If you need to manufacture a boring tool that will hold tolerance to the micron level, it follows that you need a pretty sophisticated manufacturing and inspection process to produce it. But to see it first hand is something else. I had the good fortune to make a visit to the Kaiser manufacturing facility in Rumlang, Switzerland recently and I was very impressed. I’ve been to quite a few manufacturing facilities in the past 8 years, but there were a few things here that really stood out to me.

First of all, I have never been to a manufacturing facility that is as tightly organized. There is virtually no floor space that is unused. In most cases, this would suggest an over crowded and chaotic environment, but the Kaiser facility was more like the inside of a Swiss watch. Every step in their process is highly evolved and organized. Their tight focus on high precision boring tools has allowed their engineers to optimize the manufacturing process to a true science. In fact, many of the processes run lights out with a quality control process that prints an inspection report of all parts to enable an operator to identify and pull them individually based on their numbered position on a storage rack at the end of an automated shift.

Secondly, the science that they employ in this facility is highly refined. The design and manufacturing of some products is easy to replicate - not Kaiser tools. The sensitivity that they incorporate in to their process to ensure perfection is extraordinary. The temperature controlled grinding rooms are a good example of this. The room is sealed off from the rest of the facility and has its own temperature control system. At the other end of the facility, there is an inspection room that maintains a temperature within 1 degree of the grinding room to ensure that there is no variance due to fluctuation in temperature.

In the photo above, Chris Kaiser, of BIG Kaiser Precisioin Tooling, demonstrates the sensitivity of the inspection equipment in the Kaiser quality control process. A micrometer shows how the heat from his hands impact the properties of a 4 inch block of steel enough to register expansion of more than 1 micron. Learning to accommodate for this in the machining process is integral to the precision that Kaiser tools can achieve. He also demonstrated how the steel reacts to force by twisting a 4 inch block of steel in his hands and showing movement measured at as much as 10 microns! Kaiser tools are built in such a way that distortions due to outside forces are accounted for to maintain precision.

Lastly, this was a facility that really showcased the best of the old and the new. On one hand you have hand grinding and polishing steps that require an experienced and skilled hand, and on the other they have fully automated, lights out processes. In the thread grinding area, highly experienced operators hand match each spindle and tool carrier to assure nearly perfect precision and virtually back lash free screw threads. Opposite to this labor intensive operation, sits a recently installed Studer S242 that runs unattended automated OD grinding and hard turning. This machine features an auto loader that maintains an inventory and production log of every work piece that runs through the machine. At the end of an automated shift an operator simply reads the inspection report for all work pieces and locating the parts by a numbered position on a storage rack.

If you are a user of Kaiser boring products, you may know their reputation for precision. But as impressive as their tools are, they are also a thriving example of a manufacturing facility that has protected their market by constantly evolving their product and processes to take advantage of lean practices and advanced technology that allows them to consistently reach new levels of accuracy, quality and efficiency.