I. Auman Machine Shop-About Us

The Beginning I. Auman Machine Company was founded in 1949 by Irwin Auman. Irwin built the business by meeting his customers challenges. He developed a keen skill for machining castings. Specifically alloy steel castings, such as the ones used on the M60 tank. To meet all of the requirements on this project, the company setup painting facilities as well as certified welding. For over thirty years, he met the monthly challenges of producing up to 120 sets of louver castings, fully machined and painted. This amounted to as many as 14,000 machined castings per year being shipped to Chrysler's tank plant. At the same time, he developed his own design of trepan tools that were used in the production of alloy valves and the tools were also used to make gear blanks for helicopter drive trains. Having started in his father-in-law's garage, he reached an employee level of 50 people working around the clock to meet his customers needs.
Ownership In 1972, the first of his sons came to work in his business. Timothy displayed a strong desire to learn the business from the ground up. He worked after school, he worked during his summer vacations, and he came to work full time in the summer of 1974. Four years later he received his machinist papers. In 1986, an agreement of sale was reached between Irwin and Timothy. What started out as a plan to acquire one machine tool every two years reached a two a year pace at one point. I. Auman Machine has become a company of opportunity. With fine employees at I. Auman, we have been able to offer excellent scheduling skills which allow us to keep our customers production lines running, even while still dealing with mostly all castings. We have developed good relationships with many foundries and have a good understanding of the foundry process. With two full time manufacturing engineers, we now offer full service part production, from fixture development to development of manufacturing process, including tooling selection and acquisition. Our business plan is to be the best at what we do, to grow as fast as the opportunities present themselves within the constraints of capital availability. To accomplish this, we strive to understand as much about our customers business as possible, so we can best serve their needs.
Customer Base In 1983 the decision was made to employ manufacturer representatives. This provided a cost effective way of generating new sales, since manufacturer representatives are only compensated when orders are placed with us. With a sales network in place, a plan was devised to look for work that still would fit the capabilities of the Company as it was currently configured. Our base of new work came from a local railroad component manufacturer, Keystone Railway. Their products fit on our existing stable of machine tools, and their volume allowed us to up our utilization to two shifts per day, often six and seven days per week. Adding to this was work from BMY (now UDLP). These timely orders finally put us in a position to purchase an H-22 CNC Horizontal Machining Center. Starting in 1985 with this acquisition, to the present in 2001, nine (9) additional CNC Horizontal Mills (all equipped with 31.5" square pallets), have been added. In addition to the mills, three (3) CNC Turning Centers were added. To compliment this stable of equipment, a DEA fully programmable CMM was added. In the middle of 2001, we will be installing another CMM, larger than the 1st two, and another machining center. This machine will have a work envelope of 98".
Our Success With all of these components in place, I. Auman Machine was capable of offering York International's Frick division not only rough machining, but a finish machined product while holding true position tolerances of .0015 between dowel hole locations and bearing bores. A previous vendor had already tried and failed. Through the diligence of our employees, and with tremendous cooperation from our customers staff, we succeeded. This process had already been developed, however. Because of this success, we were invited to engineer the machining process that is being used in the future generation screw compressor, the replacement for what we are currently machining. The test results are in, and we are the proud participants of a successful project. Our ability to adapt to the demands of each of our customers is one more reason for our success.
Current Situation Our current situation is one of good customers and steady business. We are MIL-45208A qualified. We put a lot of emphasis on shop floor inspection, including the use of SPC charts where tighter tolerances are to be held. To prevent complacency, we are now pursuing ISO certification. As always, if this is what is needed to do business with someone, then with our ability to meet changing needs, we will succeed with certification. With our current sales exceeding $10 million, and our total employment level in excess of 50 dedicated employees, we see continued growth as long as we continue to meet the needs of our customers. Our current work load provides us with an opportunity to showcase our desire to meet our customers needs since we are currently working around the clock six days a week, plus time on Sunday as well.
Continued Expansion Having started in a two car garage, we have grown to a total of 24,000 square feet. Recently, a lease was signed for a three to five year term. This acquisition adds an additional 8,000 square feet of possible manufacturing space. This is an open span with dock area. It has 16 foot ceilings. Until manufacturing space is required, this area will be used for storage. An adjoining area of an additional 10,000 square feet is available at this time.