AWP manufactures more than 4,000 aluminum, steel and cast iron straight and pie jaw chuck jaws.

Premier Business Partners:

Carr Lane Roemheld Mfg. Co.

When it comes to breadth of products and instant availability, Sales Manager Doug Reed of Abbott Workholding Products (AWP) says no one can compare to his family’s company.

“No one else could offer all those products,” Reed says. “But as far as Abbott’s emphasis, it is on our inventory availability, quality and customer service.”

AWP is a manufacturer of chuck jaws, tooling columns and various workholding fixtures. The company says it maintains the largest inventory of chuck jaws in North America, providing same-day shipment of steel, aluminum and cast iron chuck jaws. Its inventory also includes an extensive selection of aluminum tooling columns available in multiple geometric configurations.

Company Evolution
The company was founded in 1954, originally producing soft jaws and specialized tooling on a subcontract basis in Phoenix. The next year, the company built the first Pie Jaw-brand chuck jaw in the United States, which eliminated the problems inherent in rectangular jaws.

The name changed to Abbott Aluminum Chuck Jaws in 1968, when it was a division of How-Mil Enterprises Inc. The company says that with the advent of CNC machines, the product line was further expanded to include tooling columns, tooling blocks, master plates, segments, angle plates and parallels.

In 1990, Carl Reed, Doug’s father, joined the company as president and CEO. He orchestrated AWP’s relocation from Phoenix to Manhattan, Kan., in 1993, which allowed the company to expand its line of workholding products to steel and aluminum straight jaws, cast iron and steel Pie Jaws and aluminum tooling columns, sub-plates and associated fixtures.

Numerous Benefits
Today, AWP says, manufacturers realize the benefits Pie Jaws offer include:

• Concentricities and close tolerances that are easily and consistently maintained.
• Gripping and holding of material is positive and effective without distorting materials.
• Machine and tool life are drastically extended due to more effective application of coolants.
• Substantially lighter-weight jaws enhance operation and efficiency.

Major Manufacturer
Today, the company manufactures more than 4,000 aluminum, steel and cast iron straight and Pie Jaw chuck jaws, as well as master plates, segments, tooling columns, sub-plates and accessories.

AWP keeps more than $4 million in inventory, according to Doug Reed, which allows AWP to provide fast and reliable delivery to most U.S. and international cities.

To further expand its reach, AWP joined with Carr Lane Manufacturing Co., a catalog distributor and stocking warehouse company, as its exclusive supplier for all products AWP makes. Carr Lane, based in St. Louis, says it offers more than 100,000 products that are high quality and meet rigorous standards. Its online catalog of products is available
in English, Spanish, French, Italian and German.

Turnkey Applications
Doug Reed says customers are looking for turnkey products that are ready to use on delivery. Since 2004, AWP has integrated more suppliers to meet this need.   

“We’ve increased our capacity, knowledge and capability by offering more complete and engineering-based products” Reed says. “We’ve also had to work on decreasing lead times to keep up with the big supply chains that consistently need products on time.

“Additionally, we have acquired new machinery that has increased our efficiency and allowed for process improvement that flows from order to delivery.”

AWP has invested in new multi-pallet CNC milling machines to allow it to produce smaller lot sizes. This also decreases lead times because AWP does not need to make as many of each product per run, according to Reed.

“With smaller lot sizes, we’re able to produce a wider range of parts in the same amount of time,” he adds. “With the new pallet system, we’re able to manufacture smaller lot sizes and still be efficient by eliminating costly set up time.”

Making the Products
For its line of chuck jaws, Reed says AWP primarily builds for stock with its own raw materials. Occasionally, there are custom orders for chuck jaws that call for different materials or different configurations from stock catalog parts, but AWP takes these requests with little down-time to manufacturing.

Along with efficient manufacturing, the new CNC machines offer improved quality control processes, Reed says.

He adds being able to utilize new tooling also helps AWP better manage quality. The company overhauls its equipment to keep up with the latest technological advances for these reasons. It says keeping its equipment updated is will prove to be the key to its future.

“Although we view our yesterdays as stepping stones to tomorrow, Abbott is preparing for the future today by adding technologically advanced equipment and expanding our production facilities,” AWP says. “What’s more, we intend to create new products and opportunities that capitalize on our extensive workholding experience, expertise and manufacturing capabilities.”