Raving Fan: S&N Manufacturing

	CUSTOMER STORY
	Leap of Faith Leads to First CNC Machine at S&NŽ

by Stacey Romanowski

Corp. Marketing

I try to begin our Raving Fan interviews with questions like: What do you do better than anyone else? Why do your customers continue to give you business? By far, the most popular answer is "we provide quality parts and on time delivery." When I visited S&N Manufacturing, Inc. in Geneva, IL, a manufacturer of heavy-duty solenoids for off-road, marine, and industrial applications, I pushed them for more. I believe anyone in the business of machining parts today must do more than just provide quality parts and on time delivery to survive. S&NŽ principals, Nancy Paganessi, President; Art Paganessi, Vice President (pictured left); and Conrad Fisher, Vice President (pictured right), recognize their secret weapon as their ability to select good people and trust them.

Although S&N had no CNC machining equipment, John (Coudal –

MSI Mazak Sales Engineer) continued to pursue S&N Manufacturing for over 10 years because John knew that MSI/Mazak had the best solution for S&NŽ when and if they did decide to invest in their first machine. "Compared to the other CNC salesmen that came calling on us, we just trusted John," states Nancy, "we believed what he told us to be true. Perhaps just as important, he didn’t oversell – what he promised, he delivered." Previously they had outsourced all their machining. In order to meet the growing demands of their customer base, S&NŽ made the decision to purchase a CNC and produce in-house many of the parts they had been outsourcing. This afforded them the ability to control on-time delivery of components and strengthen their production control. After considering all of the options presented to us by various CNC manufacturers, we decided to purchase a Mazak Super Quick Turn 200MS."

"The hardest part of convincing people to take the control of their machining is not the learning curve, but the price tag," explains John. "Even more difficult, in this instance, is describing all the details of machining to "non-machinists." Art and Conrad really caught on to the concept of tooling, work holding, barfeeding, and how to go from raw material to finished part. The fact that the guys took notes and called with all questions was encouraging." Although the Mazak cell cost more than the Okuma’s, S&N took the $250,000 leap of faith with the Mazak Super Quick Turn 200MS including an SMW magazine barfeeder in October 1999. Art explains how S&N was able to take this leap of faith: "John said MSI and Mazak would be there for us throughout the learning curve and they have been! Machinery Tooling & Supply (the tooling arm of MSI) and Sandvik have trained us on what tools to use, Mazak had lent us live tools on occasion and Hank Rutkowski (MSI Application Engineer) has been a great help in assisting us to improve our part processing."

S&NŽ also made a commitment to become ISO 9002 certified. Nancy elaborates, "this is an important, and sometimes required, step – not only to satisfy our own continuous improvement efforts but also to be a positive force in growing the business and diversifying our markets. S&NŽ was proudly recommended for their ISO 9002 certification at the pre-audit and approved shortly thereafter – five weeks ahead of schedule!

The S&N SQT 200MS is now up to 85% utilization. Art and Conrad ran 14 hours unattended one night in just their 5th week of operation. It is not uncommon for the machine to run 20 hours per day, including 10 hours of lights out machining. "With the help of John and many people at Mazak and MSI, the Mazak SQT 200MS has assisted us in meeting the ISO standards, maintaining our quality requirements and the goal of taking control of our manufacturing process," explains Conrad.

Through this experience, S&N has learned to "trust a salesman," Nancy explains, "Conrad and I had trouble with this concept until we met John." It takes a lot of courage to go with your gut and take the leap of faith that S&N Manufacturing did. We are proud to be a part of their success formula.

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