Cogs in R.I. manufacturing machine

BLUEPRINT FOR SUCCESS: Bruce Sandberg, left, and his father, Sandberg Machine and Engineering owner Bob Sandberg, look over blueprints. The shop, which has 20 employees, handles projects for about 30 companies in Rhode Island. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO
BLUEPRINT FOR SUCCESS: Bruce Sandberg, left, and his father, Sandberg Machine and Engineering owner Bob Sandberg, look over blueprints. The shop, which has 20 employees, handles projects for about 30 companies in Rhode Island. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO

When even one tiny part of a machine in a manufacturing line breaks down, it can put a kink in the company’s production and distribution.
Bob Sandberg, owner of Sandberg Machine and Engineering in Burrillville, believes machine shops that fix or redesign unique parts of manufacturing equipment are a critical link that’s often under the radar of economic development in Rhode Island.
“We should be considered a draw for manufacturers to come into the state,” said Sandberg. “We’re helping to keep manufacturing running and making parts and innovating new machinery.”
The work in Sandberg’s shop has ranged from repairing or fabricating parts for everything from nuclear submarines to clam-shucking machines. He’s fixed, designed and produced parts for manufacturers of wire, chains, jewelry and soap, just to name a few.
One project was a repair on a horizontal boring mill, a machine that weighs about 60,000 pounds.
“In that case, the company no longer manufactured the part for the machine. There was a belt drive inside, but you couldn’t buy the belt,” said Sandberg. “I remanufactured the section inside of the machine so I could use a standard belt off the shelf.”
Another time he had to repair an automatic saw in his shop that had a worm gear – a gear in the form of a screw – but the company in Japan that made the saw had gone out of business. In that predicament, Sandberg devised a way to make the part he needed in his own shop.
Other “worms” he’s worked on in his shop, for instance for a soap manufacturer, might be 12 inches in diameter and 5 feet long.
The shop, which has 20 employees, including Sandberg’s three sons, generally handles projects for about 30 companies in Rhode Island and many others across the United States and Canada.
Sandberg’s company is one of at least 50 machine shops in Rhode Island, said Rhode Island Manufacturers Association Executive Director Bill McCourt.
“They’re very important because they touch every industry and so many things in our daily lives if it’s metal, steel or aluminum. Open up the hood of a car and look at the engine and virtually every single piece of steel is machined,” he said.
“Originally, machining was hand-controlled, but as technology evolves, machining can get very sophisticated,” said McCourt. “Machine shops in Rhode Island fabricate everything from parts for automobiles and submarines to biotech instrumentation [and] aerospace components.” The visibility may increase as the Rhode Island Manufacturers Association and others involved in workforce training in the state increase efforts to close the skills gap that exists in machining.
The Community College of Rhode Island has a certificate program in Computer Numeric Control, called CNC, where the machining is controlled by computers. In its “Introduction to CNC Manufacturing Certificate” course, the CCRI website says, “Companies are integrating computers into engineering and manufacturing environments at a rapid pace. At the heart of advanced manufacturing is CNC machining and the computer applications that support the design and manufacturing process. This program builds the basic skills and knowledge for employment opportunities in the CNC manufacturing environment.”
That’s an area of potential job growth in Rhode Island, said McCourt.
“Machinists are one of the target industries as far as the skills gap. We’re doing a lot of work on this because there’s clearly a lack of a skilled workforce in this area,” said McCourt. “I could call up five machine shops right now and they’d all have openings.”
RIMA is in the process of launching a new machining apprentice program in collaboration with the R.I. Department of Labor and Training and the marine-trades industry with a grant from the Governor’s Workforce Board, he said.
The potential is, in large part, a result of advancing technology, since the old boundaries of cutting metal vertically and horizontally have been broken, he said.
“It can get much more sophisticated because today the machines can cut things on intricate angles,” said McCourt. “It’s more expensive, but they have so many more capabilities.”
One thing is sure, said Sandberg, based on his decades of experience – from one day to the next, the work in a machine shop is going to cover a diverse list of designs and repairs that keep businesses across Rhode Island, and in many other places, humming.
One day it may be helping maintain a nuclear submarine and another it may be getting an assist in preparing lunch.
“There’s a company near my shop that makes Italian sausages,” said Sandberg. “They have a whole bunch of specialty trays, five or 10 trays high on wheels, made out of stainless steel. They’re handled every day, so sometimes the wheels come off or the handles come off. They bring them in every now and then and we refurbish them.” •

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