Hommer Tool adds laser engraving

A growing custom tooling specialist had barely opened the doors of its latest expansion before adding new capabilities to spur further growth.

Any company in this business can’t stand still and expect to expand and grow its markets. We have a proactive management team that is continually looking at itself critically with the objective of shaking things up in order to both serve our current customers better and win new ones.”

That’s J.R. Hommer, vice president of Hommer Tool & Mfg. Inc. (Arlington Heights, IL) as quoted in IMM a couple of years ago (“The War on Inertia,” (immnet.com/articles/2005/April/2583). Hommer Tool had broken ground for a major expansion a few months before. More recently, at NPE 2006, the company displayed an innovative tooling component it had developed—a flash-free collapsible core.

As we found during a recent visit, Hommer Tool has no plans for retreat in its “war on inertia.” It now occupies a stunning, ultramodern 24,000-ft² facility in Arlington Heights and has added new technologies and capabilities to produce its custom-engineered and custom-made tooling components with precision tolerances down to ±.0001 inch, primarily for medical/pharmaceutical/dental markets and for consumer products, like caps and closures.

Jim Hommer, president, is the visionary toolmaker who started the company back in 1983. Both father and son are working together to expand the company’s sales and service activities to areas of the country new to Hommer Tool. They also continue to add new competitive weapons to wage their war on inertia. Laser engraving is one of them.

In-house strategic allies

Jim and J.R. recently entered into a joint venture with Ken Wille, a long-time business acquaintance. Housed in a laser-safe room with a Class 4 environment at the Hommer plant, Hot Spot Engraving, as it’s called, offers laser engraving and deep marking services. Ken Wille has 30 years of experience as a manual engraver and leverages those skills with the new technology. Hommer sources say that anyone can buy a new machine, but few understand the intricacies of mold engraving like Wille.

An Electrox Scriba II Plus laser engraver was ergonomically custom-built onto a knee mill base. Hommer Tool can now provide burr-free date inserts and custom-made pre-engraved electrodes for identifying cavities. It can micro-engrave characters with a minimum height of just .005 inch. Location tolerances reportedly can be held to within ±.001 inch, with ±.0005-inch depth control.

Its engraving system can accept a variety of file formats, including IGES and STL file input. Speaking of file formats, Hommer Tool’s engineers use the latest revisions of Mastercam, GibbsCam, and SolidWorks 2006 software to help its customers go from art to part.

And speaking of software, Hommer Tool’s office and operations are fully integrated, running a real-time MRP system called Vista from Epicor, which is said to help the company ensure on-time deliveries.

Lean interior decoration

Its main shop floor is surprisingly spacious, lean, and spotlessly clean. Each area is clearly marked with lean signage, including areas for its CNC high-speed machining, its CNC soft and hard turning, and its CNC form grinding and four-axis grinding. Under its 18-ft, halogen-lit ceiling, areas for its ID/OD grinding, centerless grinding, gun drilling, inspection, wire and sinker EDM, and polishing capabilities are easy to spot.

Using late-model equipment from the likes of Mazak, Bostomatic, and Mori Seiki, each workstation is equipped with Etalon tenth-level micrometers and Mitutoyo drop indicators to ensure process traceability. And bar code job tracking at each point in the process helps ensure on-time deliveries.

Hommer Tool employs 50. Its 40 toolmakers, all skilled machinists, work in two shifts, 6-61?2 days/week to custom-build cavity and core blocks; collapsible cores, core pins, thin-wall ejector sleeves, and cavity components; and even components for diecast tooling.

All are built in a variety of steels—H-13, S-7, M-2, and A-10, for instance. Hommer Tool also has experience using a high-performance aerospace composite material called SMI-98. It’s reportedly stronger and more thermally conductive than steel, more wear-resistant than copper alloys, and capable of slashing cycle times by as much as 40%. And to serve the market for component repair, Hommer Tool recently took delivery of a laser welding machine.

It’s yet another competitive weapon in Hommer Tool’s growing arsenal for waging its ongoing war on inertia.