Page 36 - CNC West Oct-Nov 2021

Herman (right) & Tim (left) discuss the tooling used on these parts.
and kit from this location, but a year ago we brought over two Haas CNC mills to machine aluminum castings. Donnie has been with InSight for 16 years and is one of our machine shop supervisors. He is involved with the internal training of employees and came to this location to get everything setup to run the castings.”
InSight is in the process of bringing on board another large contract manufacturing customer and to do so requires building another climate-controlled shop, relocating some of the machines, adding a new horizontal, and hiring more people. They have 25,000sq.ft. at the main facility and two 10,000sq.ft. buildings in Rancho Cordova. “One of the biggestchallengeswefaceasabusinessisemployees,”details Herman. “We have 52 now and could use more, and many more as the new program ramps up. Right now, it is all about people for us and others in this industry, specifically getting people trained. We participated in the pre-apprenticeship program. I was impressed with how they were able to take someone with no CNC background and make them a viable employee after a 90-hour program. They are by no means a journeyman machinist, but they can operate the machines safely, and at a minimum we know what skills they possess. We donated a couple of our older Hurco mills to SVMA’s manufacturing lab, anything we can do to help get more people into this as a career. It is important that people get trained on technology that is relevant to the industry. Being a board member with SVMA lets me connect with people like Tim who are passionate about growing the local industry. InSight are SVMA members and share that passion. Leveraging every resource available to us through the organization.”
Donnie runs one of the two Haas mills currently online in Rancho Cordova.
Ruxco Engineering Inc. - Michael Ruck, Michael Ruck Jr. and Silva Ruck.
RUXCO ENGINEERING INC. is a fourth-generation family run business servicing the aerospace and defense industries in Diamond Springs Ca. For over 40 years, their reputation stems from machining high complexity, tight tolerance parts with the latest technologies and equipment. “Michael Jr. does all of the programming,” tells father, president and CEO Michael Sr. “He is the one that keeps us on the cutting edge. Most everything we do is satellite or aircraft related and manufactured from Invar, titanium, stainless or aluminum.” Ruxco has a mix of 20+ CNC machine tools. Their shop is packed in with Haas, Kitamura, DMG Mori, and Sodick. They have 3 and 4 axis milling, advanced 5 axis milling, standard lathes, live tooling lathes, a wire EDM machine, and they inspect with a new Zeiss Contura CMM.
“We are part of SVMA for the future of this company and the future of the industry,” explains Michael Jr. VP at Ruxco. “It is hard to find people that want to work, let alone skilled people who want to work. SVMA’s apprenticeship program allows us to filter out potential employees without putting anything in our shop at risk. We don’t have to rely on what they tell us to be true and let them loose on our DMGs. We know anyone coming out of the apprenticeship program as a level 8 graduate that they are at a certain level of competency. The apprenticeship program gives SVMA members confidence that the person we are letting in our businesses is equipped to do a job. It’s arduous for us to invest the time to teach someone basic skills only for them to be here 6 months and ghost us. The men and women going through SVMA’s apprenticeship program want to be there. They are investing in themselves and their future. SVMA is quite an opportunity for companies in our area. Tim approached us about SVMA and we were sold on it without
question.” “We operate with 17
people now and would have
another full shift running if we
could hire enough qualified
workers,” adds Michael Sr.
“We have high hopes that this
program is going to add to the
local talent pool.”
5 axis machining on their DMG DMU 95 monoBLOCK.