Tool manufacturer uses automation to become more productive and flexible

Images: De Boer Tool

This is a story of a tool; a solid-carbide tool to be precise.

It’s made from a carefully selected carbide grade, ground to exacting tolerances, finished with a prescribed edge preparation, and then coated. And all of this is done so that it can be pushed to its limit, used up, and sent for regrinding so it can start all over again.

That is a typical day in the life of a tool made by De Boer Tool.

De Boer Tool, Mississauga, Ont., is a manufacturer of solid-carbide cutting tools that serves the aerospace, die/mold, and medical industries, among others and is known for its use of advanced grinding machines, unique coating technology, and its customer-centric approach.

Established in 1996 by Gary de Boer, the company started as a small home-based workshop specializing in tool sharpening using a manual Deckel tool and cutter grinder. Over time, it has expanded significantly and is now one of Canada’s largest cutting tool manufacturers, operating from its air-conditioned 18,000-sq.-ft. manufacturing facility.

In recent years, the company has committed to a heavy investment in automation and lights-out manufacturing. This approach enables it to meet the high demands of large-volume manufacturing while maintaining the agility to respond swiftly to customer needs that are in smaller batch sizes.

The facility is equipped with a large fleet of modern Walter CNC tool and cutter grinders, support grinding machines, advanced edge preparation equipment, and an in-house coating centre. These resources allow De Boer Tool to produce cutting tools that are not only high quality, but also tailored to the specific needs of their clients.

The company’s motto, “Excellence in cutting tool manufacturing,” may seem like a simple statement, but if you know anything about grinding to tight tolerances and doing so in batches both large and small, it’s actually a daunting task.

“My background is in tool and die, and from those early days, the idea was that every tool I made had to be perfect. And I just carried that idea on to here when I started the company,” explained CEO Gary de Boer. “There have been jobs over the years where we said it cannot go out the door because it’s not perfect yet. It has to be right, otherwise it gets remade.”

And when it’s your name on the side of the building, it’s now both your professional and personal reputations that are on the line.

(From left) James de Boer, production manager; Matt de Boer, technical sales and application specialist; and Gary de Boer, CEO of De Boer Tool.

“Another important component to the business is we stand behind our products 100 per cent,” said Matthew de Boer, Gary de Boer’s son and the company’s technical sales and application specialist. “We're by no means immune to mistakes. But when they happen, we are going to replace the tools.”

That means a lot coming from a company that has more than 5,000 SKUs.

The company is well known for its solid-carbide milling tools and solid-carbide drills, which account for nearly all of its sales. Within this product mix, about 60 per cent are standard products and 40 per cent are custom-engineered tools. Additionally, the company has the capability to create specialty high-speed steel (HSS) tools for the aerospace industry.

“We have many different carbide grades, and we're open to trying different grades for different applications,” said Gary de Boer. “We're also not scared to push the envelope with geometry, and edge preps. We're always looking for the next big thing.”

A walk through the manufacturing floor at De Boer Tool is a showcase of automated CNC grinding machines. It’s a company trait that has been around since the beginning.

“We were the first one to have a robot on a grinder in Canada. We were also the first company to have linear-drive grinding machines. We were the second company to get a 5-axis grinder ... someone else beat me to that one,” joked Gary de Boer.

Through its demand for excellence, the company has always been at the forefront of grinding technology. In its pursuit of lights-out manufacturing of the grinding process, De Boer Tool relies heavily on its machines, automation, grinding fluid, and filtration processes.

“We always invest in technology. It’s never been about making money quickly here; it’s been about the long term and building a very successful business. We want our customers to enjoy buying and using our products. And we want the buying process to be easy,” said Gary de Boer.

As the company grew, its machine purchasing slowed a little. They learned that having a shop with two CNC grinding machines was much different than having a shop with 21 CNC grinding machines.

“We will always have the best possible grinder with the best possible software, but now we’ve slowed down a little bit,” said Gary de Boer. “In the early days, changes were easy to make. But now if there is even a small change in our grinding software, it can be a disaster if it’s not carefully planned for and executed.”

Team Lead Pranav Panchal operates one of the company’s fleet of Walter CNC tool and cutter grinders.

If, for example, the grinding machine OEM upgrades its software, it may initially have bugs, and that is a much bigger deal when you are a company with more than 20 machines running day and night.

The company’s standard product line includes the Essential Series for general-purpose milling applications, but it also produces tools for both high-speed milling (X-Mill) and high-feed milling (HV Feed Mill), thread mills, mills designed for difficult-to-cut materials, and mills that specialize in cutting aluminum.

Its Pro-Drill solid-carbide drill line comes in diameters from 3 to 16 mm (also available in imperial) and drilling depths of 3xD, 5xD, 8xD, and 12xD. This drill can be used in numerous materials including ISO P (steel), M (stainless steel), K (cast iron), N (non-ferrous materials), S (heat-resistant superalloys), and H (high-hardness steels up to 55 HRC).

The company also can produce batches of customized mills and drills.

“A custom project usually starts with a customer giving us a drawing of a part that shows the feature or features that they need produced. Then we design a tool that is just for them,” said Matt de Boer. “We will even talk to them about making a tool that can combine operations like drilling and chamfering to help reduce their cycle time and tool inventory.”

Step No. 1 is finding out what material is being cut and what the machining process is. They then find out what speeds and feeds are being used.

“Quite often we get a customer that isn’t happy with their current tool and comes to us wondering if we can offer something that fits their needs perfectly,” said Gary de Boer. “We can then offer different alternatives like a different coating or additional flutes.”

Business also arrives at the toolmaker when problems arise in a customer’s current supply chain.

Having carbide blanks on hand gives the company the ability to be flexible and also quickly respond to a customer’s needs. De Boer Tool staff will even visit a customer’s site to watch their current cutting operations, its setup and holding, and see in real time what the cutting operation looks like.

The company began its automation journey by replacing its older Walter tool grinding machines with new HELITRONIC VISION and MICRO machines. These new machines included built-in automation packages equipped with a FANUC robot, allowing for a seamless transition to an automated workflow.

Matt de Boer uses one of the company’s HELICHEK PLUS CNC measuring machines to inspect a tool.

“That was a game-changer,” said Gary de Boer. “That’s what started our drive for lights-out.”

De Boer Tool purchased four new CNC grinders and one larger grinder at the same time. A benefit of the new machines was their linear drives.

“Our upgrade wasn’t just new machines and a robot,” said Gary de Boer. “The MICROs also have an indexing head and three grinding spindles rather than two opposing spindles. Now, all of a sudden, we can make different geometries because we can tilt the wheel.”

And because the company purchased identical machines, it didn’t matter if one was tied up; they could transfer an incoming job to another machine.

“It didn’t matter if we were making standards or recurring specials, we can run it on any machine and know it’s going to come off the same,” said Gary de Boer.

The primary role of any coating is to extend tool life. It reduces friction by increasing the lubricity between the material being cut and the cutting tool’s substrate and provides a barrier to the heat, abrasive wear, and chemical reactions caused by the cutting process.

ALL4 is one of De Boer Tool’s multi-layered physical vapour deposition (PVD) coatings for cutting steel, stainless steel, and difficult-to-machine workpiece materials. It is suitable for heavy roughing, high-speed machining, general machining, and even finishing applications, the company states.

The company decided to add an in-house coating department in a very simple way.

“We simply took a look at how much we were spending every month on outsourcing our coating. We had gotten to a place where our volume was so high, it just made sense to have our own,” said Gary de Boer. “But we also found that we could respond to customers faster. We also could develop our own coating recipes.”

And even though the company’s volumes are pretty high, they are not high enough to cost-effectively offer all of the varieties of coatings available on the market. Instead, it decided to eliminate all of the older standard coatings and offer its customers four primary, high-performance coatings, including ALL4.

De Boer Tool has a fleet of more than 20 CNC tool and cutter grinders.

“It was cheaper for me to do because we're doing full loads of the machine every time,” said Gary de Boer. “That made the price lower for the customer too.”

The regrinding of tools is so important to the company that it’s part of the initial sales pitch to potential customers.

“We'll even go into the design philosophy of the tools with our customer. We explain how we regrind it and how many times we can regrind it,” said Matt de Boer. “That goes into cost-per-part calculations because we'll also provide a quote with the new tool and say we estimate you will get four regrinds.”

Canada needs more skilled trades workers. That’s a fact. Nearly every shop in the country is looking to fill a need, whether it’s in production, programming, or even sales.

“Attracting young people into the skilled trades is hard right now,” said Gary de Boer. “Maybe harder than it's ever been. We try to take a multifaceted approach. We have a clean shop, which some of our employees that haven’t had any exposure to other facilities may take for granted, but it’s important to us,” he added. “Work culture here is very important for us too.”

Once an employee is in the door, a career path can be found. It’s not about being stuck in the same job for years at a time.

“We try to identify people that have the right characteristics for getting into programming, team leads, management, and develop the skills of those people,” said Matt de Boer.

It’s about finding the right person with the right attitude and experience. And at a manufacturer that’s been around nearly 30 years, experience counts.

Editor Joe Thompson can be reached at [email protected].

De Boer Tool, www.deboertool.com