Almost everyone has heard some version of Benjamin Franklin’s pithy saying that “Honesty is the best policy.”

On the other hand, not too many people are familiar with Mark Twain’s humorous variation of the quote: “Honesty is the best policy. . .when there’s money in it.”

Mark Twain, noted for his books about Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer, was, of course, famous for his wit, and his variation of the quote was intended to be funny.

Still, when it comes to business practice, his words may be just as true as those of good ol’ Ben Franklin.

“Honesty has certainly proved to be a profitable policy for our machining job shop,” says Tony Brown, vp and co-founder of Anaheim, CA’s 32-year-old A&D Precision Manufacturing, Inc. “In fact, it was our honesty that really locked in Sundstrand, our first big aerospace account.”

A&D was just 3 years old when they finally got a job to do some work with the aerospace giant.

“It was really our first large customer,” Brown says. “We had quoted on a small job for them, but when the purchase order came in, they had made a mistake, and were about to overpay us $1,000. My partner and I discussed it, and even though we needed the money, we were both honest, and knew we had to tell them about the error.”

The young partners called Sundstrand to point out the mistake and were instantly rewarded.

“They were so impressed, they immediately became our best customer,” Brown says.

“They stuck with us for quite a long time after that, until they closed down here and moved their work to Illinois.”

Visit from the FBI

Brown cites another case where the partners’ honesty paid off, but this time by keeping them out of jail.

“We had been working in aerospace for a while,” he says. “Then one day we were contacted by a company that sold black market parts. They wanted to buy overrun stock from us, parts we were making for one of our customers who had FAA approval to sell the parts. The company wanted to sell the parts to the airlines on the black market. The guy who contacted us was a fairly well-known business man, but our integrity again saw us through. We told him that the parts belonged to our customers. We told him that if he would give us a letter from our customer, authorizing us to sell him the parts, we could do it. We never heard from him again.”

A&D did hear from the FBI, however.

Brown: “The funny thing is the guy who called us kept good records, and he had a file on us. Eventually he was raided by the FBI. They found our file and came knocking on our door. We told them exactly what happened, and that was it. He got in trouble and our business has continued growing and making money. If we had given in to temptation, there’s no telling what might have happened to us.”

Slow, Steady Growth

Brown and his partner, Dan Wiegel, were just 20 years old when they formed A&D (Anthony & Dan).

“Dan was always interested in business, while I had taken machine-shop courses in high school,” Brown says. “After graduation, we went our separate ways for about three years. Dan got an office job, and I went to work in an aerospace machine shop. Finally, we got a chance to start our own shop, so we got together and did it. We rented a 1000-square-foot shop and bought a used Bridgeport with a Boss 5 CNC control. There wasn’t much paperwork to do in those days, so I worked days, and Dan kept the Bridgeport running at night.”

Since those early days, A&D has grown steadily until it occupies its own 9,000 sq ft building filled with advanced CNC mills and lathes and support equipment.

“At our peak, we had more than thirty employees,” he says, “but with the advances in equipment, we’re able to produce considerably more with a lot fewer employees. Today we’re AS9100 certified, and we have fifteen people in the shop, including three in the QC department.”

Productivity Increases

A&D operates 12 pieces of CNC equipment, including a variety of Fadal VMCs, two Okuma and Howa horizontals, a number of CNC turning machines, and it’s latest acquisition, a Kiwa VMC retrofitted with a 5th axis and a Fanuc control. To keep these machines going, Brown has used GibbCAM software virtually since the company started.
“Actually our first software was some DOS-based software running on an old Radio Shack TRS80 computer,” he recalls. “We switched over to an early version of GibbCAM in 1988, and we’ve never used anything else since.”

In the beginning Brown did all the programming for the company, but for the past 12 years he had a full-time programmer handling the task while he took care of operations.

Back in the Saddle

“About four months ago, our programmer left the company,” he says, “which left me back in the programming seat. I hadn’t used GibbsCAM in nearly twelve years, other than to look over our programmer’s shoulder as he wrote his programs. The software has changed significantly over the years, but luckily it’s still quick and easy to learn. With very little effort I’ve been able to get back in the saddle and turn out the work with being a bottleneck.”

One of the main reasons the software is easy to learn, Brown reports, is that virtually every menu item has a little popup balloon that tells what it is.

“The result is that I’m never lost,” he says. “All the original functionality is still there, along with a lot more. If I wanted to know what a new button did, I just hover the mouse over it and there’s the answer. It’s great.”

A&D has kept up a GibbsCAM maintenance agreement from day one.

“Whatever the newest version is, we get it,” Brown says. “For instance, we just upgraded to version 8.7.9 and we added the 5-axis module to be able to program our new Kiwa 5-axis system. Nowadays, in the aerospace industry almost all our projects come in as solid models, but for GibbsCAM that’s a piece of cake. Gibbs imports the files, usually Catia solids, with ease and allows us to write our program quickly and easily. Gibbs is so easy, that even though I have been away from it for twelve years, I’m able to use it to keep the shop going. It’s amazing, really.”

Brown says that he and his partner have no big plans for major growth.

Brown: “Our goal for the future is to keep our aerospace customers happy by staying up with the latest technology, delivering high-quality, precision parts on time, and, above all, maintain our reputation for honesty.”

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