Join us as we recap our CNC machining milestones throughout 2024. In this recap, you’ll find a monthly breakdown of our highlights. Thank you to everyone who made 2024 such a great year. We can’t wait to work with you in 2025!
January: CNC Machining Tenure Milestones | Supplier Presentation
In January of 2024, Innovative Machining celebrated 2 long term tenure milestones within the company. Kou Lor, our longest tenured CNC machinist, celebrated his 24th year at Innovative. Meanwhile within our Lathe Department, Jim Pomplun, our CNC Lathe Supervisor, celebrated his 19th year at Innovative. Jim will be retiring at the end of January in 2025, after 20 years of tenure with us. He expertise and presence will be dearly missed but his retirement is well deserved and we’d like to congratulate him as he enters his next chapter!
Later in January, Innovative Machining had the opportunity to give a presentation at Alro Steel Corporation, one of our largest steel suppliers. Ken Koeppen, our Purchasing Manager, delivered a presentation to highlight the projects that used the material from Alro along with the vital role that Alro plays within our supply chain. Through this presentation we were able to show the employees at Alro where and what their product goes. Alro Steel has been a critical supplier for the last few years and 2024 wouldn’t have been possible without their support.
February: Director of Talent
In early February of 2024, Innovative Machining hired Myriam Obregon as our first ever Director of Talent. As Director of Talent, Myriam is in charge of recruiting new candidates for our open roles as we continue to expand. Myriam also oversees safety, training, and employee onboarding to name a few. Even though she’s only been here for less than a year, her impact throughout 2024 couldn’t be more noticeable. We are lucky to have you here, Myriam!
March: Prototyping & Other CNC Machining Projects
In March, we hit the ground running with a new billet prototype project! For this project, we utilized our new Mazak HCN-5000 horizontal machining center for its speed and versatility. A new Raptor Workholding vise was acquired specifically for this project. The vise was used in conjunction with the HCN-5000 to provide as much machining accessibility as possible. Due to NDA restrictions, we can’t show the final part. Following the prototype project, 2 long projects were tackled using our Mazak VTC-805G and VTC-250D. These two 50 taper, vertical CNC machining center were ideal for these longer projects since these parts were 80+ inches in length. You can check out machining operations on these parts, below!
April: The Future of CNC Machining & Automation
April of 2024 marked one of the biggest projects that we had ever secured. In order to accommodate for this upcoming, high volume project, we would need to expand. Capital expenditure was made to acquire 2 new Mazak HCN-5000/50’s along with full autonomous integration with 2 Fanuc robots. These machines and robots will make up 2 fully automated cells that will run 24/7 at our facility. These cells are expected to come online come Spring of 2025!
May: Flythrough with Innovative Machining
Innovative Machining onboards new customers and machines every year. To make matters easier for our customers, we created a flythrough tour of our facility in May of 2024! This video briefly covers our entire facility and showcases our various services and machines. As we continue to grow and expand so will this video with various iterations showcasing the various changes to our facility. We invite you to check out our flythrough below!
June: Modern Machine Shop Top Shop | Mazak HCN-6800 NEO Install
After benchmarking against other machine shops throughout North America, Innovative Machining was awarded as a 2024 Top Shop through Modern Machine Shop‘s survey! This consideration wouldn’t be possible without our amazing team that have here. Following the Top Shop benchmark, Innovative Machining also acquired a new Mazak HCN-6800 NEO. This new horizontal CNC machining center will become the 4th station within our Mazak Palletech system. Full integration within our Palletech is set for early 2025!
July: New CNC Machining Project Estimator | David Deese
In July, we welcomed David Deese to the Innovative Machining team. David serves as a Project Estimator where he utilizes his 15+ years of CNC machining expertise to accurately create quotes and solutions for upcoming projects. A North Carolina native, David moved to the Fox Valley area of Wisconsin in search of cooler weather. When not at work, David enjoys spending time with his family, his boxer dogs, fishing, and cooking. We are happy to have you here, David!
August: ISO Recertification
Every 3 years, Innovative Machining undergoes a recertification audit to uphold our ISO 9001:2015 certification. Our ISO certification requires specific standards and practices that are in place throughout our business. These standards and practices ensure that we strive to maintain quality products and service from start to finish for our customers. We are proud to announce that we passed our recertification audit for our ISO certification! We will undergo our next recertification audit in 2027. Many thanks to everyone on our incredible team for making this happen and special thanks to Husk Registrars for working with us throughout the recertification audit. You can find our ISO certificate below.
September: IMTS & New Youth Apprentice
IMTS, also known as the International Manufacturing Technology Show, is one of the largest manufacturing trade shows in the world. Every other year, IMTS is held in Chicago, and we had the opportunity to send a group of guys down to check out everything that IMTS has to offer. The day was full of new machining centers, tooling, workholding solutions, and so much more. At Innovative Machining, we always strive to equip our machinists with the best tools and knowledge for the job at hand and IMTS is the perfect opportunity to learn about what technology is coming to the industry. Following IMTS, Innovative Machining brought on Derrick Karman. Derrick joins the Innovative team as a youth apprentice where he’s been learning the ropes when it comes to maintenance, machining, and more. Currently a senior at Menasha High School, Derrick plans to pursue a career in CNC Machining come graduation this spring. Welcome to the team, Derrick!
October: New CNC Machining Centers
Back in October, we received two new horizontal CNC machining centers. Our friends at Machinery Systems, Inc. hooked us up with these two Mazak North America HCN-5000/50 for our upcoming automated CNC machining cells. Thompson Machinery Moving did another amazing job offloading and setting these two centers in place. Once operational, we will begin initial R&D for our upcoming production projects slated for these cells, and then CNC Solutions will begin to outfit the automation! We can’t wait to see these cells come to life! Many thanks to everyone involved in this project!
November: CNC Takeover Machines & New Palletech Area Prep
In November. the crew from Thompson Machinery Moving helped us get these takeover machines in place for an upcoming project! We acquired a Motch Twin Spindle Vertical Turning Lathe along with a Toyoda FA550-II Horizontal Machining Center from our customer. Both machines are installed here as we take over this project from our customer. These machines may be older but we are excited to have additional spindles and capabilities within our machining arsenal! Many thanks again to the guys over at Thompson for the help with this project! Following the new takeover machines, our guys from our fabrication department installed new racking for our upcoming Palletech expansion! This racking will give us additional space for custom fixtures and other workholding solutions. The Mazak HCN-6800 NEO in the picture below will become the fourth machine to be integrated with our Palletech System. This expansion will bring our total Palletech system to the following:
– 4 Mazak HCN-6800’s
– 3 160 Tool Capacity Magazines & 1 240 Tool Hive
– 720 Tools Total
– 3 Loading stations
We can’t wait to get this expansion up and running soon!
December: Electrical Install | Automated CNC Machining Cells
This past December, we were in the process of getting our two new Mazak HCN-5000/50s up and running! The guys at CR Fochs Electrical Contractors installed the electrical. Once the electricity is landed, we can start preliminary testing and then move to R&D before we switch gears for the automation integration in the upcoming months.
Final Thoughts
2024 was another year of change for Innovative Machining. With that change came new opportunities and avenues and we can’t wait to share these upcoming opportunities with you all once they come to fruition. To our incredible crew, thank you for all the hard work and dedication throughout 2024. We wouldn’t be here without our team. To our vendors, suppliers, and customers, thank you for the partnerships and the support that have helped us to make 2024 a year to remember. We look forward to working with you all throughout 2025!
About Us
Innovative Machining has been providing CNC machining and fabrication since 1995. Located in Neenah, Wisconsin, Innovative has grown to over 125,000 square feet of manufacturing space. Through our climate-controlled shop, we offer horizontal CNC machining, vertical CNC machining, lathe (turning) CNC machining and more. We also have a full fabrication shop with flow waterjet machines and a team of skilled welders for all of your fabrication needs. Contact us today to discover how we can help with your next CNC machining or fabrication project! Follow us on LinkedIn to see the latest happening around our shop!
