![]() “The first place I go to when we have a new product is CIRAS,” Johnson said. Jim Johnson, COO of Angstrom Precision Molding, said CIRAS has been instrumental in helping his company explore new technologies and expand its offerings. “We’re like a family.”įrom Angstrom’s standpoint, the relationship is just one more benefit of absorbing CIRAS’ expertise. Upper Iowa now works seamlessly with its Ottumwa counterpart, building tooling for parts that are then produced by Angstrom.įrom the customer’s standpoint, “we look like we’re one business,” Fortune said. Upper Iowa owner Scott Fortune said a CIRAS-arranged connection with Ottumwa-based Angstrom Precision Molding has helped his company regain once-lost business. “I’m thankful that we at AAI got a chance to be a part of it.”Ĭresco-based Upper Iowa Tool & Die and Innovations, a company that makes tools, dies, assembly and checking fixtures, and a variety of other manufacturing equipment, also found new success by partnering with an Ottumwa firm it discovered through CIRAS. “I’m really excited that Iowa State and CIRAS are on the forefront of this cutting-edge technology,” Salkic said. The result, Salkic said, was that American Athletic got a much-improved version of its cheer stand to market before Christmas while receiving a valuable window into an important new technology. But the prototype was “big and bulky and didn’t look all that great.”ĬIRAS TAP experts quickly helped Salkic design a plastic cheer stand that could be manufactured from molds made with CIRAS’ metal 3D printer. That connection came as part of CIRAS work to help the company finalize a new product aimed at assisting cheerleaders in improving their balance.īy late 2016, American Athletic, a longtime manufacturer of steel sports equipment, had created a metal prototype of what would become the EliteTM Cheer Stand, said senior design engineer Senad Salkic. The CIRAS lab is capable of discerning about metals.įor example, CIRAS helped American Athletic discover a firm in Sully, Iowa, that since has made multiple tools for the company. CIRAS materials specialist Paul Berge, now retired, leads a tour in 2017 demonstrating what Or it may mean connecting two Iowa firms that each have something the other might need. Referral might mean assisting a company in finding someone who can help them automate a particular manufacturing process, Hill said. In other cases, we’re referring them to other companies.” In some cases, we’re providing direct services by faculty and staff. We are linking those issues to technologies that could help them. “Companies are listening and discussing the issues they are having. “We’re out there talking about technologies,” Hill said. Chris Hill, CIRAS TAP director, said many companies are learning about CIRAS from those tours and from the roughly 20 educational events that TAP experts held last year around the state. Matthias initially learned about CIRAS through a regularly scheduled tour of Iowa State laboratories. Clients spanned 82 of Iowa’s 99 counties, and the work they were involved with-a mixture of additive manufacturing experiments, materials-related testing, and contract research projects-produced a combined economic impact of more than $164 million. Pengo Corporation was one of 379 companies that received help from the CIRAS Technology Assistance Program (TAP) in the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2017. “I actually just sent two more of my engineers down there today to work with them again.” “They’ve been huge for us,” Matthias said of CIRAS. And then it turns back into soft iron, which is a lot weaker.Įric Matthias, director of business development/engineering for Laurens-based Pengo, later valued CIRAS’ work on the project at $450,000-partly because the corrections helped Pengo land new business and avoid expensive third-party testing. ![]() When the process is conducted in the wrong environment, he said, “you end up with the surface of the steel losing carbon. Further testing at Iowa State University’s Center for Nondestructive Evaluation identified tiny cracks extending from the pin holes deeper into the metal.īerge diagnosed the problem as improper heat treatment. The company turned to CIRAS materials specialists Paul Berge and Adam Bosenberg, who quickly found decarburization in the area surrounding holes created for a driveshaft pin. Pengo, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of drilling attachments and related wear parts, went in late 2016 to test a new auger in front of a major client. ![]() CIRAS helped Pengo Corporationĭiagnose problems with an auger drive shaft. ![]()
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