Fielding Manufacturing Corporation of Cranston is known for its work in the areas of plastic injection molding and miniature zinc die casting, two fields that rely on extreme precision and accountability. To meet those standards the company recently invested more than $1.5 million in creating a cutting-edge “Section Inspection Division” that provides a variety of computerized parts-inspection, parts-design, and tool-wear analysis services.
The company quickly realized that the new divisionwould not only be valuable for work within Fielding, but could become profitable to contract out to manufacturers throughout the country.
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The move proved beneficial as the company has captured several large contracts within the last three months, including nailing down deals with Gillette, Stanley Tools and Pollack, a maker of automotive parts.
“This was a substantial investment on our part, but it was necessary to stay competitive. Manufacturers in Rhode Island have to stop wining and instead make the investment in themselves,” said Steven P. Fielding, the company’s president.
The new division was announced eight months ago in an effort to diversify the company by becoming a full service provider, instead of just a manufacturer.
Fielding now has the computer capability to design a new part or find deficiencies in a part, create a rapid prototype of a part and manufacture high volumes of parts. One of the company’s mottos is to provide “Art to Part to Parts.”
The new division targets companies that manufacture molded and die cast parts that have a complex geometry made with a variety of materials, ranging from plastics to zinc alloys and from copper to wood.
The innovations fall in line with the progress the 100-employee operation has made since opening in 1962 as a tool shop and mold making company that wanted to catch the developing plastic injection molding market.
STEVEN FIELDING, president.
With its tooling foundation, the company evolved over the years into a premier vendor for custom miniature zinc die casting and custom plastic injection molding.
The idea of forming a Section Inspection division was based on doing much more precise work much quicker, attributes that would draw clients looking to get a reliable product out in time.
”We needed a way to accurately and quickly inspect complex parts to completely capture every small detail,” said Carl Pallister, Section Inspection’s vice president of sales.
The division’s services include:
First article inspection: using a three-dimensional image to verify that a company is manufacturing parts according to precise design specifications.
Reverse engineering or re-mastering: creating three-dimensional computer-aided design files from existing parts.
Periodic part validation: checking adherence to critical specifications during manufacturing.
Tool-wear analysis: alerting manufacturers to the wearing of parts before it causes downtime.
Fielding uses state-of-the-art hardware and software systems, including the CSS-1000 Reverse Engineering System. The system is a combination of a computer controlled milling machine and a precision digital camera.
Parts to be analyzed are milled down layer by layer with each new layer being automatically recorded by the camera. The system is unique, simultaneously capturing both surface and internal geometry.
The 3-D image that is retrieved from the process is then loaded onto computers to be worked on using engineering and mechanical software called Pro-Engineer and Pro-Mechinaca. The programs are available on five workstations at the Fielding facility. Each workstation’s equipment costs in excess of $60,000.
The possible uses of creating the 3-D image are endless. One potential use would be if a part that is being manufactured is not working for an unknown reason. Using the technology at Fielding that part can be transferred into a 3-D digital image on a computer and then compared with the original part. Using various colors the computer can create a model showing how the two parts differ ever so slightly.
”Another service we now offer is reverse engineering,” said Pallister. “We can take an existing part and give it back to our customer in the form of a 3-D solid model on a CD ROM. This allows them to upgrade their old two-dimensional designs to 3-D quickly and relatively inexpensively.”
The computer software can also be used to propose improvements to a part by altering its design and the material being used. Engineers can test how a part being made with certain material will respond to stress and find potential flaws before the part is actually made, saving time and money.
Along with the $1.5 million the company has spent on technology, a major cost has been incurred on bringing in engineers to work on these complicated programs. The company has 12 engineers today compared to five just two years ago.
”The key to taking advantage of technology is getting high caliber people,” said Fielding. He said there is tons of competition today for engineers from companies willing to pay “fat salaries.”
He said the technology the company has purchased helps entice engineers to Fielding, because it’s a chance to work with the newest and best equipment available.
One recent morning, engineer Roy Martin was engrossed in revising the specification of a clipboard spring that had a flaw in its original design.
CARLOS MARTINEZ using “Pro-Engineer” software.
”This software allows you to test changes in minutes that would have taken weeks to do if you actually designed a part, manufactured it and tested the actual part,” he said, as he simply entered a command to test the deflection of the spring on his computer screen.
Martin said it has taken several months for engineers at the company to learn the software and to take advantage of all of its capabilities, which company officials believe are limitless.
