Fiber Laser for Job Shop Marking: Laser Industries

Jimani recently sold a 50 watt Langolier fiber laser marking systems to Laser Industries, a job shop competitor in the Orange County, CA area. The laser module has a very lengthy lead time and was purchased for a particular job that Laser Industries is running for their biggest marking customer. The job shop customer was threatening to cancel the order or second source it because Laser Industries could not meet their customer’s production requirements with their existing YAG laser marker.

It was taking Laser Industries over 5 minutes to mark each part and the YAG could not mark through some of the thicker plating with the result that 25% of the parts were being treated as “scrap”. Laser Industries was getting 150 parts/day maximum running two shifts.  Due the project urgency we asked the customer to meet us at Jimani on a Sunday. We built a laser marking job for his product on a 20 watt Langolier fiber laser marking system. We were able to reduce his marking time to 42 seconds and we could mark through even his thickest plating.

Jimani let him take the Langolier fiber system with the 20 watt laser back to his shop that Sunday evening.   We agreed that when his 50 watt fiber laser system arrived we would come out and swap the lasers. Laser Industries is a job shop competitor to Jimani yet they wrote the following letter to us:

Dear Jim,

For the past nine years I have been the owner of my own marking business.  Over the years both to stay current with the latest technology and to be as efficient as possible, I have purchased a wide variety of equipment including cutting lasers, water jets and laser markers.  Each time I have purchased equipment for the marking division, I have gone to Jimani Inc.  Jim Earman, owner of Jimani Inc., has been both an educator and friend for each one of my purchases all the while remaining a competitor.  This takes on much more significance as Jim is in the same line of work as I am.

With each purchase, Jim has made his entire shop available to me to come in and test the equipment I was looking to purchase.  The experience I had with my most recent purchase, a fiber laser, was no different.  Once again Jim opened his shop to me but this time on a Sunday.  I arrived with some jobs to program and run on the new equipment.  Together we went through a series of jobs and from that I was able to better my production rates.

Prior to my visit to Jimani my cycle time on parts I was running on my current system was six minutes and 39 seconds.  After we made some adjustments my new cycle time was 42 seconds.   My second job my cycle time was three minutes and 52 seconds.  With Jim’s help and the new system running the parts we were able to get the time to 28 seconds.

I look for stability, support, and maintenance when making a capital investment and those can found at Jimani.  Jimani not only sells the product they use they also use the products they sell which eliminates the worry from the sale.  I have never once asked myself if I was doing the right thing when making a purchase from Jimani, I knew I was before I even bought it.

In the highly competitive market of today, where every penny and every second counts, staying current could be the difference in winning and losing the jobs you are quoting on.

As an owner of my company I know that being able to produce more parts at lower cost is essential.  Furthermore, being able to see a return on my investment within the first year or two allows me to grow my business.

I look to continue my partnership with Jimani by purchasing additional equipment in the not too distant future.

Best regards,

Joseph Butterly - VP Operations, Laser Industries

Laser Industries