50 Years Of Trak- Behind The Scenes Of Machines Built To Last

This is our electronics manufacturing area. We're basically making computers. So the Prototrack is just a special computer. So we do our own cables. We have our sub-assemblies here. Wow, so I mean- Assembling the motors. You're not buying off the shelf parts. You're actually creating these things from the ground up. No, everything is our design, our electronics, our software. We do integrate software packages from partners, but we write the software. We do all of the design and the manufacturing. We have our motor cell, and then our surface mount line here where we're stuffing our own PC boards. Now this is actually something that's a little familiar to me because here at my company, Lakewood, we do a lot of fixturing for this. That I take it as a pick and place, and if I had to guess, that's the thing that welds it all together. You got it, right. Yeah, you got it. This is crazy. You don't see a lot of stuff like this in, I mean, I've been to quite a few machinery manufacturers. You don't see this under one roof. And that's a good point. We've just been doing this for so long, so 50 years of being in this business, and as we go along, we just pick those spots where we can make more money by bringing it in house as opposed to outsourcing it. So we do outsource some things, but we love being manufacturers. We love making things in the US, and we manufacture as much as we can. And especially with everything we know about supply chain issues over the last few years, being able to control as much of that process for quality and for the fact you can build your own parts. That's right. It makes it a lot easier. And mostly it's so that it comes out the way we think it should come out. The Prototrack's a very unique product, and we just couldn't rely on someone who didn't understand a machine shop the way we do to make a Prototrack. And that's why it fits so beautifully in so many places, so many shops. So after you guys build these things, I see these things getting software. Is this basically where they come to life? Well, it is. So Kelvin and his team make sure that the product is of our quality standards. They load in the right versions of software, and they can test anywhere from the complete unit all the way to the sub-assemblies and the PC boards themselves with state-of-the-art bed of nails, thank you. That's super cool, I like it. Now it looks like out here you guys have a lot of parts. So we manage about 6,000 part numbers in our warehouse here. This is all dedicated to new product production. That whole half of the warehouse is parts for legacy machines, legacy controls. One of the big things that our customers look to us is to keep their machines running, which we do a fantastic job. You can get one of those controls made in the 80s, and you can ship it to your shop overnight if you choose. So even if you have a machine made in 1989 or in 2024, it's either on this side of the shop or it's here, you can get it. That's right, yeah, that's a big part of what we offer the customers. And I mean, as a company that's been around for so long and serving this market for so long, you guys have machines that still work that are out there from the 80s. So to be able to keep those things going makes a big difference. Well, and being manufacturers ourselves, we get it. When your machine is down, that has a lot of consequences. So Enrique here has a plus 95% same day shipping record, and he maintains it very enthusiastically. Well, yeah, it's an impressive thing to be enthusiastic about. Wow. Now this is really cool to me because I see something very classic. You know, I feel like everybody has seen these things in their shops, in the shop they started at, in their dad's shop, in their uncle's shop, in their grandmother's shop. There are machines that look like this, but I've never seen so many brand new ones lined up, ready to go. What are we looking at here? Well, this is finished inventory, ready to go to a customer. We still have a very good market for this kind of design. Absolutely. Schools love them. A lot of very high-end, sophisticated tool rooms and R&D centers still use the Kneemill because of its flexibility. We automate it with either the KMX Prototrack or the RMX Prototrack, still sell quite a lot of these. And one thing I gotta point out, when we were in Connecticut two years ago, we were at one of the higher end, they do a lot of aerospace, very, very tight tolerance stuff. They had more of these than you could count. They still use these things every single day to make extremely tight tolerance parts. Now you guys got everything from this style. This is essentially just a bigger, larger style? These machines are great for heavier work pieces, bigger travels, heavier cuts. So it's kind of a preference thing. We've eliminated a lot of the inherent motion of the Kneemill by having it on a nice bed frame. And it can also be a three-axis configuration more comfortably than a Kneemill because this whole RAM moves up and down. You still have manual control of the quill. So it's just really the ultimate tool room milling machine. Oh yeah, and the other thing I really like about this, both these are angled. Do you know how many times I've been using a manual mill and you're cranking this way and this way? You actually got both of these right where you need them. And you got a pretty good wingspan too, so. It still sucks, this is much more comfortable. And of course, look at all these. These are brand new machines, ready to roll. Yep, these have just come in. We'll break these down, get them on the floor. Check them out, make sure that they're good. Make sure the prototrack is running properly. And then those have just come in. Those are ready for the installation of the drivetrains. Jeez, there's a lot of machines in here right now. This is great.