Laser Job Shop Services vs. A Custom Laser Marking System In-House

Ackley Metal Products is a medical products manufacturer located in Santa Ana, California.   Once a small tool shop, Ackley Metal Products has grown by developing high end precision machined medical with a team of experienced engineers. 

Alan Ackley, VP Ackley Metal Products Inc., states, “Jimani has been laser marking for us for 4 years.  We had heard of them from word of mouth from one of our customers and were very grateful for the suggestion.  Our last supplier littered us with late deliveries and an unacceptable scrap rate.  Jimani, on the other hand, was quite the opposite with snappy turnaround times and a very high acceptance rate.  They are also very easy to deal with when designing new products with their doors wide open with a knowledgeable crew to help. ”

After providing laser job services to Ackley for several years, Ackley received a large contract requiring a lot of laser marking.  Jimani worked with them for six months developing marking processes for the different parts and materials eventually marking trial production runs of hundreds of thousands of parts. 

Jimani worked closely with Ackley to determine the best cost-effective solution, weighing the costs of using Jimani's laser job shop services vs. bringing a custom laser system in-house.

Ackley says that, “the time did come though where we wanted to bring the jobs in house, which is quite nerve racking when it’s a new process and your supplier does such a good job.   The volume was worth the machine investment though and it made business sense.  Fortunately for us Jimani builds and sells the same equipment they use on production so the decision was easy.  They are very friendly about the switch over and work diligently to get the machine to you, which by the way, was delivered on time as well.  They include all the programs they used and settings so the switch over required very little man hours to get productions up and going in our facility. “

The decision to job shop laser marking versus bringing the work in house and buying the laser equipment hinges on the cost per part ratio compared to the cost of equipment and labor to in source the same work.  Another key driver in the decision making process to in source  the laser marking is the expertise  required to develop particular laser job configurations and applications engineering.

“Jimani built the Langolier to the correct specifications and trained the Ackley Metal Products team in the use of fiber laser marking systems.  In fact the transition was so smooth that Ackley Metal picked up the laser one afternoon and it was running production parts the next morning.

The lasers have been with us almost 4 months and has almost paid for itself.  It works flawlessly and is very easy to train others on it.”, said Alan Ackley, VP Ackley Metal Products Inc.

http://ackleymetal.com