One semester at HFCC, young Sollars decided to take a specialized class in CNC machining taught by manufacturing technology instructor Ken Wright. His decision to take that class – a forerunner to what is now the Haas Technical Education Center (HTEC) program – would result in many years of business success.
Sollars is now a partner in KRMC LLC (known as Kut-Rite), which manufactures and distributes concrete grinding, polishing, vacuuming, and scarifying equipment and tooling. The company’s four-building, 60,000-square-foot manufacturing campus in Romulus includes Kut-Rite; Multi Machining Capabilities, the precision engineering arm of the corporation; and the Elkins shop where Sollars worked 20 years ago, which serves as a general machining plant.
“Back then,” Sollars says, “we weren’t using Haas equipment in the shop. We were using lesser machines on the factory floor, with poor results. But when we shopped jobs out, those companies often used Haas machines. So I thought I’d take the class at Henry Ford with Ken Wright. It was one of the best decisions I ever made. We ended up buying a used Haas machine from the college. In fact, it’s still being used today, and I still consider Ken Wright a very good friend.”
The HTEC connection continues to flourish
Wright is famous in CNC-training circles for his reality-based, no-nonsense approach to education, teaching students to work smarter and faster to keep ahead of the global industrial curve.
“To succeed in manufacturing,” Wright says, “the learning environment needs to match the conditions students will encounter on the job. The HTEC program does that,” he says, “by linking educational institutions – high schools, community colleges, technical colleges, and universities – with local Haas Factory Outlets (HFOs), to provide cutting-edge technical manufacturing education.”
The approach obviously benefitted Sollars. The old Haas machine that Elkins Machine and Tool acquired from HFCC two decades ago now has plenty of company on the reorganized Kut-Rite campus. The inventory of machines includes four Haas CNC lathes: an HL-2 with bar feed; two SL-20s, one with bar feeder and one with live tooling; and an SL-30 with bar feeder. It also includes six Haas CNC mills: three VF-1s, a VF-2, a VF-4 with pallet changer, and a Mini Mill. And more are on the way, says Sollars; he plans to add a TL-1 Toolroom Lathe, a VF-1, and a VF-2.
Why the Kut-Rite road always leads back to Haas
It was the upgrade to Haas equipment that enabled a then-fledgling manufacturing firm to grow rapidly at a time when many American companies, especially in Michigan, were closing. Instead of focusing on just tooling support, KRMC “saw an opportunity to diversify” a decade ago, and branched out to create its own successful line of concrete scarifying, grinding, and polishing machines, as well as industrial vacuums – all under the Kut-Rite logo.
The Kut-Rite/Haas success story comes down to four key factors: eliminating high outsourcing costs, streamlining production dynamics, reducing service time and costs, and always staying with the machinery that gives the best value.
“Expanding capabilities is always an issue here at Kut-Rite,” Sollars explains. “It’s all about value. We were outsourcing heavily – 30 percent – at high cost; but once we started buying our own Haas machines, we were able to bring that work back into our facility.” As a result, Kut-Rite’s revenues grew by 300 percent – from $3 million to $9 million.
“When you’re looking at our relationship with the Haas equipment, you also have to understand our own production dynamics,” Sollars continues. “We’re a smaller production shop – more West Coast Choppers than Ford Motor Co. assembly plant. We do custom work without all the large mass-production, so the affordability and reliability of Haas equipment really pays off for us.
“And we found that Haas’ service is just plain easier for us than other companies. Through the HFOs – and we’ve got one right down the road from us in Flat Rock – any problems we have with Haas machinery are solved in a less-expensive and faster way. That’s a huge issue with any manufacturer. Sometimes with other machine makers, something goes down and you wait days for the maintenance guys to fly in. You spend tons of money on them, you miss deadlines, and it costs you on many levels. Nobody wants large maintenance bills and a lot of downtime. Those types of things can cost us thousands of dollars at a time.”
But Sollars doesn’t wear blinders. Like any businessman, he and his organization are always looking for the most bang for their buck. He readily admits that, on many occasions, he’s looked at other companies and other equipment.
“But it seems like no matter what we do or where we look, we always keep coming back to Haas,” he says. “It’s all about reliability and cost. Haas machines do the job for us. And when problems come up, it’s easier with Haas. And remember, the number one word is always value.”
Ease of use becomes Kut-Rite’s business model
“Much of our partnership with Haas equipment,” Sollars points out, “was about ease of use, ease of maintenance, ease of control. As we moved forward as a company, we used that model ourselves. Our equipment and tooling are all about creating something that makes the job easier for the operator. How it cuts his labor costs or time. That’s what caught our eye when it came to Haas machinery, and we’ve followed that train of thought in our business model ever since.”
Profits skyrocket as quality improves
By combining ongoing education with high-tech Haas equipment – and expanding its product line – Kut-Rite’s sales have continued to skyrocket.
“I really think a lot of our success has to do with our machining processes,” Sollars admits. “We take the extra step that a lot of others don’t; we stop and make sure that the post-weld machining is done well. Of course, it’s easier to do, because we have the right equipment, and we can take the time to do so.”
The process is best exemplified by the machining of motor-mount plates for Kut-Rite’s grinders. It’s a “machine-weld-machine” process. The steel plates are machined at the joints, and then welded together. They are then put back on the machine for finish machining to the design specifications. The centerlines of the inner diameter and outer diameter have to match, to prevent runout and vibration.
The materials involved are thick-wall steel DOM (drawn over mandrel) tubing and 5/8-inch-thick sheet metal, which are rough-cut to size before machining. Although flat sheet metal is usually machined on a mill, Kut-Rite engineers found that machining the parts on a CNC lathe worked best, and the Haas lathes offer the precision to do the work at a much lower cost.
The overall quality is something that Bryon Bruington, now technical sales director for Kut-Rite, noticed when he first joined the company. “One of the first things I noticed was that our equipment runs so smooth and precise compared to others on the market,” he says. “I think all of this ties together. It comes down to the precision manufacturing equipment, and the quality control. The Haas machines enable us to create that type of product.”
Knowing the equipment and pushing the envelope
Radu Stingu, another former student of Ken Wright, and now the operations manager at Multi Machining Capabilities, agrees. He adds that the basis of making successful products at Kut-Rite is directly related to having a solid understanding of the equipment you are using to produce those products.
“The key to precision machining is being educated, and understanding the Haas equipment,” Stingu explains. “When you understand the equipment, you understand its capabilities, you understand its range. Therefore, you are more successful at whatever you attempt to create. We’ve had a lot of success with what we make, because we understand the equipment we are working on.”
Walking across the factory floor, Stingu finds an example of his philosophy. In front of him is a Haas VF-4 CNC mill with a pallet changer. Inside is the gearbox/rotary head of a Conquer30 concrete grinding machine. The 30-plus-inch heavy-steel bowl needs nine holes machined along the outside edge, and four larger holes drilled on the inner hub.
“It’s a wide bowl,” says Stingu. “We used a smaller machine to work on it, but we were shutting it down constantly to move and reset the bowl. Instead, we looked at this mill. We couldn’t use the pallet changer, because the bowl wouldn’t fit through the slider door. Instead, we opted to put the bowl directly into the machine through the front doors. Despite the fact that the bowl is slightly wider than the table, it still works best for us.
“If you know the machines well enough, you know their capabilities,” Stingu states. “You can push the envelope.”
All of this is part of the reason Sollars continues to send Kut-Rite employees back to the HTEC at HFCC – at the company’s cost.
New products: America-made with American partners
Unlike many other companies in the concrete grinding and polishing industry, Kut-Rite has concentrated on creating and manufacturing American-made products, while teaming with firms that do the same thing – like Haas.
“Very few companies are actually building stuff here,” Sollars says of the concrete grinding and polishing industry. “They are shipping it in. That’s not us. We do everything here, and it was important for us to team up with someone else who was building things here, too. And that was Haas.”
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