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.

To download this PDF, click here.

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.

To download this PDF, click here.

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.

To download this PDF, click here.

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.

To download the PDF, click here.

“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.”

Click here to download the PDF.

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.

Ask Brad Ohlemacher about the circumstances of Elyria Manufacturing Corp.’s founding, and he’ll tell you about how his grandfather, Burton Ohlemacher, was passed over for a promotion from field engineer to plant manager at the now-defunct Western Automatic Screw Products Co.  So incensed was Burton by the slight that he didn’t just quit his job – he started a competitor with funding from his father, William Ohlemacher, who served as the new machining venture’s president.

“His motivation was pride and ego,” chuckles Brad, the company’s current president.

Eighty-four years later, the Elyria Manufacturing Corp. (marketed outside the area as EMC Precision Machining) is a $10 million-plus provider of custom-made, precision-machined components to manufacturers of everything from production-line equipment to truck braking systems.  Brad, 46, and brother Jeff, the company’s 51-year-old chief executive officer, attribute the company’s success to a disciplined adherence to established business systems — they’re both big devotees of Verne Harnish’s “Mastering the Rockefeller Habits” — and time-and task-flexible employees committed to exemplary customer service.

But more evident to the industry outsider is the brothers’ passion for the business.  Their late father, Robert, who left his insurance sales job to help Burton run the company in the mid-1950s, made it clear they were free to choose their own career paths.  But even as boys, they planned to work for the family.  Jeff began sweeping floors at the 50,000-square-foot facility — then “a typical old, dirty factory” — the day after he turned 16 and got his worker’s permit.  ”I always had a dream that it would look like and perform like the overused term: a world-class company,” he remembers.  Similarly, Brad began mowing the lawn at the age of 13.

“When you own a family business, there is a very thin line between where family ends and business begins,” Brad explains.  ”I never really seriously considered anything else.  It’s  what I have known from the time I’ve been able to speak.”

The brothers have also continued the family’s tradition of service to the community.  Like his mother and paternal grandfather before him, Jeff has been on the Elyria Board of Education.  And both men continued the family tradition with stints in the Rotary Club.  Brad has also served on the boards of Leadership Lorain County and the Center for Leadership in Education at Lorain County Community College.  He also helped start the Council for Education in Metalworking Technology, a group that encourages young people to explore manufacturing careers.

Although Brad acknowledges that the economic downturn has forced a downsizing of the workforce to 50, he stresses that the company is in sound financial shape.  Elyria Manufacturing Corp., he projects, will be around if and when his 8-year-old and Jeff’s college-age boys decide to follow in their footsteps.  However, Jeff says their participation isn’t necessarily guaranteed.  One of the reasons the company still exists, he explains, is because positions and salaries are doled out based on ability and performance rather than family ties.

“I’ve told my kids all their lives that if they wanted to work for us, they would be a candidate, just like anybody else — however, they would have to be the best candidate,” he declares.  ”The way to ensure that the company succeeds is to have the best people operating it.”

To read the full article, download the PDF.

“We have a wide variety of training we do,” says Ohlemacher. “It crosses a broad cross-section of the different disciplines we have here.”

Shop workers at the precision machine products company are trained in the latest technical and quality assurance principles. Office employees are trained in how to make the most of their office software, and executives attend strategic planning training.

“It’s our belief that the only way we can survive as a company is that we have to invest in technology so we have the latest equipment, and invest in people to continually improve so that we’re always getting better,” says Ohlemacher. “We have a continuous-learning philosophy. We believe in continuous education and learning to help us become a better company.

“For us, it’s about investing in capital equipment so we have the latest technology, and investing in people so we have the latest thinking.”

Many manufacturers say they can’t spare the time away from the manufacturing process to train employees, that schedules would be disrupted and productivity would suffer.

Ohlemacher doesn’t agree.

“When you are investing in improving somebody, you would be amazed at how those issues just fall away,” says Ohlemacher. “Employees help make it up. The employee understands that it is an investment in them, and they work extra hard and other employees help cover for them.”

Investing in employees makes them feel important, and a stronger sense of loyalty is developed.

“If you are making an investment into somebody, there is some feeling of appreciation,” says Ohlemacher. “It gives people a reason to keep working here beyond just money. It’s a different way to show you care as a company. We don’t do it for that reason; we do it because we have to. It’s what keeps us a growing company.”

Another objection to work force training is that you might spend a lot of money on an employee’s training, only to have that person leave for another firm.

“How bad would it be to have someone leave, as opposed to have someone remain there that doesn’t want to learn?” says Ohlemacher. “That argument doesn’t make any sense to me. Why you would want someone there that is subsisting rather than someone you are investing in and making them grow to help you grow seems illogical. Sometimes employees leave, sure, but that’s part of life.”

Not only does training help retain employees and make Elyria Manufacturing more competitive, it also is a good recruiting tool.

“There’s no way to measure it, but it is a better sell to a potential employee,” says Ohlemacher. “From the employee’s point of view, would you rather work for a company that doesn’t do training or one that does?”

Elyria Manufacturing’s HR manager is responsible for scheduling all training sessions. Training ideas come from executives, managers and even course offering fliers from Lorain County Community College, where the company does most of its training.

Training sessions that need to be attended by everyone are broken up into smaller sessions spread across several days. The location of the training varies by the equipment needed for the course. If it can be done onsite, it is; if not, employees are sent to an offsite location that has the needed equipment.

“We want employees at every level to learn,” says Ohlemacher. “We are willing to invest the money, time and effort to develop them. They will define whether we succeed or fail. The point is, you need to train. It’s a matter of growth and survival.

“A company gets more than they pay for when they train. It’s very difficult to measure, and it’s one of the greatest challenges. If you put $1,000 into a machine, you can measure what the return is, but if you put $1,000 into an employee, how can you measure that return? You can’t. You have to make that leap of faith.”