Quality Products Using All Its Capabilities to Construct New Innovative Assembly
CHARLOTTE, NC – June 12, 2025 – Quality Products & Machine, LLC is a leader in both precision CNC machining and fabrication. The Compass Precision operating company’s ability to manufacture custom metal components and fabricated assemblies make it a truly unique company in the machining industry.
All of that, along with its strides in the company’s engineering department and the advantages Compass Precision can offer through its entire network of sister companies, has been on full display over the last several months.
Quality Products recently fulfilled an order for a sophisticated mechanism to protect portions of a semiconductor wafer fab facility in the event of a fire. The assembly Quality completed brings the end customer’s building to code.
The one-off project was for a large and sophisticated custom equipment builder, but Quality Products Vice President and General Manager Dustin Jones said he hopes it leads to a continued relationship between the two companies.
The project, which took several months to put together, was engineered at Quality and completely machined and assembled at the Compass operating company.
“It was a great use of every part of the business,” Dustin said. “We used laser, and we used forming. There were some rolling components, there were machined components, there were turned components, there was pretty much everything in this new assembly.
“It highlighted every department of the entire shop, and it really highlighted our newer engineering team.”
The project initially came through Tri-Tec Industries president Rick Loyd. Quality’s sister company, Tri-Tec supplies this customer in North Carolina.
When the customer needed a new assembly at its southwest operations, representatives asked Rick for help. Unfortunately, Tri-Tec’s capabilities didn’t fit the project’s exact needs, but Rick recommended keeping the project in the Compass family.
”One of the great benefits of working with Compass is that we have it all,” explained Bill Canning, Compass’s VP & COO. “We are a tightly integrated network of shops, all with their own capabilities and specialities. When necessary, we mix and match our locations to best serve customer needs.
In this case, the original relationship was with Tri-Tec, but the skills needed for the job were at Quality. We seamlessly served the customer and everyone benefitted.”
After introductions, the Quality Product engineering team went to work. There was a three-month long discussion about potential designs to fulfill the project’s needs. Dustin credited Quality Products Engineering Manager Alan Silva (shown second from right in photo above with Quality Products engineer Zane Gray at right and two customer representatives at left) and his team for spearheading the project.
“If it wasn’t for that engineering support and that constant involvement, it never would have happened,” said Dustin.
Alan saw the special opportunity as a dual effort.
“The project challenged all of our capabilities as a manufacturing team, but it also gave us an opportunity to assist from a project management and engineering standpoint,” Alan said. “From their perspective, this was an entirely new design, something that their team and their facility was not necessarily experienced in making.
“It was a lot of questions back and forth, some real time assistance with design and then at the assembly stage, there were multiple times we had to modify things on the fly as long as we had their approval.
“Overall, it was a pretty good opportunity for us to demonstrate a broad range of skills.”
Dustin said the customer’s representatives expressed how appreciative they were that Quality Products was there to offer any support to them at any time.
But on top of the engineering solutions Quality provided, the Compass operating company was a perfect fit for the project because the entire assembly was done in-house.
“We were pretty well equipped from a manufacturing background and manufacturing capability to meet their needs,” added Alan.
The first completed assembly has entered the testing phase. If the assembly passes testing as expected, Quality will deliver two more orders of the same project for different end customer facilities by the end of the year.
Compass Precision was founded in 2019 based upon the simultaneous purchase of three precision CNC machining companies in North Carolina – Advanced Machining & Tooling (Salisbury, NC); Quality Products & Machine (Charlotte, NC); and Tri-Tec Industries (Charlotte, NC). Compass added Gray Manufacturing Technologies (Denver, NC) to the fold in August 2020, then acquired Douglas Machining Services (Winona, MN) in March 2021.
Since then, Compass has purchased R&D Machine (Oldsmar, FL) in April 2022; Strom Manufacturing (North Plains, OR) in July 2022; and Bergeron Machine (Westford, MA) in April 2023, bringing its number of operating companies to eight.
For more information about Quality Products & Machine and Compass Precision, please contact Gary Holcomb, Compass CEO at [email protected] or Jim Miller, Compass VP of Sales at [email protected].