Shop Doubles its Volume by Switching from Plasma to Laser

As a third-generation welder, Dave Braatz knows fabrication. He used a lifetime of experience to open his own shop in 1996. Braatz Welding, LLC, has been growing ever since, specializing in manufacturing component parts for the snowplow, forestry, mill maintenance, ship, fire and garbage truck industries. Today the 15-man firm operates from a recently expanded 17,000 square-foot facility.

"We had always used plasma to cut our parts," Braatz explains. "We had a plasma table equipped with an oxyfuel torch, along with an ironworker and drill presses to produce the part quality our customers required." While it had its positive aspects, one downside to plasma was the manual labor necessary for secondary operations such as punching, drilling and grinding. "It was valuable time that shop personnel could have been using to fabricate the parts."

In late 2003, Braatz purchased his first laser from MC Machinery's Encore program. The option to buy a warrantied, re-conditioned 3.5kW laser at a price within their budget made the transition from plasma possible. The results were immediate. The laser cut faster, more accurately and with less bevel. Complex shapes and small holes were now possible. Setup times fell, as well as consumable costs. "We were able to produce more parts per hour without adding employees for secondary operations." The result: Shop sales doubled in less than a year after the purchase of the laser.