- Post Date: January 3, 2023
Category: News
2022 GHMA Facility Tour
I have worked in manufacturing in Houston, Texas for the last 43 years. I can pick up the phone and get advice, equipment, and referrals if I’m ever in a jam. This cooperation is present even among competitors here in Houston. I love this country!
I have benefited from this open, supportive attitude for my entire career. So I always agree to host tours of ARC Specialties to show others how Dave Hebble conducts research in our lab. William Saxton and the other engineers design our machines. How John Tovar and the machinists make the parts. How Esteban Vazquez and the welders fabricate the machines. How Joe Lopez and the technicians assemble these machines. How Kevin Sevcik and the programmers write the code. And finally, how Nicholas Augustine, John Martin, and the other project managers put it all together.
Yesterday, the Greater Houston Manufacturers Association visited ARC Specialties for lunch and a facility tour. They saw robots working on drill ships, sand screen machines that make 100 welds per second, a mobile welding robot that goes and finds work, ultrasonic inspection robots, and additive manufacturing printing 50 pounds of steel per hour!
If you would like a tour, please contact me.
ARC Specialties thrives on problems. Send us yours.
– Dan Allford
- Post Date: August 18, 2022
FIRST FRIDAY: AUGUST 5th 2022
At ARC Specialties we believe its important to share with those around us. That’s the purpose of our monthly First Friday event. It’s an opportunity to join us and share SMILES, KNOWLEDGE, FOOD, & MORE.
- Post Date: August 8, 2022
Roboticist Chronicles: Dan’s Business Secrets Episode 03 Commercial Real Estate
In this episode of The Roboticist Chronicles, Barrett J. Gibson, of Colliers-International, stops by H.A.T. Studio to discuss the purchasing of commercial real estate on this installment of Dan’s Business Secrets.
- Post Date: July 6, 2022
Roboticist Chronicles: Dan’s Business Secrets Episode 02 Patents
In this episode of The Roboticist Chronicles, we take a trip to downtown Houston where we visit John S. Egbert of Egbert, McDaniel & Swartz to discuss the subject of patent law.
- Post Date: June 28, 2022
What Metrics Do You Use?
All of the indicators that I watch are pointing towards a strong year-end and a great 2022. Our backlog is up 5X, we are hiring, and as you can see from the photos below, the ARC Specialties First Friday Lunch is BACK in a big way. Today we had 15 guests from all over the industry, spirits were high, and the conversation was positive.
- Post Date: November 5, 2021
Rolex Day at ARC
Today was Sandra Morris‘s 10th anniversary at ARC. So I had the privilege of presenting her with a 10 year Rolex watch. This was the 27th watch we have awarded. In the photo below Sandra is surrounded by 14 other 10+ year ARC veterans.
- Post Date: April 13, 2021
Roboticist Chronicles: The Walking How It’s Made Guys
Join Gary Kowalski, Senior District Manager at FANUC AMERICA, and Dan Allford, President of ARC Specialties, as they reminisce on some of their past projects. They will go over some of their failure, successes, and proudest achievements in the robotics industry.
- Post Date: March 30, 2021
Roboticist Chronicles: Criticality of Fit Up in Welding Automation Applications
What is good fit up? And why is it crucial to the success of a welding project?
Dan Allford, President of ARC Specialties and the host of Roboticist Chronicles, meets with Dave Hebble, ARC Specialties’ Technical Services Manager, to expand on the idea of fit up and explain it to the rest of the company. The two have worked together since the late 70s, with Hebble acting as Allford’s mentor ever since.
You can trace a lot of robotic system failures to poorly fitted parts, explain Allford.
“With machining, you impose your will on the part. You take the part and you remove everything you don’t want… In welding, the part imposes its will on you. In other words, the shape of the part we can’t change – we just have to deal with it.”
Hebble also touched on defining the scope and flow of a welding project before getting started on it. “What is good fit up?” he asked. “Good fit up means something different to each person, so before you start, that needs to be defined.”
Allford added that, to him, fit up meant three things: joint accuracy, fixture accuracy and robot accuracy. All of those things could potentially add even more confusion to the process, emphasizing the importance of defining the flow.
“Before you can figure out which problem to fix, you’ve got to figure out which problem you have,” he said.
Subscribe to ARC Specialties’ Roboticist Chronicles podcast to learn more about the nuts and bolts of robots, automation and the implications of an evolving machine workforce.
- Post Date: February 9, 2021
The Future of Robotics in a Post-Pandemic World
Because they deal primarily with physical products, anyone in manufacturing knows that the industry as a whole has taken a hit from the effects of the pandemic.
- Post Date: February 3, 2021
