And to make certain his i’s were dotted and t’s crossed, Nieuwendyk requested the same for a competing brand. Nieuwendyk reached out to Jim Cordoviz, regional sales manager for Sandvik Coromant in Western Canada, and asked him for a presentation on the company’s Capto quick-change tooling lineup. Unlike many of them, however, they decided to do something about it. Nieuwendyk and his team quickly realized that Flexxaire was suffering from the same disease that affects so many machine shops: overly long setup times. “At the same time, we needed to keep up with demand, so several of us began looking at ways to increase machine uptime without adding people.” “When the economy tanked back in 2007, we weren’t sure how it would affect us and we became very hesitant about hiring anyone,” Nieuwendyk says. With a few exceptions, everything is also equipped with Capto quick-change toolholders from Sandvik Coromant, a transformation that began during a difficult financial period.
Capto quick-change eliminates this waste while also making machining processes more consistent.
#CAPTO TOOLING INSTALL#
“Pretty much everything out there is mill-turn capable.” Even experienced workers take several minutes to install and touch-off a cutting tool on a CNC lathe. “We also have an NLX-series mill-turn from DMG and one of Miyano’s ABX-51 three turret lathes,” says Nieuwendyk.
Flexxaire boasts an eclectic mix of CNC lathes and machining centres from Okuma, Miyano, “an old Hitachi Seiki,” and DMG MORI, with its most recent addition a 117-tool NTX 2500 multitasking lathe from the latter. These improvements depend on regular investment in modern machining technology. Some of that success comes from its early and ongoing relationship with Caterpillar, the rest from its employees’ collective drive for continuous improvement in products and processes alike. The company has enjoyed consistent growth since its founding in 1983 and now employs close to 50 people, has sales offices in Germany, Italy, and Ontario, and expanded its Edmonton manufacturing facility several years ago to 4200 sq m (45,000 sq. Nieuwendyk and the others at Flexxaire are big fans of such efficiency. When the engine senses this, it will tell the blades to reverse their pitch angle, blowing out the radiator and keeping it clean.” “Take forestry, where you’re grinding up trees and brush into little pieces that then get sucked into the radiator. So says Chris Nieuwendyk, Flexxaire’s chief technology officer, who adds that the company’s fan technology solves another everyday problem: radiators getting plugged with debris on job sites. A Flexxaire fan connects directly to the ECM, so if the engine’s running too hot or cold, the blade pitch adjusts automatically to bring everything back to the correct operating temperature.” “We found that overcooling more so than overheating tends to reduce a diesel engine’s lifespan, and is a common problem in northern climates like ours. That’s according to the assignee of Isert’s patent, Edmonton-based Flexxaire Inc., designers and manufacturers of reversible fan systems for the diesel engines used in forestry, agricultural, mining, earthmoving, and other industrial machinery for more than 35 years. But what he was probably most proud of in life was a device that “provides total control of airflow, keeps radiators clean, maximizes engine performance, saves fuel, and is robustly built and maintenance free.” “A man with innovative ideas and a dedicated entrepreneur.” Whether it was his new and improved grease gun design or the scraper gate he developed to keep earthmoving equipment from stalling, inventor Clarence Isert would be proud of his headstone.
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