Morbark was founded in 1957 by Norval K. “Nub” Morey when he secured the patent for the Log Debarker Apparatus and opened the doors to the Morbark Portable Debarker Company. Today, the company has grown to over 500 staff and dozens of products that chip, shred, and grind organic and wood waste into merchantable products. Yet despite this growth, Morbark’s team faced an issue familiar to many manufacturers: less-than-optimal work-holding methods that left a critical gap in an optimized production process.

It was clear to Welding Engineer Brad Freiberg and the rest of the Morbark team that something needed to change. Their old dedicated fixtures were just no match for a rapidly evolving product line, and they could not deliver the efficiency & adaptability required by recently added robotic automation.

“We built a lot of our own fixturing,” says Freiberg. Because of Morbark’s high mix and low volume environment, house-made dedicated fixtures had once been practical. But now, that approach had run its course. “The fixtures became out of date due to product revisions, but the biggest issue was how fast they wore out,” he says. Morbark’s chippers weigh anywhere from 35 to just under 50 tons. The weight of those parts took a toll on their homemade fixtures. “We needed something more robust,” adds Freiberg. The question was, what was the solution, and who could provide it? The answer would eventually change Morbark’s production philosophy.

A recommendation leads to Bluco modular

With multiple robots already in place, and without the workholding expertise they needed, they reached out to several integrators for a solution. But the exact nature of their problem turned out to be a problem in and of itself.

For the integrators, the fact that the automation was already in place made the project less than ideal. For Morbark, without the volume to justify custom-dedicated fixturing, this just wasn’t the right fit. And while they still sought the end-to-end system integration, process consulting, and customization that led them down this path, their other requirements were outside the scope of typical integrator offerings. Their desire to focus on workholding and enhance their flexibility, efficiency, and production consistency meant they’d have to go a different direction.

Given their needs, one integrator suggested they contact Bluco. This idea immediately resonated with Freiberg. “I used Bluco in college. It was really impressive. So I was familiar with it and I thought, what a great idea,” he says. “You can change it, you can do whatever you want with it, and it’s robust.” Bluco checked all the boxes, so Freiberg contacted an application engineer and shared CAD models for an upcoming project. Soon after, Bluco’s team stocked the demo trailer accordingly, and headed to Morbark’s Michigan headquarters.

Seeing is believing

Freiberg and his team worked with a Bluco application engineer to complete several weldments on the table and kit from the trailer. The experience validated Freiberg’s initial instincts. “I knew this was the right way to go for a company like this. We have a lot of part versions for our equipment and our volumes are constantly changing. So, in my mind, Bluco was a great fit because it’s highly versatile,” he says.

Brian Blackmer, then Morbark’s Purchasing Manager, agreed. He’s since become the Strategic Sourcing Manager of Morbark’s parent company, Alamo Group, but remembers that initial experience well. “We were tack welding aluminum parts,” says Blackmer. “They literally wheeled it off the trailer, set it on the floor, and we sent a purchase order the same day.”

This initial solution was a relatively small investment. Still, Freiberg and Blackmer used it as an opportunity to gather valuable information — they wanted to see how the team used the modular system before investing in the more extensive solutions that were most needed. They knew the new system would represent a change from their traditional coach-built methods.

“We had some guys that had been there for a long time that always used the handmade fixturing with tape measures and string lines,” says Blackmer. While the team was wary initially, “After we worked with them for a few days, it became less intimidating,” adds Freiberg. “The turn around time for learning was pretty quick.” Even better, “The modular system eliminates the guesswork. Before, when they had to build their assemblies, they had to do corner squaring, leveling and a lot of tedious checking and measuring,” says Freiberg. The modular system eliminated all of that.