Douglas Machining bolsters its mill/turn capacity in a big way
WINONA, MN – Dec. 15, 2021 – No Compass Precision operating company specializes in mill/turn more than Douglas Machining Services, LLC. That will continue to be the case with the Minnesota-located company acquiring three more mill/turn machines.
Adding to its already impressive set of equipment, Douglas Machining purchased three new Nakamura machines – a WY-150 MMY, WT-300 MMY and WT-250 MMY – during the latter months of 2021. This addition comes on the heels of Douglas also acquiring a WT-150-II MMY in August.
With 2021 being one of Douglas’ busiest years to date, the Compass operating company badly needed the new machines.
“These are helping increase our capacity,” said Douglas Machining President Dan Douglas. “It helps us keep up with our current workload.”
All four of the mill/turn machines Douglas has added since August have 5-axis capabilities.
The new Nakamura WT-300 MMY is the fourth of that type of machine at Douglas. Like one of the other WT-300’s at Douglas, the new machine has a larger than average thru spindle (four inches) that allows for bar feeding of larger parts.
The WY-150 MMY and WT-250 MMY are completely new machines for the Douglas employees, but all the Nakamura’s work similarly to each other. Dan described the three new machines as “plug and play” equipment. There was no learning curve, and the machines became fully operational immediately.
“We’re very used to them, we’re very comfortable with them,” said Dan. “It’s just getting more parts out the door with more equipment here.”
The biggest advantage of the WY-150 is the double y-axis on both turrets. With this capability, Douglas can mill parts simultaneously in both spindles to make parts faster.
The WT-250 is very similar to the WT-150-II that Douglas acquired in August, but the WT-250 possesses a bigger thru spindle (2.5 inch versus 1.5 inch).
With the new additions, Douglas Machining now has 10 Nakamura machines. Almost half of them have been added since Douglas Machining became a Compass operating company during the first quarter of 2021.
“It’s good to know that [Compass] has got our back to help us serve our customers and keep us growing,” said Dan. “Compass does well with that. They understand our needs and they are very eager to help us grow.”
Douglas Machining operates from an 18,000-square-foot facility in Winona, MN, which is about 115 miles southeast of Minneapolis. The company is home to a state-of-the-art equipment base, including 12 multi-tasking mill/turn machines. Ten of these units have 5-axis milling capabilities while the other two offer 4-axis milling. Additionally, Douglas has numerous 3 and 4-axis vertical mill centers, traditional CNC lathes, an EDM machine, a coordinate measuring machine and room for growth.
Compass Precision was founded in 2019 by its CEO Gary Holcomb and by Dennis Prado and Ryan Davis, managing partners with Main Street Capital Holdings, a Pittsburgh-based private equity firm. Main Street acquired three CNC machining sister companies — Advanced Machining & Tooling, LLC, Quality Products & Machine, LLC and Tri-Tec Industries, LLC — in the Charlotte area during the fall of 2019 and placed them under a new umbrella company, Compass Precision, LLC.
Less than a year later, Compass added Gray Manufacturing Technologies, LLC in Denver, NC as its first add-on acquisition in Aug. 2020.
President Dan Douglas founded Douglas Machining in 2005. Compass acquired Douglas Machining as its fifth operating company in March 2021.