Radiac Abrasives, Mission not so impossible

Manufacturing in Action, Source : The Manufacturer US

Radiac Abrasives seems to achieve the unachievable. Debbie Giggle finds out how from the company’s President, Dave Pryor

In the manufacturing industry, the management team often has to live with compromise. It is sometimes necessary to sacrifice one “desirable outcome” in order to achieve another. A classic example is diversity of product range versus manufacturing efficiency. The greater the range of products you offer the customer, the more limited are your opportunities to streamline, automate, and generally speed-up your manufacturing process. And if you customize products for individual customers, then efficiency often falls entirely by the wayside.

One company however, Radiac Abrasives based in Illinois, seems to turn this classic dilemma on its head. Over the course of a year, it manufactures approximately 60,000 different products. Around 80 percent of its business involves custom engineering to meet individual customer needs. Yet this company boasts the shortest lead times in its industry and is proud of its 98 percent on-time delivery performance. How is this possible?

Radiac Abrasives supplies a full line of grinding products to customers in the automotive, aerospace, steel, bearing, forestry, transportation, cutting tool, and energy markets. It is headquartered in Salem, Illinois, and has five manufacturing facilities in total including sites in Tijuana, Mexico; Marysville, Washington; and Oswego, Illinois.

Throughout its history it has undergone a number of name changes and mergers. It began as AP deSanno in 1891 in Philadelphia and the Radiac trademark was established in 1929, inspired by Madame Curie’s discovery of radium. The company changed its name from deSanno-Universal to Radiac in 1985.

Today its manufacture of vitrified, resin, shellac, and rubber abrasive wheels is centered in Salem and Marysville. In Tijuana, the focus is on production of soft rubber wheels, rubber regulating wheels, and a precision thin rubber cut off product line. The company believes that it answers the grinding needs of virtually every conceivable manufacturer-specific area and attributes the performance of its products to its blending of different grains to create more efficient and productive finished pieces. In any year, around 37 percent of the products sold will be new additions to the Radiac range.

Dave Pryor, president of Radiac Abrasives, said, “Our success lies in our ability to meet the customer’s requirements rapidly and efficiently. Our average order is quite small and we manufacture in many short runs. In addition, it is impossible to know the mix of orders in advance. These are the realities of our production environment. Nothing will change that, but it is perfectly possible to build the business around these realities.

“Our processes and choice of machinery have been driven by the need to minimize the time and cost of changeovers between batches. Large-scale automation does not lend itself to these requirements. Instead, we have installed extremely flexible equipment which is simple and fast to set-up. Cell manufacturing is also unsuitable to our needs as this would demand duplication of equipment. In preference, we operate on a production line basis with a very wide variety of finishing treatments being applied to customize the finished article.”

Pryor uses the analogy of baking a cake to explain his production processes. A mixture is created from a range of different materials and is then poured or pressed into a mold and baked at 2,300 degrees Fahrenheit. The icing, or finishing, involves machining the grinding wheels to different diameters and thicknesses and putting them through a choice of surface treatments to suit the customer’s specification.

Around 300 different materials can be drawn-upon depending on the customer’s needs, creating an interesting challenge for the company’s procurement operation.

“Demand is erratic and therefore almost impossible to predict,” continued Pryor, “but we also offer customers extremely responsive lead times, so speed of access to raw materials is crucial. Holding stock of every possible base material on-site would be neither cost-effective nor desirable, so we work in close cooperation with our vendors to ensure we can meet orders effectively. Our materials suppliers deliver to us on a Just-In-Time basis in response to the orders we receive. In addition, some vendors hold stocks of their products at our site and allow us to just consign the required amounts as we need them.”

Raw material procurement has been assisted by the installation of an MRP-style system that enables both Radiac and its vendors to access order and production information. All software and operating systems have been developed by the Radiac’s own IT team.

“Canned software is impractical for us,” explained Pryor. “With 60,000 different products, we have an exceptionally high number of variables. Canned software just isn’t designed for a product range of that scale. We had two choices. Either we modified our product lines to fit the IT packages available, or we developed our own software. We’re pleased with the results of writing our own.”

It’s not just the production technology however that needs to be flexible enough to meet the challenges of such a large product range. Radiac has taken the approach of devolving responsibility for quality through to every person in the company. It is proud of its ability to meet its desired levels of quality using just its own production personnel and has not employed an inspector for the last fifteen years. It has also implemented a number of lean manufacturing techniques over the last few years, and uses data gleaned from its MIS system to quantify the results achieved.

Finally though, with so many potential markets and customers, how does the company determine where best to target its research and development efforts?

“We work closely with customers to understand their current and future needs” concluded Pryor. “We also determine strategically the markets in which we wish to compete. We actively choose industry sectors where our customization capabilities and premium performance of our products are recognized and valued. Our market is one where patents provide little protection over design innovation. Speed of response, quality, and suitability for the application are everything.”

It is easy to understand why breadth of choice and lead time are so important to this major producer of grinding wheels.

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