It’s somewhat difficult to get a straight answer on the state of manufacturing—one Google search brings up thousands of conflicting news articles about triumphs and losses in the industry. We’re happy to report that from our perspective, manufacturing is growing and changing in a positive way, and numerous reports have been released this summer confirming…
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In February, we blogged about our Kaizen event, which is a highly focused workshop to take immediate action and improve existing processes within the company. While we’ve been focusing on “lean initiatives” for years, we recently contracted a company, Ro12 Enterprises, to guide us through the Kaizen event, assist with several projects, and provide on-going…
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At Estes, we offer a variety of services including traditional metal fabrication services, 3D laser welding, and rapid prototyping. Although we manufacture products for a variety of industries, we want to highlight our work in medical device manufacturing. One of our recent projects involved us helping a client streamline the production of a steel pan.…
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At Estes, we are very proud of our innovative rapid prototyping shop. As we developed and worked on this service offering, we’ve found that most of our clients have been pleased with all the benefits of Estes Express Rapid Prototyping. Recently, one of the world’s largest packing equipment suppliers came to us with a challenging…
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This month’s edition of The FABRICATOR features an interview by Tim Heston with Elizabeth Kautzmann, chairman of FMA’s Industrial Laser Council and laser program manager with FANUC FA America. In this “Conducting the Laser” article , Kautzmann emphasizes, “A system is only as strong as its weakest link – and in many cases, the laser…
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At Estes Design & Manufacturing, we are constantly looking for ways to improve in all facets of our business. As part of our focus on lean manufacturing efforts, the company is conducting our first Kaizen Event from Monday, February 25th to Friday, March 1st. This event will focus on reducing lead-time on a customer’s line…
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We here at Estes Design & Manufacturing are pretty excited about the possibilities and advantages opened up by 3D laser welding, and many of our customers have already gotten to find out why. Today, we’re going to share a little bit of background on 3D laser welding: the process itself, as well as some of…
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Estes was honored to have been featured in the industry-standard magazine The Fabricator in November. The magazine chose Estes as an example of the growing interest in 3-D laser welding, and we were more than happy to tell our story and share some of our knowledge with The Fabricator and its many readers. It was…
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Estes’ Approach: Customer Service and Collaboration Since its inception in 1976, Estes Design and Manufacturing has provided customized and rapid fabrication for sheet metal parts and products, a priority which remains today. Thirty six years ago, our 2-employee operation anticipated the need for high quality, technologically advanced sheet metal fabrication service, but now with 80…
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Jay Reddick, Laser Welding Manager for Estes Design and Manufacturing, was invited and presented as part of the ALWA panel held during the Great Designs in Steel (www.autosteel.org) seminar in Detroit, MI. His presentation, entitled “Creating Cosmetic Welds in Light Gauge Sheet Metal” was focused on educating the seminar attendees on the applications of 3D,…
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Estes is pleased to announce it has added a new piece of equipment, a Timesavers model 2211-05-9 Multi-Directional Rotary Brush Machine to its long list of in-house state of the art technology. More advanced than traditional deburring equipment, this new technology uniformly finishes edges of laser cut and punched parts in one pass, while improving…
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Future Farmers of America, an organization focused on providing students with an up-close look at a wide variety of available agricultural as well as non-agricultural careers, launched its 3rd consecutive Career Success Tour during its 84th National FFA convention, held in Indianapolis. The event was limited to fifty students and for the third year in…
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