generates between $15 and 20 million in revenue each year, operates 14 CNC vertical and horizontal machines for milling and turning. According to Barron, the company
adds machining value to about 50% of its castings. A third of its revenue comes from machining. “Many times, the machining value is
greater than the casting,” Barron said. A couple of years after add-
ing machining, Barron Industries entered the rapid prototype (RP) business. It now runs three RP machines. Around the same time, the company expanded its facility and took on complete assembly. “T e core business of casting
was feeding the other value-added activities,” Barron said. “We vertically integrated the processes, bringing them in-house.” Barron Industries has added the
downstream services to establish a niche as a provider of fi nished parts, but the strategy is not just a sales tool. By adding value, the company is able to achieve better profi t margins. For instance, Barron Industries casts small steel parts that are welded onto armor steel burnouts. Because the company
is certifi ed to weld armor steel, it buys the burnouts, machines them, and welds on the castings in-house. T e castings make up 10% of the value; the machined armor steel makes up 90%. One of the few things Barron
Industries doesn’t perform in-house is painting—for that it contracts with an outside business. “We do supply painted parts, espe-
cially for the defense industry, using an outside business,” said Jeff Barron, vice president of sales and marketing. “A lot of those parts are coated.”
Conversions for the Defense Industry Barron Industries views its engi-
neering and design capabilities as added value and applies a price to CAD ser- vices for designing castings, particularly conversions from other processes. “We receive a lot of requests for quotes to perform CAD design- ing for casting, even though it isn’t [a cast component],” Bruce Barron said. “It’s usually a big help to them and gets us in the door because we put the work in up front.” According to Barron, the major-
ity of the company’s new work comes from conversions, which goes hand-
in-hand with its close ties to the defense industry. “On the defense side, there’s a lot
of development for ‘better, stronger, faster,’ so they are open to input on the design,” he said. “I really like that kind of industry. It’s very collaborative.” During the design stages of an eight-wheeled armored vehicle for the army in 1990, Barron Industries was fi rst contracted to produce one cast- ing conversion. After several design iterations over the 10-year program, the fi nal model featured 150 cast and machined assemblies produced by the investment caster. T e program was a launching pad for hundreds of future defense-related conversion jobs for Barron Industries. In a more recent application, the
company converted hinges for 600-lb. (272-kg) doors on military vehicles from 12- and seven-piece fabrications to one-piece castings, resulting in the elimination of distortion problems caused during welding. “We’re going after customers that
have applications for castings, no mat- ter whether they are currently using a casting,” Barron said. “We are saying that should be a casting, it could be a casting, we can make that as a casting. We can design that better as a casting. T ose are the fun ones. If the customer will engage with you, it’s great.” On a visit to a customer producing
a new, heavier duty Humvee, Barron said his group heard in passing about an unrelated component that had failed in the Army fi eld test. “T ey were in a panic as to what to
Barron Industries performs complete assembly on parts such as this auxiliary cooling module.
26 | MODERN CASTING January 2012
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