was not uncommon to be just manually drilling holes because you could find people to do the work. In today's market we just can't find people. Our investment in the machinery has allowed us to continue to produce large volumes of steel without the high demand of labor every day.

There's so many people in the industry using these machines, but having the ability to call any one of 50 people that i know quickly and get their experience or talk about how they handled something. I mean that networking community has been just absolutely huge for us. If you're not willing to improve then you might as well just sell the place.