Small businesses “have borne the greatest brunt of this recession” because of lower demand from consumers and less available credit, Obama said.

Brad Ohlemacher, president of Elyria-based EMC Precision Machining, sat in the first row as Obama signed the bill. His 86-year-old family-owned manufacturing business was among the businesses Obama visited earlier this year.

For Ohlemacher, the new legislation will allow his firm to be able to afford to buy capital equipment that starts at $350,000.

“For my company personally, it allows me to be more competitive, win more work, grow my business and hire more people,” Ohlemacher said.

The bill had been delayed for months, blocked in the Senate by Republicans. Most in the GOP objected to the loan fund, comparing it to the 2008 financial industry bailout and arguing that it would encourage banks to make loans to risky borrowers. Two GOP senators, George Voinovich of Ohio and George LeMieux of Florida, helped Democrats break the filibuster this month — and the bill passed.

The bill creates a $30 billion government fund to help encourage lending to small businesses, many of which have been having difficulty securing bank loans and credit. The fund will be available to community banks, which could use the money to leverage billions more in loans.

The legislation also includes about $12 billion in tax breaks for small business — eight separate tax cuts that take effect Monday. One such provision increases to $500,000 the amount of investments that businesses would be allowed to write off this year and next.

Anita Campbell, CEO of Medina-based Small Business Trends, said a lot of small business owners are pleased about loan changes and tax breaks, but most are not in a position to make expenditures or take on more debt.

Campbell, who runs an online media business that provides content for small business owners, said the general consensus among her Twitter and Facebook networks is that small business owners are more interested in generating new business and getting paid by customers.

“Government can only create the conditions that make it easier or harder for small businesses to create jobs,” she said. “In the end, it’s up to businesses to create jobs and hire employees.” The measure also gives a boost to some Small Business Administration loan programs.

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Ohlemacher took the president around his EMC Precision Machining company when Obama made a town hall visit to Elyria on Jan. 22.

Yesterday, Ohlemacher was front and center in the East Room of the White House when Obama signed the Small Business Jobs and Credit Act of 2010.

“It was quite an experience when the President came to visit me, a once-in-a-lifetime thing.” The two men talked about the difficulties small businesses were having.

Then on Thursday, the White House called and invited him to the signing of the small business bill. Another “once in a lifetime” experience, Ohlemacher said.

“Pretty cool. They called back and said they had a spot reserved for me in the front row … in the East Room … I was front and center,” he said.

“After the signing, (Obama) shook hands with everyone in the front row. It was a very special event, quite an experience.”

Ohlemacher, a member of the Precision Machined Products Association Government Affairs Committee, said in January he was able to talk to the president about priorities for small businesses and some of those concerns were addressed in the bill.

The law signed by the president includes a $30 billion loan fund for small business lending, makes Small Business Administration loans more accessible, reduces small business taxes and extends the bonus depreciation.

Businesses will have more access to credit with the act and be able to invest in their companies and purchase equipment to make them more competitive, Ohlemacher said.

Some of the provisions in the bill will benefit his company, he said, such as the provision regarding depreciation expenses and making loans more available.

“You make an investment in competitive equipment, makes you more competitive. There’s more business and you employ more people,” Ohlemacher said.

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Biddle Precision Components is also a fourth generation family-owned precision machining company. Its complementary machining technologies and capabilities will effectively double the size of EMC and give the firm a broader array of processes and skill sets to meet customer needs.

“Through the acquisition of Biddle Precision Components, we reinforce EMC Precision Machining’s ability to rapidly respond to customers’ precision machining problems”, said Brad Ohlemacher, president of EMC. “We are absolutely dedicated to our core strength of serving customers who need precision machined solutions in a short amount of time.”

EMC chief executive officer Jeff Ohlemacher added, “We will quickly leverage the synergies between EMC Precision and Biddle to build on our strong market position. We have, and will continue to invest in processes, capacity, technology, and training to ensure that we remain strong as the economy begins to recover.

About EMC Precision Machining

EMC Precision Machining produces high complexity, close tolerance precision machined parts and assemblies. A time-tested company, customers rely on EMC Precision Machining for the full range of close-tolerance turning, milling and grinding operations for metal and plastic components, from one prototype to tens of thousands. EMC engineers, prototypes, finish, assemble, packages, and manage part inventories to customer specs.

As a family-operated company since 1925, EMC honors the principles behind four generations of success, pursued with a steady eye on the future. Continuous investments in advanced equipment, processes, engineering, training and team building ensure that custom products are delivered on time, defect-free, at the total lowest cost, with excellent customer satisfaction.

When you absolutely need it done right and you need it right now.

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Obama came to Elyria and Lorain, Ohio, to connect with small business people who are the key to
new hiring in this country. He gave a brief talk at Lorain Community College and chose to go to
EMC Precision, which was on a short list of desirable sites to visit. The Ohlemachers had six days
from the first call to prepare for the Big Boss.

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Brad and Jeff utilize Verne Harnish’s Rockefeller habit of the morning huddle to stoke the production fire at the start of the day. Brad told me they are intrigued by a peer rating approach to filter the chaff from their staff as they continue their relentless push for manufacturing brilliance.

I asked Brad if his desire to build a gem in the contract machining world would ultimately be thwarted by the ubiquitous bidding process which continually pushes prices lower and margins to zero. He says his firm’s answer is to position itself as the company you call in a crisis. By continually honing their skills in the just-in-time world and machining creatively Brad feels EMC has found a niche market where price is not the primary determinant. When a company is down because a supplier just went Chapter Seven, or they had a fire, or a dog ate their software, the Ohlemachers want to be Batman to the rescue. If their plan comes to fruition, the  company name, EMC would become synonymous with “emergencymanufacturing-capability.” It is an audacious effort but it plays to the strengths of flexibility and teamwork they have been working on for years.

Brad told me that the company was started by his Grandfather, who began the business by repairing potato harvesters out in the fields to rescue farmers’ crops after a machinery breakdown.

EMC is returning to its roots.

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President Obama met with EMC Precision Machining’s CEO Jeffrey B. Ohlemacher and President Bradley Ohlemacher before touring the facility and meeting many of the 33 full-time employees.

EMC Precision Machining, located in Elyria, Ohio, is a fourth generation, family-owned company that produces complex precision metal components for a diverse group of global customers. The 85-year-young enterprise has weathered the economic storm by continuing to invest in its people, systems, and assets, all while keeping focus on the urgent machining needs of its customers.

EMC produces precision machined products for a range of applications —from putting glue on cereal boxes to critical hydraulics systems in helicopters. The company’s customers are in the industrial equipment, hydraulics, pneumatics, transportation, medical, aerospace and agricultural markets.

In a letter to EMC customers, the Ohlemachers said they discussed their high-performance business with President Obama, along with the needs of small business in today’s challenging economy. “We hope that our efforts furthered the cause of small business and Americannmanufacturing today,” they wrote.

I am glad the President got to see firsthand how the people who make things, make things. I’m also glad the Ohlemachers and the employees of EMC Precision Machining were able to connect with President Obama. They shared with him how their experience with continuous education and training, staying up-to-date with the latest technologies and investing in priorities has kept their company competitive despite difficult times.

That’s a message to take back to Washington.

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“It broadens our base, expands our capabilities and makes us better able to serve our customers at a greater level,” Ohlemacher said.
EMC is a family-owned company that has been in business since 1925 and produces high-complexity, close-tolerance precision manufactured parts and assemblies, the company said in a news release announcing the Biddle deal. Ohlemacher declined to say how much EMC paid.

Ohlemacher said EMC currently has 44 workers, and adding Biddle’s employees will roughly double its work force.
“We will quickly leverage the synergies between EMC Precision and Biddle to build on our strong market position,” EMC CEO Jeff Ohlemacher said in the news release. “We have, and will continue to invest in processes, capacity, technology and training to ensure that we remain strong as the economy begins to recover.”

Brad Ohlemacher said the acquisition of Biddle will allow EMC to not only expand the amount of product it puts out, but also offer new products and bring some processes that previously had been out-sourced to other companies in-house.

He said additional jobs could be created in the future by the deal, which has been in the works since late last year.

“We’re very excited for growth for both our plants in Elyria and in Indiana,” Brad Ohlemacher said. EMC was in the national spotlight earlier this year when President Barack Obama toured the plant and met with the  Ohlemachers during his January visit to Elyria as part of his “White House to Main Street Tour.”

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In recent years, EMC Precision Machining (Elyria, Ohio) has positioned itself for delivering in these situations, taking on jobs that other shops have not been able to complete in time. Having the right tools in place, from personnel to machine tools to software, has been the integral element for being successful in this type of work, and EMC has used this ability to land new customers and keep them.

Developing a Culture

In 1925, Burton Ohlemacher left his job as a plant manager at Western Automatics, a predecessor to Moen Inc., to begin his own machine shop with his father. With 5,000 square feet of floor SHOP DELIVERS FOR URGENT NEED space, the company set up shop with a belt-driven overhead pulley that ran the main shafts for a small bank of Brown & Sharpe lathes producing machine components. Now occupying more than 40,000 square feet at the same location, the company has added a series of Citizen CNC Swiss machines, Makino horizontal machining centers and a variety of CNC lathes to go with its current lineup of Acme Gridley screw machines. Now, 85 years later, with the fourth generation of family members at the top of the organization, the company continues to find ways to stand out among its peers.

Generally, the company serves OEMs for a variety of industries such as industrial equipment, hydraulic and fluid power, pneumatics, agriculture, aerospace, heavy vehicle and medical. Materials used range from stainless steel to plastics, ceramics, aluminum and brass. Because of the company’s involvement in prototype work, part runs as low as 25 pieces are not uncommon, but more typically, jobs range between 1,500 and 5,000. Some high volume, high precision jobs, such as a set of rollers for a pipe cutter, may have part runs as high as 100,000. In recent years, EMC has found itself facing more and more urgent machining challenges as both new and existing customers have turned to them for last-minute production when other shops have failed to perform as quoted. Brad Ohlemacher, the current company president, explains, “We strive to be the goto guys for emergency machining in production volumes. If someone has a supplier that is underperforming with quality or delivery, and they need someone who can quickly engineer and tool up to production volume for any given precision machining component, we can step in.

While the company’s experience in these types of jobs goes a long way, the CAM package it now uses has been a key to stepping up the production process even further.

Software Makes its Mark

Early in 2009, EMC made the decision to make a change in its part programming software. According to Dennis Marcell, engineering manager, the company chose GibbsCAM from Gibbs and Associates, because of its versatility with horizontal machining centers. “This package has a lot more programs to address the variety of machine tools out there,” he says. “It’s designed to run hundreds of different types of machines, and each time a builder comes out with a new machine, it seems Gibbs has an update to match within a matter of weeks.”

The company uses the CAM software for almost all of its Swiss and horizontal machining. All 3D models are developed in Solid-Works and then imported into the system. Although the softwarehas modeling capability, Mr. Marcell feels this is the most effective method for their needs. “We used SolidWorks before we bought the CAM package,” he says. “Once you understand how to do modeling and how to manipulate the 3D model, you can easily transition to the CAM system.”

Mr. Marcell sees the geometries that the software provides and the speed at which the engineers have been able to program as being the biggest factors in helping boost the company’s success in its urgent machining capabilities. “Part geometry is essential because that’s the starting point of everything you do in this business,” he says. “If that’s not correct, no matter how good the software is, you’re going to spit out garbage. With GibbsCAM, the geometry has been perfect every time for us, and that’s huge.  Everything else can be overcome, but if the geometry is wrong, you’re out of luck.”

The software has also helped to increase productivity considerably. It has helped cut the time from receiving the job to getting the work on the floor by about 70 percent, typically from 10 days to less than 3. On one particular part, a last-minute engineering change required a move to production on the Swiss machines. This part (see Sidebar page 32), made from 1045 steel for a braking system in the heavy duty off-road trucking industry, took only 3 ½ hours to program from start to finish in Gibbs. According to Mr.Marcell, it would have taken more than 8 hours to do it manually.

As customers grow accustomed to EMC’s capabilities, more jobs continue to come in. A recent series of events brought in 240 new part numbers in 90 days. Mr. Ohlemacher sees the performance more as an attitude among the employees. Even with the struggling economy, the company has worked hard to keep service levels very high. In 2009, delivery performance to the customers was more than 99 percent, and quality performance was extremely high as well. He explains, “We’ve worked hard to make sure that our customers are taken care of so that we don’t give them any reason to go somewhere else. Having this growing capability of doing urgent need projects has worked out very well for us, and the tools at hand allow us to do it.”

Editor’s Note: A week after I visited EMC for this story, President Obama also stopped by the shop prior to this Town Hall Meeting at Lorain County Community College. To read more about his visit, see page 13 of this issue, or to view photos and a video clip, go to. -  Download the PDF.

President Obama met with EMC Precision Machining CEO Jeffrey B. Ohlemacher and President Bradley R. Ohlemacher before touring the facility and meeting many of the company’s 44 full-time employees.

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