As a fabricator that focuses on providing excellent quality and service, Equipment Design & Manufacturing increases throughput and expands their capabilities with LightWELD.
What’s a Success Story?
There are a lot of reasons why our customers invest in LightWELD: it might solve a specific problem for them, or help them be more productive, or they might just be excited by the technology. Whatever the reason, we love talking to them and learning about their businesses.
Our success stories are a closer look at some of our customers, what they’re working on, and how LightWELD has helped them find success. We hope that their stories can help give you a better idea of how the industry is using and benefiting from LightWELD.
If you would like to be featured in a LightWELD success story, we’d love to hear from you. Just click here to get started.
About the Company
A family-owned business that was founded in 1978, Equipment Design & Manufacturing (ED&M) has expanded into an operation with about 80 employees and two facilities. From retail display racks to components used in state-of-the-art surgical systems, the company’s dedication to performing quality work has resulted in customer confidence and steady growth.
At ED&M’s second facility, which specializes in high-mix low-volume fabrication, flexibility and agility are critical to delivering parts on time while maintaining the high standards the company is known for. We talked to Pete Morin, Engineering Manager at ED&M, about the company’s challenges and how he has implemented LightWELD into their fab shop.
Industry
Fabrication
Company Size
51-200
Location
Pomona, California
The Challenge
According to Pete, ED&M had begun taking on jobs fabricating aluminum parts used in cataract surgery systems with challenging welding requirements. These critical and sensitive materials demanded high precision welds with excellent quality. Specifically, the finished products had to be free of any distortion and the welds could not contain any voids or leave behind any spatter. These weld defects could harbor bacteria and make the final product more difficult to disinfect.
Although not specific to this job, a consistent challenge for ED&M is labor costs, which are higher in Pomona, CA than in other parts of the country. For Pete, he must consider not just the labor required to weld parts, but also the time spent on part fit-up and the incoming work for the finishing and quality control departments.
The Solution
For ED&M, investing in state-of-the-art equipment is key to maintaining a competitive position. The company considers this equipment necessary to produce parts to higher levels of precision and introduce higher quality components earlier in their workflow.
Pete, who likes to keep up with industrial equipment and technology, first learned more about laser welding on YouTube. He then reached out for an in-person full product demonstration to see LightWELD in action and try it for himself. The conclusion became clear: adding handheld laser welding to ED&M’s existing welding capabilities was imperative.
According to Pete, laser welding has allowed his welders to increase their throughput. But there are more upsides further downstream too – with less spatter, minimal distortion, and excellent quality seams, parts spend less time in the finishing department and move more quickly through final quality control.
With demand for precision medical parts increasing, Pete sees LightWELD as a key part of ramping up production. Traditionally, high labor costs have made getting a new welder up to speed time-consuming and expensive. Using traditional welding techniques, a new employee might take two or three years to become fully productive. As Pete adds additional LightWELD systems, he expects the lower barrier to entry will make onboarding faster and easier.
Getting Started with LightWELD
ED&M is just one of thousands of customers that have expanded their capabilities with LightWELD. All of us on the LightWELD team know that every operation is different. That’s why we’re here to help – whether you have questions about capabilities or safety or want to experience LightWELD before committing, we’re here to make getting started easy.
Click here to get started. We’ll take it from there.
