VIDEO: Case Study: Real Results and Impact: The MSC and Catamount Partnership Story

CHRIS BASGALL: I remember when you came to visit me two and a half years ago. And you had pitched the MSC tool crib to me. Yeah, I remember that.

MICHAEL MANDERSCHEID: We came in and there was a group of five of us, and we said, we sat at the table and we we had catalogs and we had computers, and we took these job boxes and looked inside of them.

After a couple of weeks we were like...this. We are chasing history down. We need to figure out how to get to the future. We started relooking at what we were doing and how do we get the business moving forward and take it out of reverse.

CHRIS BASGALL: I made the decision to bring all tooling in with MSC. Saved $60,000 in labor costs. Plus, it reduced the purchasing costs for us.

MICHAEL MANDERSCHEID: Brought that inventory down from $400,000 to about $90,000. There’s a lot of trust and a lot of risks that you took to buy in the game. And I think that our team was coming out

that we came up with 4 or 5 times and worked for hours all day. And I think, I think you saw that we we were in for that. We were we had some skin in the game also at that point. Yeah.

ADAM BURKHART: And I think, again, the willingness to partner with us and the willingness to trust change programming and stuff, nobody just does that.

CHRIS BASGALL: Roy York, one of our seasoned veteran machinists came and said, Chris, I want to try something on one of these jobs. I want to go with a carbide tool because I think you're going to save a lot of money and a lot of time on the job, but it's going to cost 200 bucks to get one end mill, but we need two of them just in case it fails.

He says...I'll bet my job on it and I'll...And I'll never ask you another one if it doesn't work, like, okay, I'm in, let's do it. We were doing 3600 pieces a year on that, and it wound up saving 81% of the time. What is it that makes carbide so much better? And why is Kennametal that much better? And getting the results that we're getting now over the other brands we were using?

JOE SALM: A lot of it has to do with our innovations. Kennametal is top of the line when it comes to our coatings. Any time you can go from high speed tooling where you're running 2 to 3in a minute, in titanium, you go up to 120in a minute and titanium. Now you're removing some metal. We are the heart surgeons of carbide tooling.

ADAM BURKHART: I think, too, you got a team of machinists that aren't guys that are just pushing the button, and they're not just guys that care about having a job and coming into work and doing the minimum.

CHRIS BASGALL: You know, one of the things I love about the team here at Catamount Machine Works is that they're so receptive to change. You talk about me being receptive to the change bringing in MSC...Well, the team is receptive to it too. Not everybody is receptive to change.

ADAM BURKHART: it's a free service for someone like me to come in and make suggestions and look at things from a brand agnostic point of view and just say, okay, let's look at your process and see where you're at and see where we can help kind of guide you along your journey to wherever it is that you want to go.

MICHAEL MANDERSCHEID: I think it's been really a success for you guys here. And stuff like that. And your employees have really embraced it so much. And we're not scared to try the new stuff. And I think they're excited about be able to run some. The new technology is out there.

CHRIS BASGALL: It's been a win win for both sides MSC with the tool crib with the automatic replenishment with the consultancy. You have helped this business become more profitable, more efficient. You've helped drive standardization here.

And I'm looking forward to the future and what is to come, but I want to thank you all very much for what you've done.