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There’s an
old story about a sailor so fed up with the ocean-going life that he wanted to
get as far away from the sea as possible. He took an oar, put it over his
shoulder and started walking inland. When he got to a point where someone looked
at the oar and said, “Hey mister! What’s that funny thing on your shoulder?”
then he’d stop and settle there.
That’s not the case for Mike
Lindsay, a former machinist apprentice in the U.S. Navy, but it could be since
Mike founded the
Lindsay Machine Works in
Independence, MO, about as far
from the ocean as one can get in the U.S.
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Mark Lindsay, manager of Lindsay Machine Works
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In 1994, after working for several
shops in the Kansas City area, Mike opened a one-man shop. It soon grew to five
employees and outgrew it orginal location. In 2002 he moved the business to
nearby Independence, a suburb of Kansas City.
Mike started his business with
manual equipment, serving the general machining and repair needs of local
businesses in the paper, food processing, and agricultural industries. While he
could meet the needs of his customers for repair work and small runs, the
inefficiencies and time requirements of his manual machines didn’t let him
compete when quoting jobs of more than five or 10 pieces.
Gage Machine Tool, the Hurco
distributor in Mike’s area , convinced him that he needed to make the plunge
into CNC and that the Hurco VM1 was the right machine for his needs. CNC was a
big step for Mike since he didn’t even have a PC in the shop (No PC? Was
this guy Amish or something? – Pete). But, the people at Gage promised
training on the Hurco VM1 vertical machining center.
They made good on their promise, and
with the proper instruction, Mike was making parts in a few days after the CNC
wsa installed. After a month, the machine was contributing to his shop’s profit.
Lathes are also an integral part of
Lindsay Machine Works. The large swing manual lathe in the shop could handle
large shaft work, but Mike didn’t have an efficient machine for turning smaller
parts, so he missed some business opportunities. Based on the success of his
VM1, Mike purchased a Hurco TM8 CNC slant-bed turning center and installed it
next to the VM1, creating a CNC cell. Since Mike and his machinists were already
familiar with the Hurco control, they were quick in getting up to speed.
Mike, and his shop, Lindsay Machine
Works, depend on the CNC cell for turn-around times that keep customers
satisfied and develop new business.
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