Armando Reyes, shop superintendent, programmer, sets up B&E’s new DMG MSL 42/7 7-axis machining center. The machine features tool service-life monitoring, a large database of machining cycles, 20 control axes with 6 spindles with 4 simultaneous control axes. It also features simple, graphical programming and ethernet for fast data transfer.

How’s this for a near-perfect business niche? You don’t have to go out selling, yet you get to pick and choose from among 100-150 RFQs a day. You have a few competitors, but it’s almost impossible for a someone new to break into your business and nudge you aside.

“That may sound too good to be true,” says Larry Solinger, founder-president of Stanton, CA’s B&E Manufacturing, Inc. “But it’s not, especially if you were smart or lucky enough to begin manufacturing aerospace components before the government decided you had to be on a qualified products list to be an acceptable supplier—which we were.”

Solinger founded B&E in 1981 after spending 17 years working for Crown Fittings (now out of business).

“I managed that company for most of those years,” he says, “and that taught me what I needed to know to start my own business. The truth is I’ve been making fittings since I was thirteen. I started out working for my uncle, and then worked again for him for a while after I graduated from UCLA.”

Today B&E is one of the largest suppliers of military and
commercial fittings and component in the country.
“We manufacture quality AN, AS, MS, and NAS hydraulic
tube fittings used in conjunction with aerospace,
commercial, and military applications, “Solinger says. “We also manufacture specialty type fittings and machine parts in accordance with customer supplied drawings and specifications. Right now the QPL parts are probably 60% of our business.”

B&E has standing g-code programs written and ready to be called down for more than 2,500 parts, Solinger reports.

“That’s why it’s nearly impossible for someone new to break into this business. A new company would have to start over from scratch, write programs for all the old replacement parts just to get up to where we are now. In our case we’ve done it over the past 30 years. We have the ability to fill orders for parts for 50-year-old aircraft.”

B&E produces flanges, bolts, plugs, elbows, tees, unions, crosses, bushings, nipples, sleeves, reducers, adapters, you name it, from a broad variety of materials, including aluminum, stainless steel and titanium.

“Four years or so ago we got qualified to produce a type of fitting called flareless fittings,” Solinger says. “Those are QPL-type parts, which means you have to be tested to be qualified and be approved to manufacture those. Getting approved for those has picked up our business considerably.”

Bar Stock and Forgings

Most of B&E’s parts are made from either straight bar stock or from forgings, he says.

“We make the straight parts from bar stock,” he says, “things like collars, nipples, sleeves. The other parts are shapes made from forgings. Those include elbows, crosses, tees, those kinds of parts. The bar stock we buy to meet whatever specs are on the print, forgings the same way. All of the parts have meet Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) and Defense Federal Acquisition Regulations (DFAR). That’s done to be sure we keep all critical manufacturing here at home, though I believe there are a few NATO countries on the approved list.”

Larry Solinger, right, and shop superintendent Armando Reyes discuss requirements for a forging about to be run.

A Knack for the Parts Business

Solinger says he had a knack for remembering part numbers at a very young age.

“I started working for my uncle in this business when I was 13 years old,” he recalls. “I worked in the warehouse, doing all the odd jobs and you know, some people just gravitate to certain things, which is what I did. I found out I had a knack for remembering part numbers. I’m not sure why, but that made my job a lot easier.”

Another thing that made Solinger’s move into the business easier was his knowledge of government procurement.

“After my time at Crown Fittings, I knew all the people in government procurement,” he says, “probably better than anybody in the whole country. Back then procurement was done mostly by phone, so personal contact was really important. Today, it’s done mostly by fax and email. People who need a part check a list, find us and send out a request for quote. Very different now.”

Equipping for Efficiency

To produce such a broad variety of parts Solinger employs 40 people and operates about 20 CNC turning centers and two mills.

“I’ve never been a machinist,” he says. “I don’t know how to run a machine, but I do know more than anybody in this whole place what the capabilities of these machine are. And I’m very good at dreaming up ideas about what we can do on some of these machines. Sometimes when the guys in the shop hear what I have in mind, they start to hide. But we nearly always find a way to make my ideas work, which are all aimed at improving efficiency and cutting costs.”

Equipment Challenge

Although he’s not a machinist, Solinger loves his machines and what they can do.

“One of our latest acquisitions is a Gildemeister DMG MSL 42/7,” he says. “It’s a 7-axis machining center that really amazes me with what it can do. I saw it being demonstrated at Westec 2009 and was fascinated by it. It was making a part similar to one of ours, and it was really fast, so I swiped my card. A week later the guy from DMG America showed up at our shop and said give me a part you’re running, and I’ll prove I can run it faster for you. That was pretty unusual, so I did. I gave him a double-ended fitting. A few days later he came back and said, ‘We can run this part in a minute and 10 seconds.’ I said, ‘No way.’ He said, ‘Yes, we can.’ So I told him, I’ll pay for the tooling, and bring over a bar, but you’ll have to let me see you do it.”

Armando Reyes, B&E shop superintendent at the Fanuc 31i control panel on the company’s DMG MSL 42/7 7-axis turning center.

The DMG sales guy agreed and Solinger took one of his shop guys with him to the facility to watch the demo. “That darned machine really did it,” he says. “We were running the part in 3 minutes, and it cut the cycle time down to half that. The difference was that the DMG had multiple tools running simultanesously, whereas our previous machine had to run it sequentially. That made the difference. We bought it and added an automatic bar feeder. We took delivery about eight months ago.” Although Solinger owns two 13,000-sq-ft buildings, he welcomed the MSL 42/7’s small footprint. “The machine is very compact,” he says. “It has three NC-compound slides, a turret with integrated pick-up spindle and three tools for rear-sided machining, though it’s possible to have a total of fourteen tools.” Solinger says the machine is pretty expensive, but he expects it to pay for itself quickly.

And Tomorrow?

In spite of the downturn in the economy, Solinger is optimistic about his company’s future. “For one thing, when the economy is down, our business of producing replacement parts usually picks up,” he says. “That’s because people run their old aircraft longer. But I’m optimistic for a number of reasons. We have forty loyal employees and we haven’t had to lay off anyone. We just hired an experienced engineer who is working on designing our own line of fittings and components. Plus, we’re in the process of becoming approved to produce the new high-pressure Beam Seal fittings. The bottom line is we’re not resting on our laurels. We’re moving ahead and looking to the future.”