When machining a job consisting of a mixture of hundreds of gears, time is literally money. So, the ability to quick change fixtures for heavy jobs becomes paramount.
To that end, the experts at Jergens Manufacturing have been developing workholding solutions to ensure practically any job can be done quickly and efficiently, pushing the company to become one of the world’s largest manufacturers of standard tooling components, vises, and other workholding equipment.
“We started making workholding and fixturing and clamping solutions for job shops,” said Matt Schron, general manager of Jergens Manufacturing. “But we’ve gotten more and more into quick-change fixturing and quick-change setups. How do you sit down there and optimize your fixturing to make it as easy as possible? Our goal is to help customers get their fixtures on and off quicker so they can get their machine and spindle running faster as well.”
Higher mix, lower volume
In an industry where there is a lot of higher-mix, lower-volume production happening, it becomes extremely important to get fixtures changed over in order to go from gear one to gear two as quick as possible so production can move fast while changeovers are reduced, according to Schron.
“A lot of the solutions we’re providing any manufacturing company, including the gear industry, is that option to be able to change over faster,” he said. “Some of our solutions can take setups from 45 or 50 minutes down to five to 10 minutes for the setup and changeover. That’s what we’re really focusing on. And that’s really the value that we’re providing today: Going from where we were making a T-slot nut to really making quick-change solutions and providing solutions for our customers as well.”
And even though Jergens feels like it’s important to boast state-of-the-art fixturing solutions, the company is still offering components for any type of fixturing solution for any type of application, according to Schron.
“We can go from a basic setup to a tool room vise setup to a heavy-duty device setup to a 5-axis device setup to a production device setup,” he said. “And then, we can quick change it all, whether using our ball lock system or ZPS system. I think we’re a one-stop shop for quick-change fixturing solutions.”
Custom design shop
To assist even further, Jergens offers a custom design shop to assist any challenge a customer may have, according to Schron.
“The thing that we’ve recently done in the last few years is we actually acquired a custom design shop, so you can come to us with any gear, any setup, any kind of fixturing need, and we can customize that setup as well,” he said. “If one of our standard options doesn’t work for you or doesn’t work in your application, we can customize it. There’s not one company that has the standard basic components or all the fixturing you would need to build your own solution and then going to the full custom solution that we offer. There’s no one that has that full breadth of expertise across that platform that we have.”
Jergen’s manufacturing facility is AS9100:2016 and ISO 9001:2015 certified, and it maintains strict control of its processes from start to finish. This kind of control makes it possible for Jergens to meet tight deadlines and control costs with guaranteed quality.
Solving customer challenges
Having all that expertise available in house is important when customers need their problems solved and solved quickly, according Schron.
“When they come to us, we listen to them,” he said. “I think I’ve hired more application engineers in the last year than any other position in our company, because we really want to be that turnkey solution provider, where we’re understanding their problem: What is it that you’re really trying to do? How are you trying to hold a part? How are you trying to position a part? What kind of faces? How are you machining it? And then we make sure we can get that position and that part set up and reduce the number of setups they can do and get the part they need produced as fast as possible.”
As a turnkey solution provider, Jergens can then take a customer’s challenge from design standpoint to the manufacturing standpoint without missing a beat, according to Schron.
“We even will go down and help them install,” he said. “We take that full turnkey solution when you have a problem, making sure we’re listening, designing, implementing, and installing at the same time.”
80 years in the business
There’s a big reason Jergens has been able to offer the best and brightest solutions during its 80-year history, and it boils down to the company’s people, according to Schron.
“Our employees are very loyal to us; they work hard for us, and they often want to continue to work for us,” he said. “We have a program called the ‘Boomerang Club,’ where an employee will leave, find the grass isn’t greener on the other side, and come back, so it’s great.”
Being a fourth-generation business, Schron also points out how Jergens has grown.
“Most family businesses don’t last past the second generation, but we’re in the fourth generation, and we have even started hiring our fifth generation of family members for our business,” he said.
Quite the accomplishments for a company that began in 1942 making airplane seat components for WWII, according to Schron.
“During that whole war-time efforts, you rationed so much steel, so much allocations, and you were supposed to make a certain part,” he said. “After the war, many manufacturing companies got into the idea of being a job-shop company.”
The future of automation
Schron also emphasized that Jergens will continue to help find more ways for its customers to automate.
“That’s going to be the biggest thing for us, too; I think that this low-volume, high-mix type of production that’s going on is a trend in the industry,” he said. “Everyone wants customization of their product setups. They don’t want to buy a huge amount of stock and inventory. They’re not doing huge production runs. There is an opportunity to find ways to save money, reduce setups, automate those setups, and do it unattended.”
That trend Schron is talking about is also bringing about Jergens’ use of more palletized machines.
“We just bought a 30-pallet machine to produce our vises,” he said. “I think we’re going to see more and more of these palletized setups running, and I think that’s a trend in the industry that’s going to happen for us, too. It’s going to get smaller and smaller, faster and faster, quicker and quicker, over and over again.”
And Schron said Jergens is constantly looking for ways to automate by using robotics in combination with its standard products and using more hydraulics for clamping and unclamping.
“These are all solutions that we’re developing, and have available today, that I think that our customers are really asking for, because they’re trying to get more production on those off-shift hours running unattended,” he said. “And I think that’s where we’re really seeing the industries and trends going in the marketplace.”
