A-Peeling Machines
Atlas Pacific’s World of Food Processors
Story and photos by Richard Berry


View of Atlas Pacific’s 150,000 sq ft facility in Pueblo, Colorado. The company recently installed 15 new Haas machines and com-pletely changed the way it machines it parts.

The old saying, as American as apple pie may be a cliché, but it has deep historical roots. From the days of the Pilgrims through the cowboy era, decidu-ous fruits like apples played an important role in sustaining America—and providing opportunities for growing the country’s industrial base.

Dried apple slices were a critical winter staple in the years before canning and refrigeration. Soaked in water and then baked into pies, the dried fruit helped feed a nation. But the job of paring and slicing thousands of apples was monumental. The problem was met head-on in the form of hand-cranked apple-paring machines, and a variety of other ingenious food-processing devices.

Today’s complex industrial food processors are direct descendents of those first consumer contraptions. Atlas Pacific Engineering Company, Inc. of Pueblo, Colorado, manufactures and maintains more of these modern marvels than any-one in the world. And “ingenious” only begins to describe their approach.

A Lease on the World“

We have a significant share of the world’s market of deciduous-fruit-processing machines,” explains Atlas Pacific’s president, Robert Morris. “That’s apples, pears, peaches and apricots. Our machines pit and slice the peaches and apricots, peel and core the apples and pears, and then slice or segment the final product.”

Although fruit-processing equipment has long defined Atlas Pacific, recent business acquisitions have expanded the company’s manufacturing to include a wide range of other food processors: vegetable peelers, nut huskers, tuna-canning machines—and a lot in between. Their customers include food-industry icons like Del Monte, Musselman’s and Tropicana, as well as hundreds of companies produing private-label and store-brand products. The individual packages of sliced fresh apples now available at McDonald’s restaurants are just one item made possible by Atlas Pacific processors.

“The unique thing about our business,” notes Morris, “is that we don’t sell any of our machines. Every one is leased to the industry.” Along with the leases comes the re-sponsibility to service and maintain more than 5000 complex machines worldwide.


Working a Perishable Product “

If one of our processors fails in the field,” explains Atlas Pacific’s facilities manager Tom Ogrodny, “the customer’s product spoils, so operational reliability is terribly important. But just as significantly,” he adds, “when there is a breakdown, we must ship critical parts to the customer quickly. Delay is just not an option.”

Atlas Pacific maintains service offices in Italy, Australia, South Africa, Chile, Argentina and Greece, but every replacement part is manufactured in the company’s 150,000-sq-ft facility in Pueblo—using CNC equipment from Haas Automation, Inc.

Maintaining an inventory of approximately 36,000 unique parts would be impractical, so replacements parts are generally manufactured on-demand when they’re ordered from the field. Even routine production runs to update and refurbish prior models require relatively small quantities of machined parts. “One hundred would be a huge run for us,” says Ogrodny.

As in most high-mix, low-volume situations, set-up time and machine availability are the most significant factors limiting Atlas Pacific’s ability to respond quickly.

To reduce set-up time, they maintain a library of 15,600 CNC programs, and nearly 4000 dedicated fixtures. To address machine availability, they recently rebuilt their shop around 15 new Haas CNC machines, including four VF-6 vertical machining centers equipped with HRT-310 rotary tables, two similarly configured VF-3s, a TM-2 Toolroom Mill, two SL-20 turning centers with automatic bar feeders, two larger SL-30s, an SL-40 and a TL-2 Toolroom Lathe. They also installed two horizontal machining centers—an EC-400 twin-pallet machine and a large-travel HS-6R.


Consistent Configuration = Flexibility

“Over the years, we had acquired a frustrating hodge-podge of machines through our acquisition of other companies,” Morris explains. “By switching to all Haas machines with a common programming language, and standardizing our fixturing, we increased our efficiency and significantly reduced our set-up times.

“Having equipment that’s immediately available—when we need it—is invaluable,” Morris stresses. “Customers do occasionally go down, and we have to be able to respond immediately. The shop can’t wait a week for a unique production machine to free up; and we’d rather not have to tear one down, and have to go through an elaborate setup later.

“Our Haas VMCs are set up to accept identical fixture plates and run any program in our library without tweaking,” Morris continues. “Now, we can do any job on any machine. Free interchangeability between machines—with the same controls, tooling setups and sub-plates—gives us what we need: complete flexibility.”

Different Machining Philosophy

That flexibility also encouraged Atlas Pacific’s machinists to explore new ways of doing things. They quickly mastered the easy-to-use Haas control—which is virtually identical on all machines, whether VMC, HMC or lathe—and began exploring the capabilities of the Haas machines


One of four new VF-6 vertical machining centers equipped with HRT-310 rotary tables at Atlas Pacific’s plant

“We’d done the same things the same way for many, many years,” Ogrodny recalls, “mainly cut-ting stainless with coated carbide tools using flood coolant. Now, we’re using new techniques we never would have discovered without the Haas machines.

“We’re still cutting mostly stainless—in plate, billets and castings,” Ogrodny continues, “but instead of just the standard 303, 304 and 17-4 alloys, we’re beginning to use gall-resistant Nitronic-60 on high-wear parts. It’s interesting stuff.”“And we’re starting to dabble in dry, high-speed machining on the VF-6s using offset-flute endmills,” adds associate manufacturing engineer Brent Northup. “It’s been a real eye-opener. The technique represents a complete change in our machining philosophy. Instead of using the biggest tool to take the biggest cut we could get away with, we’re now taking a lot of little cuts really fast. With 4140 steel, we use no coolant whatsoever; we air-blast the work, but that’s only to clear the chips.


The way it used to be. Women piping pears.

“The first time we approached a 30-Rockwell-hardness plate at 66 inches per minute and 720 surface feet per min-ute on a VF-6,” Northup continues, “some guys ran to hide behind other machines, fully expecting the tool to explode! But the machine held the speeds, and the cutting went so smoothly you could hardly hear it. The endmill we used, Hanita Varimill®, has a special coating that acts as a lubricant. It gets better as it gets hotter, but 99% of the workpiece heat leaves with the chips. Throughout the entire operation, the part stayed as cool as the table

It’s been a dramatically successful change for us,” says Ogrodny. “On one high-wear cam plate that we ship a lot of, this technique has cut our cycle time from an hour and a half down to 30 minutes. Surprising results like this make you want to reexamine everything you’ve been doing. With the Haas machines, we’re able to do just that.”

“It’s an exciting time around here,” Ogrodny concludes. “We’ve changed more this last year than in the previous 20. As our line of food processors has become broader and more technologically innovative, so has our approach to their production. Thanks to the Haas machines and the changes we’ve made in the shop, we’re doing things quicker, better and more efficiently.”