Another Compass Precision Success Story
WINONA, WI – December 17, 2024 – Compass Precision proudly announced several success stories during the course of 2024. These projects involved one or more of its operating companies going above and beyond to satisfy a customer’s need.
To end the year, it only seems fitting to recount one additional past success story. This one involves an incredible effort by Douglas Machining Services to salvage a machined part, and the assembly to which it was connected, following a need to change the part’s features and dimensions.
Douglas, Compass’ operating company in Winona, MN, received an order for about a dozen pieces of a particular part. The part was to be a core component of an assembly on the customer’s product.
As usual, Douglas fulfilled the order, making the parts and delivering them on time. But upon arrival, and after the component was welded to other parts, the customer realized the core component made by Douglas needed to be different.
The new requirements were going to challenge Douglas’ manufacturing team. Not only was the customer planning to send the parts back to the Compass operating company for more machining, but there was a portion of the part that needed more material.
Furthermore, the customer had already attached Douglas’s component to other parts that compromised an entire assembly, and the customer didn’t want to disassemble it for Douglas’ machining.
So, the Douglas team devised a scheme to fulfill all of the customer’s new requirements while not disassembling the part. Compass CEO Gary Holcomb called the efforts “incredibly innovative.”
“It took a lot of thinking. It took a lot of analysis and planning to do both of those things. But Douglas did, and the customer was very pleased with the result.”
Douglas fixtured its part within a Nakamura mill turn machine in such a way that it allowed for machining off the necessary material without damaging all the other parts which had already been attached to the core component. This was obviously key, otherwise, the customer wasn’t going to be able to use the entire assembly.
To add material where needed before machining, Douglas used welding.
“I’ve been around machining a long time, and I had never heard of such a requirement from a customer,” said Gary. “It was truly unique, and I’m so proud that Douglas satisfied all of this client’s needs.”
Upon completion, the part became about 11 inches long and 8 inches in diameter. It took Douglas less than two weeks to finish the project.
As a result of the success, Douglas has since received additional orders for this component. Two PO’s for about 100 pieces each are on Douglas’s books right now.
”It was a group effort here at Douglas to pull this off,” explained Co-General Manager Ben Kubis. “Our people are pretty incredible.”
“I like to think our customers can always count on us,” added Christina Douglas, Douglas’s other Co-General Manager. “We do whatever it takes all the time.”
Douglas Machining specializes in producing intricate custom metal components for a wide variety of industrial and specialty markets in the upper Midwest and throughout the entire United States. The firm operates from its facility in Winona, MN, a picturesque town along the Mississippi river about 115 miles southeast of Minneapolis. The company is home to eleven vertical machining centers, ten multi-tasking mill/turn units, three lathes, one wire EDM machine, and two coordinate measuring machines.