Gray Manufacturing Shop Floor Lead Meets the Challenges of 5-Axis
Chris Adkins has been in the machining business for nearly 30 years. He has spent about one-third of that time at Gray Manufacturing Technologies, LLC.
He once tried to leave, but that didn’t go too well.
“I’m a hands-on, cutting parts person,” Chris said. “That’s what I’ve always been. I tried to change from it, but I couldn’t change from it. It’s bred into me.”
It’s been bred into Chris since he was a kid. His father was a welder, and Chris studied welding at a vocational high school in Hinton, West Virginia.
Chris decided welding wasn’t the best fit for him. Instead, he chose the path of CNC machining, which he has excelled in for nearly three decades.
It has been a great advantage for Gray to have Chris on staff since 2015. He departed his previous machining company, CBM Precision Parts, for the chance to work with the 5-axis machines at Gray.
“It was an opportunity to go into 5-axis programming. CBM didn’t have 5-axis at the time or the up-to-date programming that we use now,” Chris said. “It allowed me to come into 5-axis and come into Mastercam and just grow from there.”
Chris has grown into the company’s shop lead. He also continues to retain his title as Gray manufacturing engineer.
In September 2021, Chris left Gray for a career change to become a salesman at ISCAR Tooling. But he said a sales job wasn’t for him. He returned to the Compass operating company six months later.
Approaching a decade with the company, Chris continues to grow. Compass named Chris its employee of the month for October 2020. Within the past six months, he completed a new Mastercam class, which was an advanced level of 5-axis course.
Gray’s customers and the other Compass operating companies have directly benefited from Chris’ growth.
Two weeks ago, Quality Products landed a critical rush job for a new aerospace customer.. But this sister operating company did not have the CNC programming resources to complete the project in the timeframe the customer needed. Chris stepped up to the task, developed the necessary CNC program and fixturing strategy, and then supported the Quality Products machinists in getting the part machined.
With Chris’s vital contribution, the Quality Products team more than met the deadline. In fact, Quality successfully machined this difficult component after the customer’s original vendor failed to deliver the part with a much more relaxed lead-time.
“Chris jumped right in and kept contributing to Quality’s efforts until we were done,” explained Jim Miller, Compass’s VP of Sales. “The customer was extremely impressed and promised to give more work to Compass.”
“It was exciting to do that project,” Chris said. “I felt good that they asked me to be the one to do the programming.”
Chris has overseen major changes at Gray over the years as well. Since Compass bought Gray in August 2020, Chris described the operating company as “more scheduled” and organized.
But he still encounters the same day-to-day challenges that he did nine years ago, which is why he still loves working at Gray.
“The challenge and the opportunity to learn and grow and do more stuff,” Chris said when asked what his favorite thing was about working at Gray. “There’s so many 5-axis tool paths that you can learn. And each part gives you a different look at that.”