Where are They Now? Winsert

When we published their August 2017 success story, Winsert Inc., a Wisconsin-based manufacturer of high temperature, wear-resistant, and corrosion-resistant alloys for various applications within internal combustion engines, emission controls, food and beverage, and industrial valves, was using ESPRIT to meet the challenges of manufacturing proprietary alloys developed to withstand the harshest environments. Three years later, how are they doing?

“We have been and are making wear-resistant parts using cobalt-based materials, which can be cost-volatile. At Winsert, we develop true replacement alloys to move away from those cobalt-based materials, and ESPRIT allows us to easily rework our old programs with new materials. In addition, we migrated to the newest version of ESPRIT in 2019,” says Jeff Kubash, Winsert’s New Product Technician Machinist. This upgrade helped Winsert effectively and economically update the required patterns and work holding to support other raw material changes,” Jeff says.

Jeff also cited ESPRIT’s improved ability to accurately analyze and simulate the tooling path which has allowed Winsert to refine the cutting processes. “For example, when we produce complex tooling, it has a lot of cavity features that require a precise toolpath, creating a program that will run for up to ten hours,” says Jeff. “With ESPRIT, we can run a simulation and visualize the toolpath, giving us the confidence the program is performing how we expect.”

While Winsert plans for the future, they’ve also adapted to the new challenges of the COVID-19 crisis. “The whole situation has allowed us to reevaluate where we stand in terms of utilizing our vendors, and it brings to light how important it is to have the capability to produce as much as possible internally,” says Winsert’s Product Engineering Manager Nicholas Anderson. “We do a significant amount of prototype and rapid response work, so we actually became busier in this area. COVID also gave us more time to work on continuous improvement projects to further excel.”

DP Technology’s regional sales manager, Mark Quartana, sees a bright future for Winsert as well. “Winsert is pushing the envelope during this pandemic to improve their efficiencies and stay on top of technology's potential. They will come out of this in a much better position for increased profitability by investing in technology now rather than waiting for things to get back to normal.”

“The immediate future of Winsert looks exceptional,” says Nicholas. “We are very forward-thinking, and our plans are paying off. We are advancing with the materials development side every day and diversifying our portfolio.”

Read Winsert's 2017 success story here.