The new press brake tooling machine at K&K Industries allows the manufacturer to better serve its boat-building customers in particular.
Kathy Gundel is a runner. What she did not realize was that the farmland and lush green pastures she ran past during her race preparations held the key to survival for manufacturing business in today’s competitive marketplace.
"The downturn in the economy forced us to become a greener company,” said Greg Gundel, who owns and operates Specified Fittings on Smith Road in Bellingham with his wife Kathy. "Becoming more ecologically sensitive helped our bottom line. It was a simple matter of grinding any leftover parts and melting them down to make new products. The process saves us money, reduces the amount of trash we generate and reduces our overall carbon footprint.”
Established in 1997, Specified Fittings quickly grew to become one of the major providers of PCV and HDPE pipe fittings to contractors and municipalities across North America. As the co-owner, Kathy’s role with Specified helped the company qualify as a woman-owned business and opened the doors to government contracts. She emphasized the economic and socially responsible role the company fulfills by providing clean drinking water. Saving taxpayer dollars is simply a natural benefit of what the manufacturer attempts to give back to communities across the nation.
Kathy’s training regimen as a long-distance runner gave her plenty of time to work on details of how Specified Fittings could modify its manufacturing procedures to profit from changes in the workplace. The co-owner has participated in organized running competitions throughout Western Washington, and was among the top finishers in her age bracket in the Run of the Mill 5.5K race in Mill Creek, the 8K Seafair competition in Seattle and the Race for the Cure.
Greg Gundel said his company was forced to adjust quickly to replace the loss of business from the residential housing market with public works projects and support of the nation’s infrastructure.
"Ironically, the weak U.S. dollar helped to make us much more competitive in the export market,” said Gundel. "A downturn in the economy does not impact the fact that people need clean drinking water. Our nation’s infrastructure of metal piping is rotting, and local governments have been forced to replace the old archaic concrete and clay with cleaner options. We are prepared to provide those solutions in a timely basis and at a fair cost to everybody.”
To keep up with the demand for clean water across the United States and Canada, Gundel will need cooperation from his own city and county government. The largest issue currently inhibiting the growth of Specified Fittings is the bureaucracy within the city of Bellingham and Whatcom County, he said. The business owner is frustrated with the lack of cooperation that has limited his company to its existing facilities, the current 105 employees and a $4 million annual payroll.
He describes the business climate in Whatcom County as "challenging,” noting that both sides want to expand the economy within the community, but differ in how they will eventually reach a compromise that will leave everybody satisfied. Gundel holds out hope that the new county council will realize that relaxing existing setbacks and easing zoning restrictions will have long-term benefits for the business community as well as fund improvements for the residential population that lives adjacent to the company facility.
Given the ability to increase its own capacity, Gundel expressed confidence that his company could play a key role in the construction of water treatment plants, fish hatcheries and miles of new roadways across the state of Washington. In Whatcom County, the co-owner said Specified Fittings could play a role in maintaining the water quality of Lake Whatcom, helping with preventive pollution control at the new yacht harbor and assisting with the clean-up of the wetlands surrounding the old mill.
"Every community has its own set of problems and challenges,” said Gundel.
He concluded, "This may not be something the government wants to do, but many local and state lawmakers will be forced to replace and expand current facilities to simply keep up with the demand from the growing population.”
Swim Upstream
Executives at K&K Industries have jumped head-first into the economic riptide that has pulled many of its competitors in the boat-building industry underwater. Instead of cutbacks and layoffs, the largest laser and router job shop between Seattle and Vancouver, B.C., invested in a 12-foot Cincinnati press brake designed specifically to cater to boat builders in the Pacific Northwest.
"We have always maintained confidence that our customers will bounce back,” explained Bob Sperry, the general manager at K&K Industries. "We’ve kept everything the same, including our staff of experienced employees, so when the recovery began we were in a position to begin adding new workers to our payroll. K&K has actually been able to add three or four new employees to the payroll in the past few months. That’s a fact we are very proud of.”
K&K has maintained its in-house capacity to inventory materials for fabrication to assure customers can expect their orders quickly with outstanding results, according to the general
manager.
Sperry said there were several nervous months last year, but the workload at K&K remained constant thanks, he said, to more than 200 loyal customers. The company has grown steadily since opening its doors in 2004 with clients from industries ranging from sign companies and berry picking machines to military jet engines, snowmobiles and medical furniture manufacturers.
In March of this year, K&K Industries Inc. renewed its working relationship with Nichols Bros. Boat Builders and Todd Pacific Shipyards to assist on the construction of the second of two new 64-car ferries being built for the Washington State Ferry system. When completed, the new Chetzemoka will be outfitted in Everett and is scheduled to begin service on the Port Townsend to Keystone run this summer.
Skagit County to Utah
Further south along Interstate 5 in Sedro-Woolley, Janicki Industries continues to add luster to its own reputation as the premier technical engineering company in the western United States. The company creates composite tools, prototypes and production parts for transportation, aerospace, space and defense, marine, wind energy and other innovative markets throughout the world.
In May, The Governor’s Office of Economic Development in Utah announced that Janicki Industries would establish a new precision composites manufacturing facility in that state to support the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program.
One month later, the company announced that it had gone ahead with plans to expand its own core capabilities by acquiring a new 1,600-degree annealing furnace designed to handle large-scale, high-precision metal, composite, ceramic and thermoplastic projects.
Annealing is used on metal tools and parts that have been welded or cast. The process is also called heat-treating or stress relief and is used on metal tools and parts that contain localized stress. The process of heating the metal to a high temperature, then allowing it to cool, enables molecules to loosen and realign relieving any built up stresses and providing dimensional stability during subsequent processing.
The annealing furnace can be adjusted in temperature to cure composites, ceramics and thermoplastics, as well as metals, such as various steel products and specialty metals like Invar.
"With these retooling capabilities in addition to the 2009 addition of two more large-scale high-precision mills, Janicki Industries can provide full service tooling solutions in both metal and composites,” said company president John Janicki.
Founded by a team of engineers headed by CEO Peter Janicki as Janicki Machine Design in 1993, the Skagit County firm designs and builds high-precision tooling for aerospace, marine, wind energy and transportation customers. The company’s proprietary five-axis composite machine has been hailed by Boeing and other users as unrivaled in scale and precision. The company has evolved into a full-service engineering firm that specializes in complex projects with demanding timelines. The research and development division of Janicki pushes the boundaries of composite fabrication materials and develops techniques based on the needs and requirements of its short list of demanding clients.
Janicki currently employs more than 350 people in the state of Washington. When the new $19.5 million production facility in Utah is completed, the company will add an additional 50 people to the Janicki payroll. The addition is expected to generate $20.5 million in new wages and $1.5 million in tax revenue for the state of Utah over the initial 10 years of the contract. The new employees will be brought on to help Janicki fulfill its contractual obligations to ATK and Hitco Carbon Composites.
The F-35 is expected to be the world’s premier war fighting aircraft through 2040.
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