CMI acts is a Tier-III supplier of metal-formed parts to aviation and aerospace companies.

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Texas Aircraft Milling

As manufactures outsource more of their value-added services to adhere to the latest in lean manufacturing philosophies, companies like Capps Manufacturing Inc. (CMI), a metal forming shop in Wichita, Kan., become an attractive partner. Vice President and CFO Ron L. Capps believes his family business is more like an artisan trade because so few companies handle this type and size of work today.

“Because it is so labor intensive, it is almost to the point where it is can be more of an art than a science,” Capps says. “Not too many companies like to get into the metal forming aspect of the business. Most companies you hear about that are our size are CNC machine driven, but we do stretch forming as a core competency, and have large machines that do large pieces.”

Capps’ father, Barney L. Capps, has been in the aircraft business since 1952, when he joined H & H Parts Co. after moving his family to Wichita from rural southeast Arkansas. As a part-time venture during the ’60s, Barney Capps took on side jobs for metal forming in his garage.

In the ’80s, H & H was sold, so Barney Capps incorporated CMI in 1984 by purchasing a 13,750-square-foot building and bringing on 10 full-time employees. Today, CMI encompasses 164,000 square feet across two buildings and employs 125 people, and enjoyed $18 million in revenues in 2007. CMI acts as a Tier-III supplier of metal-formed parts to the aviation and aerospace industries.

Ron Capps took time to speak with Manufacturing Today about CMI’s continued growth, maintaining quality levels and the training of manufacturing employees.
 
Manufacturing Today: CMI has grown from $13 million in sales in 2006 to a projected $21 million in 2008. To what do you attribute this growth?
Ron L. Capps: There are three reasons why we’ve had this good growth. First, the aviation industry is doing very well right now.    

Secondly, OEMs are moving more to just-in-time lean manufacturing, so they are pushing their inventory into the supply chain, moving out of fabrication and acting as more of an integrator and assembler of larger pieces. Third, we do the fabrication work by making the detailed parts, so we were just in the right place at the right time.
 
MT: How is the company adapting to market changes?
RC: The philosophy of our company has always been to watch overhead closely for indicators of things, such as costs going out of control. Material costs are always a concern.

We’ve seen big jumps in material costs. We are always looking to improve our processes to support our customers better, faster and cheaper.

Also, laborers with the skill sets we need are always a concern because of the uniqueness of what we do. There’s few vocation schools that teaches that. They teach to be machine operators and programmers, but there is little schooling on forming. So, we do on-the-job training after we find a person that has the basic skills of manufacturing, like good work habits and good math skills, that we can teach to be a metal former.
 
MT: How do your customers define quality?
RC: In the aerospace and aviation business, quality is always at the top of the list, so we’re ISO-certified and NADCAP-certified for heat-treating. Customers also do their own quality surveys annually. In a transportation-type business, even at the very beginning, quality is always a concern in this industry.
 
MT: Are there any future investments on the horizon for CMI?
RC: We’re always trying to modernize. We’re looking at more CNC-type machines for ourselves, either cutting centers, milling machines or routers. Our next move is to try to move up the supply chain from just fabricating parts and putting kits together to assembling small kits.