An Electronic CEO Fireside Chat With Ron Gustafson, Clinkenbeard

Ron Gustafson is the president of the Rockford, IL-based Clinkenbeard, a leader in the rapid production and manufacturing of complex castings and machined parts.

Gustafson discusses machining Saint Vincent de Paul’s bust and his greatest professional challenges

Clinkenbeard specializes in time-critical delivery of complex, contoured shapes in metal castings, billet parts and engineering prototypes. The company offers complete CNC turning and CNC milling (3- and 5-axis). It also is a turnkey source for machined metal castings from a 3-D CAD model.

One of Clinkenbeard’s key metrics of success is its adherence to meeting and exceeding the time-to-market requirements of its customers. 

PD&D Design Daily: What’s the most interesting prototype Clinkenbeard has produced?

Ron Gustafson, President, Clinkenbeard: We machined the full scale head and bust of Saint Vincent de Paul for an artist. The facial detail was incredible. We typically make parts for use in airplanes or trucks so this was out of the ordinary and very interesting.

PD&D: How many times have you looked at a prototype and thought, “Man, I wish I came up with that?”

Gustafson: We specialize in rapid delivery of 1 to 100 pieces, which means we are never making any particular part for very long. We see thousands of new designs come through on a yearly basis, which keeps things very interesting.

I see designs on a regular basis which intrigue me and cause me to either wish that I had designed the part or cause me to wonder what type of creative mind could possibly create such a terrific design.

PD&D: What is the future of rapid prototyping and additive manufacturing?

Gustafson: I believe that rapid prototyping has its place, which includes geometries that are very complex and difficult to machine. Rapid prototyping has matured since its inception and will continue to evolve. CNC and other technologies have also continued to mature and to define and redefine their respective niches in the marketplace.

I believe that RP materials will continue to migrate towards production grade and RP equipment will become more accurate, reliable and less expensive. Growing metal parts is still in its infancy and holds great potential with improvements in material choices and accuracy.

PD&D: Why is it important to have your own CNC department?

Gustafson: Having our own CNC department gives us the freedom to control our ever-changing schedule. We have a constant flow of hot projects which challenge our schedule, and changes to projects we are working on, which makes for a very dynamic scheduling process. 

We are literally evaluating and adjusting our schedule all day long. CNC also allows us to make parts in any raw material available; we are not limited to a particular grade of plastic or metal to which many of the RP systems are limited. This allows us to make parts in the customer specified material; we do not have to negotiate the material choice with the customer.

PD&D: What is the Clinkenbeard Toolingless Process?

Gustafson: The Clinkenbeard Toolingless Process is a patented process by which we make metal castings with little or no tooling investment. This process works very well for designs which are prone to change, or when a customer would like to evaluate multiple designs in parallel to produce the best possible product. 

Airset sand blocks are machined into sand molds and sand cores, which are used to make sand castings in limited quantity. The advantages to this process include speed, cost savings due to no tooling investment, and freedom to implement design changes right up to the time when molten metal is poured into the molds. 

This process also allows implementation of engineering changes to parts which are in production. Sand molds and cores which have been produced using qualified production tooling can be modified to incorporate engineering changes. This process of changing production sands allows engineers to implement and test engineering changes prior to changing production tooling. We all know that changing production tooling is typically an expensive and time consuming process.

PD&D: What is the greatest challenge you’ve ever faced at Clinkenbeard?

Gustafson: Our ongoing greatest challenge is to meet customer needs, with respect to delivery and quality, consistently, one-hundred percent of the time. We arrive at work every day determined to accept and meet this challenge. Setting the company up in a way which will meet these needs on a regular basis is a constant challenge, but the expertise of our management and employees results in us always meeting the needs and challenges of each and every one of our customers. 

PD&D: What’s the method behind the “Fasterestest” madness?

Gustafson: We couldn't find a word in the American dictionary which accurately defined the speed at which we do business, so we developed a prototype...Fasterestest. We think it fits perfectly. Fasterestest describes our corporate culture; we strive to be fast, faster, fastest at everything we do. When data hits our server we start with fast quotations and follow up with the fastest deliveries possible for machined metal castings, solid stock hogouts and engineering mockups.

PD&D: Looking at the current state of the industry, what keeps you up at night?

Gustafson: The state of the industry has not affected our sleep patterns … we have always been up at night trying to stay ahead of the curve. Being the fastest in our industry requires constant investment in technology, equipment and training. We are in constant oxygen debt working to meet customer needs and our quality survey results and workload tell us that we have been successful.