Community Machining

Bruno Iafrate has high hopes for Iafrate Machine Works as it expands into new industries.

When Bruno Iafrate talks about his family’s company, a machining job shop that has been nestled in Thorold, Ont., for more than 30 years, one word comes to mind: community.

If a 60,000-sq.-ft. facility can actually be nestled somewhere, this is the place. In an area best known for its vineyards and orchards, Iafrate Machine exports machined parts and prototypes for the automotive, oil and gas, aerospace, and pulp and paper industries.

A family business from the beginning, the company is now run by brothers Bruno and Al. Established in 1976, the company originally was founded by four Iafrate brothers and their father. It moved to its current location two years later. The company’s custom machining and production capabilities led to its success, especially in the automotive sector, and a series of expansions.

Two years ago production levels were high, and automotive work at the shop accounted for approximately 60 percent of the total work.

That’s what made the recent recession so hard for the company. In a trend witnessed nationwide, parts that had been made locally for years were now being shipped offshore, and new contracts were becoming harder and harder to get.

“We have gone through a considerable change in terms of the dynamics of the business,” said Iafrate. “We used to be a second-tier automotive supplier, but this sector changed drastically and we had to change with it.”

Iafrate Machine Works’ story is one that many of Canadian metalworking shops can relate to, no matter the locale. The recent automotive industry downturn took many of the country’s automotive supply shops down with it, and a Canadian dollar that sits near par with our American counterpart didn’t help either.

“The dollar really hurt us because a lot of our sales were in U.S. dollars,” said Iafrate. “The conversion rate that we have had for the past few years has really affected our business.”

Transitioning the Shop

Today automotive parts account only for 30 percent of the company’s output as it found work in the oil and gas industry, producing valve bodies and other components in the pipeline chain.

What allowed this transition was not only the company’s machine tools, but its expertise and simple necessity.

“Unlike some of our automotive customers, we have convinced our oil and gas clients that you can still buy locally, reduce shipping costs, keep quality standards high, and keep prices where they need to be,” said Iafrate. “Given the opportunity, we can prove that we can add value to your supply chain.”

The company’s stable of machine tools includes CNC turning centers; CNC milling machines; a CNC boring mill; and the two most recent purchases, a twin-pallet, CNC horizontal machining center and a CNC vertical turning center that were added to deal with the new challenges presented by machining for the pipeline industry.

“We were used to machining parts of a certain size and weight for the auto sector, but now we are dealing with parts that are much larger and also much heavier,” said Iafrate. “That’s why we had to purchase new equipment that could handle heavier parts on their beds and that had a larger work zone.”

In the automotive supply chain, lot sizes were routinely in the thousands; now the company has to deal with the reality that a lot size for oil and gas is in the dozens or sometimes the hundreds. The company now performs more machine setups, and parts are more difficult to load into the machines.

“The parts that we were doing for the automotive industry all weighed 10 pounds or less. In our work for the oil and gas industry, nothing weighs 10 pounds or less,” joked Iafrate.

Because of the now necessary quick changeovers, the company’s employees and their expertise have become more important than ever.

“Our guys, especially our lead hands, are very intuitive when it comes to setting up a part to be run as well as how to properly hold a part, especially when you need to machine on multiple sides of the part,” said Iafrate.

It’s not just this in-house staff expertise that is important to the company’s operation, however.

Supplier Expertise

The company’s machine tool, steel, and tooling suppliers all help keep the company operational and profitable.

“We count on our tooling suppliers extensively,” said Iafrate. “They help us streamline our processes in order to get maximum machining value from them. They help optimize our machine’s cutting time and optimize our output.”

The correct tooling supplier is about more than just selling a product, added Iafrate.

“These guys are at the frontline of technology,” he said. “They can give us a really solid understanding of what tools are right for each job that we do. Things can change pretty quickly around here, and we need suppliers that understand that and are willing to help us achieve our goals.”

Because the company has so many machines, it cannot afford to make mistakes when buying consumables. Fast turning, milling, and drilling tool changes can add efficiencies in Iafrate Machine’s production.

By examining the production process as a whole, and not simply one small piece, good suppliers come to understand the culture of each shop and how a small change in a tooling item can make a huge impact.

“For example, when our tooling supplier comes to the shop, we know we can talk to him about more than just tooling. We can talk about how the current job on that machine can be run in a more efficient manner, and also about all of our other jobs,” said Iafrate.

Quality Control

By constantly assessing the effectiveness of its quality management system Iafrate Machine strives to ensure that each customer’s project is subject to the best QA procedures with the ultimate goal of zero defects. These built-in quality checks monitor the progress of all processes and identify potential problems before they develop.

Quality assurance systems, procedures, and practices are developed, reviewed, and changed with the participation of employees in a continuous improvement effort.

Manufacturing software and tool dispensing equipment also help ensure that quality benchmarks are met. Live, up-to-date data of each job and machining process can be viewed. This enables structures to be put in place with the goal of cost improvement in each job. Labor time, scrap rates, run time, machine on time, and consumable costs per job all can be monitored to eliminate bottlenecks on the shop floor and to show how money is being spent on each job that is run.

“We have found that we are improving efficiencies in a number of areas because of our ability to monitor exactly what is occurring on the shop floor,” said Iafrate.

After all, if the shop isn’t making money, it becomes very difficult to stay in business. And that is something that affects more than the Iafrates themselves; it affects the community as a whole.

Iafrate Machine is, at heart, a family business where the employees are more than just people who work there.

“We have a very low turnaround rate when it comes to our employees,” said Iafrate. “We want them to be here for a very long time. We had to lay some people off when the recession hit, but we are now rehiring those people when possible.”

It’s this kind of thinking that has helped Iafrate Machine grow in this area over the last three decades.

For more information, visit www.iafratemachine.com.