The Perfectionists

A High-Tolerance Look at the Precision Manufacturing

By Mary MacDonell Belisle

Photo by John Linn

	HEAR IT IS: CMT precision manufactures this tiny programming contact for hearing aids.

Displayed on the ridges of a human fingerprint, it may look like a piece of silvery glitter.  Magnify it more than 300 times, however, and you can admire its ingenious dimple that forms the programming contact for a high-tech hearing aid.

The precision craftsmanship of this tiny dimple could easily determine whether Uncle Henry will hear the approaching train or Aunt Ellen will understand the pharmacist's answer to her question. 

Here's one more-imagine a high-density connector, measuring a half-inch square, which holds a hundred gold-plated pins.  Each pin must line up exactly with a corresponding part in order to make the proper electrical connections, or the airplane falls from the sky!

Such is the high-tech, high-stakes world of precision manufacturing, the world in which Bob Guck lives.  

"It doesn't take much for your part to be rejected," said Bob Guck, CEO of Central Minnesota Tool (CMT) in Little Falls. "Once you go outside the clients's specs, that's it."

In simple terms, precision manufacturing involves producing small machine parts or components that operate with very little room for error, with tolerances (the allowable range of variation) registered as plus (+) or minus (-) increments of an inch.  A certain part might require a tolerance within 20 millionths of an inch.

 

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"(Precision manufacturing) busts the myth that manufacturing is a low-tech industry that employs a bunch of unskilled, unmotivated workers. The experts that work at these have to be 50-percent artist, 50-percent scientist and 100-percent perfectionist."
-Sandy Voigt, Initiative Foundation

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With a goal to make Minnesota a world manufacturing leader, the Minnesota Precision Manufacturing Association recently reported record-breaking membership numbers. In 2008 they welcomed over 300 members.

In Little Falls, CMT's 50 employees design and produce connectors, plastic-injection molding and metal-stamped parts for the military/aerospace, automotive, medical, consumer electronics, and telecommunications industries.  

Its end products are communication devices, hearing aids, automobiles, and military/aerospace components.  CMT's parent company, AirBorn Interconnect, uses its nano-connectors on NASA's Mars Phoenix Lander. 

In order to assure that level of reliability, Guck guarantees tolerances as small as one or two ten-thousandths of an inch for products no larger than a whopping three inches.  

"There are people who are cut out to do this, and there are people who aren't," said Guck. "It takes patience and ability to deal with that high tolerance. Just because you're a tool-maker doesn't mean you're capable of working on the types of products we build."

	NO ROOM FOR ERROR: The high-tech clean-room at Central Minnesota Tool in Little Falls.

As Guck attests, precision doesn't happen by chance.  Many of CMT's components are painstakingly assembled in "clean rooms," which look like glass houses as they sit on pristine manufacturing floors.

Human technicians wear white coats, caps and facemasks. Since a dust particle or hair strand can foul up an intricate manufacturing process, the facility controls air pressure, direction, temperature, and humidity to reduce contamination.

Humans are all thumbs in some aspects of controlled manufacturing. So, computer numerically controlled (CNC) operations and robotics are also used in the production of tiny parts. 

Through its business financing programs, the Initiative Foundation invests in high-tech manufacturing companies in order to create quality jobs and infuse local economies with outside revenue.  The foundation helped finance CMT expansions in 2004 and 2006.

"These aren't your grandfather's manufacturing operations," Voigt said.  "These are amazing companies that don't get the credit they deserve, but they're the people who support our economy with their own innovation." IQ