PITTSBURGH—The world of secondary operation machines typically is not a well-known point on the manufacturing chain, but it is no less important for customers who require such machines.
Altman Manufacturing Co. Inc. has been making trim, progressive and compound dies, air bench presses, trim presses, hydraulic presses and rotary secondary operation machines since 1945—all machines that fill the space between post-molding and pre-customer.
Typical parts that Altman machines help finish include brake accessories, carburetor gaskets and engine motor mounts in the automotive realm; to syringe tips, dental cups, catheters and baby nipples in the medical space.
The company's machines can work with rubber, plastic and thermoplastic elastomers, as well as many other elastomers and polymers.
"We are a machine finishing product company," said Brian Altman, vice president of sales and a third-generation executive at the company, which began under the watchful eye of Altman's grandfather in 1942.
Altman Manufacturing is housed in an 8,500-sq.-ft. facility in Lisle, Ill., which is about 40 miles outside of Chicago. The company has between 12 and 20 employees at any given time to build the equipment.
Brian Altman said they work "with the guys who mold rubber parts."
"My customer brings me a drawing, saying they need this part slit and trimmed, and they need to make 100,000 of the parts," he told Rubber News at the recent International Elastomer Conference in Pittsburgh. "How do they want to mold it? Is it rubber, silicone or something else?"
From there, Altman Manufacturing offers methods of producing the finished part, and the customer chooses how they would like to proceed with their process. "We work with them to fit our equipment to their operations," Altman said.