Livonia, MI – September 2015 - Rob Freyvogel,
founder and president of Carbinite Metal Coatings in Renfrew PA, has a two-fold
dream. His first dream is to provide a superior service to his customers by
having a superior work place for his employees. His second dream, his passion
actually, is to push the limits of human innovation in motorsports.
Freyvogel founded Carbinite Metal Coatings in his garage in December of
1997. Designing workholding fixtures as a mechanical engineer, he saw a need
for a niche application that he named Carbinite. Freyvogel states, “Carbinite
is a hard textured metal surface coating that can decrease wear or increase
grip on a wide variety of tools and fixtures.” The company quickly outgrew the
family garage, and currently employs 12 workers. “Treating our employees and
customers well is essential. We value the skill each employee brings to our
shop, and want to share our success with them. We place a high priority on
making sure our customers get the service they need quickly and at a fair
price.”
Carbinite LSR (Land Speed Racing) is a side venture with a volunteer
crew led by Freyvogel and funded primarily by Carbinite Metal Coatings. Over
the last 5 years, Freyvogel and the crew designed and built the Carbinite LSR
Streamliner (lovingly referred to as the Carbiliner) to set the Wheel-Driven
Record at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Wendover, Utah. The current Wheel-Driven
record is 458 MPH. The Carbiliner crew’s goal is to crush that record by
running 500+ MPH. Unfortunately the weather is not as passionate as the
team; rain has caused the cancellation of the record-setting events for
the last two years.
The
slogan for Carbinite LSR is
“To Serve.
To Learn. To
Inspire.” During the LSR off-season, the Carbiliner visits local high schools,
tech schools, and colleges. Freyvogel presents
the project, its innovations, and its development from conception to present.
The students have the opportunity to ask questions, sit in the car, and have their pictures
taken. “Part of the mission of Carbinite LSR includes educating
young people. We want to inspire students
to pursue careers in science, technology, and manufacturing,” states Freyvogel.
The Carbiliner is definitely a conversation-starter, and is what sparked
the relationship between Realtrac Performance ERP and Carbinite. The Carbiliner was exhibited as part of the education outreach at the 2014 Smartforce Student
Summit, held in conjunction with the International Manufacturing Technology Show. Both
Realtrac and Carbinite exhibited at IMTS
as well.
Bob Sakuta,
Owner of Realtrac, visited the Carbiliner and was interested in the history
and goals of the project. Andy Hixon, Operations Manager
at Carbinite, was interested in Realtrac. He states, “We had
been searching for a
shop management solution for almost a year. Most were either beyond our budget or were too cumbersome and had too many features
we would never use. We needed to implement
a system without much disruption to
our shop floor. The software also had to analyze our unique data
since our shop is not a typical
machine shop.” Both parties were sufficiently impressed, and, within a few hours of meeting, Realtrac
and Carbinite were officially partnered.
Carbinite has been extremely happy with the ease of Realtrac’s implementation. “Our administrative staff
found Realtrac simple
to set up. It was obvious
how it all worked together,”
states Freyvogel. “Our shop floor
employees were trained and using Realtrac
in just a few hours. Within a week, Realtrac started
analyzing the profitability of our jobs. Everyone at Realtrac wants us to succeed,
and has been extremely
helpful and knowledgeable. Realtrac is helping
us to see where our shop is doing well, and where it is not efficient or profitable. We now can decide where we need to change our shop to make it a better workplace
for our employees. Realtrac Performance ERP gives us a streamlined manufacturing workplace, which means better service
for our customers. It’s a win-win situation.”
Carbinite will be at the Bonneville Salt Flats for various
events in September and October. The Carbiliner will be joining Realtrac at
school craft college in Livonia on October 9th and 10th
for the Mind Trekkers event in conjunction with Michigan Tech University
S.T.E.M. program. At this event, K – 12 schools through collegiate program
students will have an opportunity to have a hands on experience with cool
projects and new technologies.
The Mind Trekkers team members act as role models and
near-peer mentors as they help students define their interests and aptitudes in
these high energy events full of activities lasting between 30 seconds to 3
minutes.
Follow our progress on:
Follow Carbinite on:
Follow Mind Trekkers on:
About REALTRAC
Based
in Livonia, Michigan, REALTRAC Performance ERP is a software company specializing in manufacturing software for machine shops,
job shops and make-to- order metal working
manufacturers. The company
was founded
in the heart of a machine shop and has served the manufacturing industry for over three decades.
The program is used by thousands of
users across North America. REALTRAC
10 was released in March 2014.
For More Information, contact
Jeremy Klosowski at (734) 793-3811 or
jeremy@realtrac.com
