Success Story: Mass Precision

Silicon Valley-based fabricator Mass Precision turns to LightWELD to stay competitive, tackle high-mix low-volume manufacturing, and maximize welder productivity.

What’s a Success Story?

There are a lot of reasons why our customers invest in LightWELD: it might solve a specific problem for them, or help them be more productive, or they might just be excited by the technology. Whatever the reason, we love talking to them and learning about their businesses.

Our success stories are a closer look at some of our customers, what they’re working on, and how LightWELD has helped them find success. We hope that their stories can help give you a better idea of how the industry is using and benefiting from LightWELD.

About the Company

Established in 1984, Mass Precision is headquartered in the heart of Silicon Valley and provides a comprehensive range of services including engineering and design, new product introduction, and fabrication.

The company started as a sheet metal shop with about 10 employees and has continued to grow to a size of nearly 500 employees. Mass Precision now operates out of three facilities located in San Jose and Freemont that encompass approximately 200,000 square feet of manufacturing space. The company also utilizes facilities in Mexico and Malaysia that offer capabilities like engineering, fabrication, welding, finishing, and assembly.

As Silicon Valley’s foremost metal fabrication and EMS solution provider, Mass Precision has established a reputation for their proficiency in design and engineering, precision sheet metal fabrication, machining, and finishing. Delivering high-quality results in operations like welding across a wide range of materials is essential to meeting and exceeding customer expectations.

Challenges

Staying competitive: Silicon Valley is a high cost of living area with high labor rates. Competing on price alone is not feasible, meaning that Mass Precision must offer increased capabilities and the fastest possible turnaround times.

High-mix low-volume welding: laser welding is a well-established solution for welding thin materials and avoiding common problems like distortion caused by excess heat. However, relying on a traditional robotic laser welding system was presenting challenges for high-mix low-volume manufacturing.

Maximizing welder effectiveness: Mass Precision employs many welders with a wide range of skill levels from highly skilled to comparatively inexperienced. The learning curve for MIG and TIG welding means that it can take weeks or months before a new welder is on the floor welding full time.

The Solution

Jeremy Stucky, Mass Precision’s Director of Engineering, was already familiar with the advantages of laser welding due to the company’s existing robotic laser welding system.

When a customer with a strict bidding process required high-quality welding of thin materials for their project it was clear that challenges caused by low volumes and fixturing would make it prohibitive to weld on a robotic system. The engineering team began to consider a handheld laser welding solution before ultimately choosing LightWELD.

Handheld laser welding was the ideal solution to achieve excellent weld quality without requiring extensive post processing. “The time and the finishing without having to over-process allowed us to be more competitive on those bids,” says Stucky.

But Mass Precision, which strives for continuous improvement, did not consider LightWELD just a one-off to win an important bid — the company proved the technology with one job and then considered how to utilize the new capabilities to win additional business and increase productivity.

Although the ability to outperform robotic laser welding systems in low volume and prototyping jobs was the deciding factor, Mass Precision found that LightWELD brought more flexibility to their welders. The shallow learning curve enabled highly experienced and less skilled welders alike to learn the technology quickly.

When comparing LightWELD to traditional welding methods, Stucky commented that the difference was night and day. “It has been much easier to bring [new] team members on board which is [normally] a very costly process.”

Welding flexibility is one thing, but LightWELD laser welding and cleaning technology has also increased Mass Precision’s capabilities. Laser welding produces extremely high-quality welds in a variety of materials and thicknesses and across a range of welding patterns. This is critical for the company, which regularly welds steels, stainless steels, and nickel and titanium alloys. “LightWELD is giving us the ability to easily fuse weld, easily spot weld, and easily skip weld components without adding a lot of heat,” added Stucky.

Beyond weld strength, weld cosmetics also play a crucial role in the company’s projects when customers demand high-quality aesthetics on external product surfaces. Mass Precision also takes advantage of LightWELD’s laser cleaning functionality in stainless steel projects to replace slow chemical cleaning processes and minimize grinding. According to Stucky, LightWELD has become another tool in the company’s tool box for weld engineers to use as they see fit.