This year, Lou-Rich has budgeted 3.3 million dollars for capital investments in 2022. Some of this year’s budget will go towards updating our current infrastructure and rearranging some of our equipment and workflows. However, most of the 3.3 million will be spent on purchasing new equipment for our various facilities to increase product quality, capacity, and meet increasing customer demand.
“The one thing we wanted to really focus on this year is replacing aged equipment. It increases our capacity and minimizes our risk factor with down equipment, therefore giving our customers a better experience” stated Karl Eggum, Lou-Rich Manufacturing Engineering Manager.
Some of the departments that will be benefiting from our planned equipment purchases include our Fabrication, Quality, and CNC Departments.
Fabrication
With an increase in new customers and increase in current customer demand, we’re purchasing two large Robot Welding Cells. One of the new Robot Welding Cells is being added to our facility to keep up with customer demand, and the other is replacing a 20-year-old robot welder purchased back in 2001, which also happens to be the oldest robot in our facility. We most recently purchased a Robot Welding Cell back in 2020.
Adding these two pieces of equipment will help increase our productivity as well as our capacity.
Quality
In the 3rd Quarter, our Quality Department will be receiving a new Coordinate Measuring Machine (CMM). It will be replacing a smaller CMM currently located at our Lou-Rich Front Street facility. The smaller CMM will then be sent to our Hayward facility to replace their current CMM machine, which they’ve had since the late 80’s.
Replacing our smaller CMM with a larger model will help reduce bottlenecks in our facility and double our capacity on most parts we run. The software on the CMMs will also match, so we will have interchangeable programs between all CMMs at our facilities.
CNC
The CNC Department will be receiving 3 pieces of equipment in 2022 including:
- Vertical Turning Lathe 900 MM
- Twin Turret Horizontal Lathe
- #50 Taper Boxway Vertical Mill
The Vertical Turning Lathe is a twin to one we currently have. We’re adding this piece of equipment to increase capacity due to increased customer demand. Currently there are no other machines in house capable of running this family of parts. Adding this machine will give us the back up to the current machine in the event of a break down.
The new Twin Turret Horizontal Lathe and #50 Taper Boxway Vertical Mill will be replacing some of the oldest equipment in the Lou-Rich shop. Our goal with the Twin Turret Horizontal Lathe replacement is to replace 2 machines with one new machine. Because of the dependability of new equipment and being able to absorb the work of 2 less dependable machines, we will be able to free up some floor space and help with staffing.
Our team has a big year ahead of us. We’re thrilled to be upgrading and adding to our current assortment of equipment. With all that is planned for 2022, we’re looking forward to providing less downtime and even better response to our customers and their needs.
