VIDEO: TOOLING UP – Applied Abrasive Automation with Norton Abrasives

Narrator: This video is brought to you by Norton Saint-Gobain, an industry leader in Abrasives for 130 years and counting. Welcome to Tooling Up, a series by MSC Industrial Supply Company. The show that provides real world insights and is brought to you by leading industry experts aimed at improving the efficiency and productivity of your operation. And now the host of Tooling Up, Mitch Free.

Mitch Free: Welcome to Tooling Up, the series dedicated to helping find efficiencies and increasing productivity in the manufacturing industry. I'm Mitch Free. If you're new here, be sure to subscribe and hit that like button. My guest today is Mike Shappell, senior applications engineer with Norton Abrasives. Mike, thanks so much for joining me today.

Mike Shappell: Yeah, thanks. I appreciate it.

Mitch Free: Mike, a few weeks ago when we chatted, one of the things that really came through was your wealth of knowledge and your passion for the industry. So before we get into talking about the Abrasives Solutions Lab at Norton, I'd love to hear a little bit about about you and your journey.

Mike Shappell: Yeah. So I have been in the metal finishing industry for over 40 years and started with the Schlage Lock Company in Colorado Springs. Went from there to the Delta Faucet Group out of Henderson, Kentucky. And then recently, I say recently, 8-9 years ago, I was fortunate enough to switch my career to helping others as an application engineer for the Norton Abrasives group. And again, through that entire timeframe, the focus has been heavily on automation and the use of abrasives in automation. So that's been a big part of my background.

Mitch Free: I'm sure that brought a very interesting customer perspective to Norton. And then, so how did that lead to the development of the Solutions Lab?

Mike Shappell: Oftentimes when we'd work with a customer who was struggling with doing something manually, whether it was getting people or getting the quality, getting the output, we oftentimes would steer them towards some of our automation integrator partners. What we've seen in the last few years, however, is those automation integrators have gotten just incredibly busy. They don't really have the resources, the time, the people to be able to stop putting together those automation systems to help prove out somebody who's going from manual to automation. So several years ago, we got together as Norton Abrasives, Norton Saint-Gobain, and we said, Hey, look, we are the ones who continue to point people in the direction of automation. We really need to be a bigger part of that process. And so in doing so, they gave me the challenge and the privilege of saying, "Hey, Mike, why don't you see if you can't design a robotic system that we could use in almost any scenario with abrasives out of our catalog?"

Mitch Free: Very fascinating. Let me see if I understand this correctly. So you guys have a lab where you do automated processing, which means customers can share with you their application needs or some challenge that they're having. And if I understand it correctly, then you guys will work to engineer an automation solution for that?

Mike Shappell: That's correct. So our lab is 100% customer focused, meaning we don't run abrasives in our lab or processes in our lab for the good of of Norton or Saint-Gobain. We have other labs for that. This is a customer coming to us with a part, with a maybe a problem or a process that is done manually. We will gather the abrasives that we believe are necessary. We will get parts from that customer and then we will write a program. We'll create some tooling. Simple 3D printed fingers or bolt-on fixtures. And, you know, Mitch, to your point, we will then create a program that holds the part or holds the abrasives, takes them to each other. We run the lab, we create a report, and we give that back to the customer. And it allows them to then see this can be done through automation. This is how fast we could go. And in nearly every case, much faster through automation than the manual, much more consistent. And it's adaptable in case the part might change or you get a new part number. But yeah, the running of proof of concept is really what the APS lab is all about.

Mitch Free: And so do you guys charge for this service?

Mike Shappell: We do not for the actual running of the lab, running the part, showing all that information, creating that report. There is no charge to run the APS lab at Norton Abrasives.

Mitch Free: So as we start to wrap up here, I've got like one more final question here. And so I think the customer journey to how do customers engage with you if they have an application that they think this is right for?

Mike Shappell: Well, the way that we normally recommend is through one of the Norton local reps. Like say we've got 150 Norton reps, you know, throughout the country. So chances are our Norton rep calls on most of these facilities. If they don't, maybe they go through a distributor, they can ask the distributor to get a hold of the Norton rep. One of the shortcuts is we have a web page – NortonAPS@Saint-Gobain.com. You send that email. Who you are, what you're doing, what you'd like to do. That email goes to Tony Landis, my manager, as well as to me. From there, we'll start that conversation. We'll start right back to the customer. We'll get our local salesperson involved and we will start molding what it is they're looking for because the process normally is somebody explaining to us what they want, us looking at and saying, you know, yes, we believe a robot can benefit you. This is the abrasives we might need. So we start gathering the abrasives if we don't already have it. We also start talking about tooling. I have, you know, two pieces of tooling gripper, so to speak, that I'm going to pick up today. Within the matter of just a few weeks, we can go from, you know, I'm in trouble. I need some help. I need you to show me what's possible to the point of here it is. And then as going to happen, I guess next month, in December, one of my customers from a little over a year ago that we ran a lab for is going to take delivery of his polishing and buffing machine from Hammond Machinery. It's exciting. It's always exciting to see it come to fruition and it's done, and then you're ready to start the next process.

Mitch Free: That's all. Well, Mike, thanks so much for joining me today. It's been a pleasure. I mean, learning about your background, your passion, your expertise just comes through in spades and learning about Norton's Automated Process Solutions Lab. I think a lot of people are going to be enlightened, and I'm sure light bulbs are going to go off in their head of solutions that they can bring to you.

So if you enjoyed our talk today with Mike as much as I did, please subscribe to our channel where you'll find many more great informative interviews just like this one. To learn more about Norton Abrasives Process Solutions Lab visit mscdirect.com/norton. See you next time.

Narrator: Want more insights and ideas to improve the efficiency and productivity of your operations? Check out the Tooling Up video playlist to hear tips that can take your company to the next level. And subscribe to our channel so you won't miss out.