CONTRACT MANUFACTURING PROFILE
Lasers are used when tight tolerances and thin materials are involved.
Applications for laser welding have been expanding. The
process is increasingly used in the automotive and medical industries for refurbishing and repairing molds. Nate Wipp, one of the co-owners of ALWS, said laser welding “doesn’t change the micro structure of the steel.” Heat is minimized with “no distortion whatsoever.” “We’ve doubled our sales each year,” Wipp added. “We have no sales team, however.” “We had one customer who saw our web site,” David Gall, the other co-owner said. Most of ALWS’ business comes from word of mouth.
Modest Quarters ALWS’ building is very basic: an offi ce with a receptionist
up front and the workshop in the back. “We used to have a big waiting room,” Gall said. But the shop needed more production space. So the size of the wait- ing room was reduced. “We made it as small as we could.” The shop has about 20 employees and its equipment also includes two micro TIG (tungsten inert gas) welding stations and four conventional TIG welding stations.
Gall and Wipp were both welders, with Gall having experi- ence in the fabricating side and Wipp in the tool and die side. “It’s something I had wanted,” Wipp said about starting a business of his own. “We both had been welders all of our adult lives.”
An employee of Absolute Laser Welding Solutions performs repair work on a mold.
ALWS’ biggest business is repairing molds because of wear and tear or adjusting molds because of changes in product designs. The company’s customers include suppliers in the automotive, aerospace and medical sectors. The same week the co-owners were interviewed, “We shipped out an aerospace tool after 64 hours of welding,” Wipp said.
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Gall worked as a contractor for the US military, which in- cluded spending two years in Afghanistan working on military vehicles. It was during that period that Gall was able to save money toward starting his own business. “You don’t have much to spend your money on [over there],” he said. After starting ALWS, the two initially worked out of a building owned by a friend. Later in 2013, ALWS moved to its current space, which is in an industrial area in a suburb about 20 miles (32 kilometers) north of downtown Detroit. It’s an area that in- cludes small manufacturers, such as ALWS, as well as larger operations, such as a Ford Motor Co. axle factory and a Fiat Chrysler vehicle-assembly plant. ALWS bought its fi rst machine a month after opening its doors. Since then, it has pur- chased one machine about every six months. Gall declined to specify the brands of equipment ALWS has bought.
“One of the reasons we are doing so well is our competi- tors and customers are buying machines that are inferior to ours and they can not compete with what we have,” Gall said. “If we let the cat out of the bag it could hurt our sales.”
“Anything that’s plastic on a car, we get the molds,” Wipp said. Other examples: molds for automaker logos that are affi xed to the front of vehicles (“All manufacturer logos have been in here,” Wipp said) and molds used to manufacture Nerf footballs.
Gall and Wipp were both welders, with Gall having experience in the fabricating side and Wipp in the tool and die side. “It’s something I had wanted,” Wipp said about starting a business of his own. “We both had been welders all of our adult lives.”
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