Thermoplastic composites at Oribi Composites: CW Trending, episode 4

In this episode of CW Trending, Oribi Composites’ Matt Christensen discusses the origin of the Colorado-based thermoplastic composites fabricator, his role at the company, current products and programs, and the real potential for use of thermoplastic composites in wheels.  

Transcript

Jeff Sloan 

Hi everybody and welcome to CW trending. My name is Jeff Sloan. I'm editor-in-chief of CompositesWorld and with me today here is Matt Christensen. Matt is VP of sales at Oribi Composites. Hi, Matt.

Matt Christensen

Hey, Jeff, thanks for having us.

Jeff Sloan 

Appreciate you being here. So, before we start, I just want to congratulate you. Oribi is among the 10 top shops in CompositeWorld's annual survey of composites fabricators. Congratulations to you and Oribi for that. You'll be you'll be getting noticed soon and the official designation. But I just want to congratulate you right now for earning that distinction.

Matt Christensen

Oh, fantastic. Well, we appreciate the opportunity. And it certainly is an honor for us to be not only nominated, but to be considered among the leaders in the top shops across the country. We're thrilled.

Jeff Sloan 

We're thrilled too, and since you are top shops, I guess we should learn a little bit more about you. So first of all, help us understand a little bit about what Oribi does. Well, I guess let's start with where's Oribi located? And tell me a little bit about what Oribi does with composites?

Matt Christensen

Yeah, you bet. So Oribi was founded back in 2008, by Jack Wilfley, and we are located in Denver, Colorado. So just north of you. We've got a 50,000 square foot facility, just northeast of Denver. And our focus within Oribi specifically, is to unlock the potential of continuous fiber reinforced thermoplastics. And so, you know, unlike many who have, you know in the industry, the composites industry has had a distinct focus in thermosets and then migrated to thermoplastics. We've only focused on thermoplastics over these last 12 years.

Jeff Sloan 

And so what drove the interest in thermoplastics from the start?

Matt Christensen

You know, that's a great question. Again, Jack Wilfley, who's our owner, he's got a long history, and family history in heavy industry, big metal machining, industrial pumps, if you will. And I think he just had a passion for composites. But then, you know, Jack's passion, another passion is all based around automation, and robotics. So, when you look at the ability to combine automation and robotics along with thermoplastics, where you can get a very fast cycle time, that creates a really interesting approach for Oribi. Through that robotic and automation process, we now look at what we call rate target approach. So how do we cross the chasm where customers want to do composites, and yet they need very high volumes in many industries outside of aerospace. And so how do we help create that bridge across that chasm, and I think that's where, you know, Jack and team felt Oribi was best positioned back in the day. And we've just continued to build on that over the last 12 years.

Jeff Sloan  

Right. So, tell me a little bit about the materials and the fibers that you use and the processes that you're employing to fabricate these parts,

Matt Christensen

You bet. I actually have a piece of raw material here, if you can see this, but the majority of the material we use is a pre impregnated, unidirectional continuous fiber reinforced thermoplastic tape. So, this comes in a tape form. Raw material is usually around 12 to 13 inches wide comes on a big role. And what we do is use these tapes in the unit directional fibers to strategically engineer parts to have certain attributes. What I mean by that we have a few parts to show. So we're able to design parts that have fibers running in strategic directions to perhaps give the part, you know, a torsional flex in this case, but perhaps it's stiff and strong in another direction. So by using these unit directionals we could get an engineer exactly what the part is supposed to do without wasting material without wasting a lot of other resources. So we can get very dialed in to what the part needs to be and create some really interesting pieces.

Jeff Sloan 

And so what is the process you use to convert from that tape format to the finished product?

Matt Christensen

Yeah, good question. So it's usually a four step process, the beginning piece, or leveraging these tapes, and then doing an automated tape lamp solution where, again, depending on the part design, we could lay up those tapes in almost infinite number of fiber angles, and whatever ply structure the part needs to be. So we lay up those pieces in an automated format, again, through robotics. So that's the layup part of it. The next stage is consolidation, where we take that blank, if you will, and in most cases, it's, you know, cover rectangular square shape. And we take that blank and consolidate it down to take all of the voids and air gaps out of the piece, which primarily makes it easier to process down the road. From there, we take that blank into, in most cases, a two-piece match mental tool. And so we'll take the blank, bring it right up the temperature right up just before melt tab, and put it into a match metal tool. And the process is kind of a combination of stamp forming and thermal forming. And so what you'll end up with is a piece much like this, where you have the shape inside of you know, this flashing that's here, then we'll take this part down into our trimming station, which is, you know, multiple CNC’s. We actually have multiple waterjets now - three, six and 12 axis waterjet - to finish the part into its final shape, or its final profile. The tack time for that entire process varies depending on what the ply structure and the complexity is but, you know, it could be anywhere from one minute to three minutes. And so, you know, again, for us as we look to focus on markets that, you know, from a continuum are kind of between aerospace and high volume automotive, where high volumes are required tight tolerances are required, we can cycle through and produce very high volumes of products simply because our tag times are determined by how quickly we get heat in and out of the part, you know, versus a chemical reaction. So, you know, all these elements combined, again, brought us right down to very heavy focus in thermoplastics.

Jeff Sloan 

So we'll talk about applications in a second. But you mentioned building the blanks, is that equipment you acquired, or is that equipment something that was developed by Oribi in house?

Matt Christensen

Yeah, so all of our equipment has been developed internally and in house. You know, there's a wide variety of automated tapes or lamp solutions out in the marketplace, and, you know, we've been able to capture is creating all four of those steps and trying to combine it into one manufacturing cell. And so yeah, the tape lab solution is certainly an integral part of it, because there needs to be a very high degree of, I would call it performance to ensure that those speeds are kept high. But everything we try to do is built and designed internally. And now we're even trying to consolidate those cells into or those stages into one cell. So, you know, at a very high level, Jeff, you look at raw material going in and parts coming out the other side, that's kind of utopia for us.

Jeff Sloan 

So you're talking about integrating the blank building with the forming, or you're just talking about integrating all the processes in new ones cellular unit that takes raw material and pushes out a finished product.

Matt Christensen

At this point, it's all cellular based. And so there's still four distinct parts to the process. But having those processes very close with each other, having robots be able to move material around within the cell, we can contain all of those practices within a very small space. And so now we're focused on building more and more cells throughout our facility versus trying to break out processes and build more in that direction.

Jeff Sloan 

Okay, and resin systems, what kind are you using mostly right now?

Matt Christensen

Yeah, great question. So, coming back to material, the fibers 90% of the time or 99% of time, is either glass or carbon fiber. And the resin systems are a very wide range for us. So anything from polypropylene, low end p tees, all the way up through peak pack, low melt Paik we do a lot of work, what I would consider in the middle of the resin matrix. A lot of high tech V T's a lot in the nylon family, pa 6, 66, 12. And then quite a few parts and PPS as well.

Jeff Sloan 

You mentioned that Oribi’s sweet spot is between the volumes that you might find in automotive, and the quality and volumes might find an aerospace. So, tell me about some of the applications that you're working on or that you have experience with.

Matt Christensen

Yeah, we're kind of an organization that looks through a wide variety of different industries. Certainly, aerospace and high volume automotive are, I think, most known throughout the composites industry. But we've spent a lot of time and a lot of work focused in military law enforcement safety, through the forms of helmets and backpack frames, other structural components within those spaces. Certainly, a lot of medical and health services you can imagine with wheelchairs, and, you know, some of the other components within medical, industrial energy in terms of oil and gas, and renewable energy, a lot of different parts there. And of course, we spent a lot of time in sport recreation, being here in Denver, we get involved in a wide variety of components from, you know, skateboards, to snowboards to elements on skis. And, of course, in the cycling industry, where we found some really interesting components within the cycling industry, where they just need to be lightweight, tough, and in an extreme environment. These last, last number of years, I think, naturally, we've been able to focus in areas that that our competition simply hasn't, where we're kind of in between the aerospace and high volume, automotive.

Jeff Sloan

You and I were talking earlier, one of your most recent applications are thermoplastic wheels. So, tell me a little bit about that. Because wheels are kind of a big deal in the composites industry, but mostly on the thermoset side, so thermoplastic wheel is a little different.

Matt Christensen

It is a little different. I have some examples here,, key around the wheel industry is getting the material in the space that it needs to be, and yet reducing the amount of waste. And so, we've got a process that we call the spin process where we're able to place the unidirectional thermoplastic material exactly where it needs to be. And so we have a multi head machine that takes it around in a circular format, and makes this wheel type of structure. We've had a really good history, recent history in the cycling sports, you know, mountain bikes, road bikes, and so forth. And taking that foundation now into kind of the power sports industry. So we're looking at ATVs and UTVs, golf carts, and I think gradually, we'll start to move into automotive as we start to get a little smarter of what we can do from a design perspective. But the spin process, again, enables us to keep that high throughput that all of these industries need, but yet placed the material exactly where it needs to be. So, you know, preliminary testing, we've been able to lighten the load, if you will, we were half the weight of aluminum wheels of the same size. And yet, they're testing, you know, impact tests and other types of pressure and rotary fatigue testing. We're actually superior to aluminum, and even steel in some cases. So we're pretty bullish on the technology and trying to move into markets that make a lot of sense for us.

Jeff Sloan 

So tell me more about the spin process. Is this just automated by placement, or what? Tell me that little bit more about that.

Matt Christensen

Yeah, I think the spin process, what makes it different is that automated tape layup solution in a circular format. And so everything that we look at it's really through a couple of lenses, one of which would be to reduce the amount of material that's used or wasted material, because that's where costs can drive higher. The other area would be doing it in such a way to where we can keep the speed of the overall manufacturing, so keeping the tag times low through the process. And then again, just doing it a very tight tolerance, you know, wheels, specifically in all areas have very tight tolerances that they need to keep. And the rest of the spin process I think is very similar. You know, you're looking at consolidation, forming and trimming as you go through the rest of the processes. So the magic here is creating that circular structure quickly and with tight tolerance.

Jeff Sloan 

You know, thermoplastics have been kind of an exciting and hot material in the composites industry now. They've been around for a long time, obviously. But in the last 10 years, I've enjoyed more attention and growth. And certainly, it sounds like Oribi’s taken advantage of that. What is your take on the future thermoplastics in the composite space, and, obviously, you see an opportunity and wheels, which is really interesting. But I'm wondering, you know, beyond that, you know, what is your outlook for thermoplastics growth? How do you feel about its opportunities for expansion?

Matt Christensen

Well, you know, naturally, I'm pretty bullish on it, because that's really what we focus on. But, you know, aside from that, I think what's interesting being in the industry now for, you know, five or six years and listening, and learning more about where thermoplastics have come. And this is a broad sweeping statement, but I think thermoplastics have come from, you know, a fix for poor design, you know, kind of as selective reinforcement in a poor design for general plastics. And so putting some unidirectional thermoplastics in a particular design to fix it, moving it from that space to starting and purposely engineering and designing parts, leveraging the material, you know, from its inception. And in doing that, you're able to create parts that oftentimes are lighter. They're thinner than what you might have seen in the past. And it seems to me in a wide variety of industries, from sport and recreation all the way through military, there's this desire to make things lighter, tougher and stronger. And so how do we start to leverage thermoplastics to satisfy that customer need. And I, to me, I think that's a natural way for us to take those elements. And then, of course, make very high volumes that are necessary by a wide variety of industries.

Jeff Sloan 

Tell me a little bit about Rebuild. Oribi, I guess, took an investment from rebuild - was it was it during the pandemic or just before- but there's a reshoring component to Rebuild. Explain to us what that relationship is and what Rebuild is.

Matt Christensen

Yeah, so manufacturing is our parent company, here at Oribi. We took on some investments a couple of years ago, and primarily It was designed to build out more of our manufacturing. I think it took a positive turn, even more positive turns were the leaders of our retail manufacturing team are starting to consider, or actually their ultimate desire here is to bring manufacturing back to the US kind of reshoring onshore manufacturing. And the key there, it's kind of serendipitous in terms of timing, where we've had COVID, we've had massive supply chain issues in all industries for a wide variety of reasons. But this team is, you know, they're titans of industry, they've been around for a very long time. Their focus and goal is to bring that manufacturing back to the US. And it starts with everything from engineering design and development through product integration, component manufacturing, full assembly, full contract manufacturing, all the way through pick pack and pull and sending out to distribution. So, there's a whole line supply chain line of opportunities, where even as close as a few years ago, many industries didn't have the ability to do this in the US. Rebuild Manufacturing is changing that game. Oribi was one of the first pillars within the Rebuild Manufacturing group, and now resides in a group that we call the Advanced Materials group. So led by Steve Meade, we now have Oribi, which is focused on thermoplastics. We have Composite Resources, which is located out in the Charlotte, North Carolina/South Carolina area, very heavy focus in thermal sets, and which is great, very complimentary to what we do, and Cutting Dynamics, which is up in Cleveland. So, a little bit of thermal sets, but very tight tolerance, high precision metal, and so metal machining, titanium, and so forth. And then most recently, a company called Dapper Engineering, which is in New Hampshire, where we're bringing in more engineering resources to complement all of the things that we're doing within each of these industries, or each of these separate businesses. So you know, we've been on a bit of an acquisition bender over the last seven months. All this is starting to come together and gel very nicely, where we're seeing programs coming in from major companies to where they're not isolated with one type of composite manufacturing. We're looking at basically a true customer solution, we'll figure out what materials are needed and what process is needed, and ultimately deliver the solution versus being very myopic in our own approach. So even though it's been a short period of time, it's been very successful and well received in the market.

Jeff Sloan 

It sounds like there will be sort of an integrated approach, because you have these different companies within Rebuild, providing expertise in different areas, then a customer coming in will be able to take advantage of the resources depending upon what their needs are and what their material requirements are, and design requirements.

Matt Christensen

Yeah, exactly. I mean, if you consider, you know, a one stop shop for design, engineering, manufacturing, all located here in the US, there's a really distinct advantage there. Your supply chain is not held up by months of transportation or other barriers - time zones as a great example - going overseas in a variety different ways. So, there's that customer support, that's significant, as well as dedication to creating a meaningful job and manufacturing base back here in the US. We're very bullish on that specific type of partnership with our customers here.

Jeff Sloan 

Well, it sounds like there is more to come.

Matt Christensen

More to come. Always more to come, never a dull moment.

Jeff Sloan 

So how many employees are at Oribi now?

Matt Christensen

I think Oribi specific, we hover around that 40 to 50 mark, depending on flex and those types of things. We do have some seasonality, but it's been fortunately, as of late is kind of flattened out in terms of seasonality. So, we stick around 40 to 50 employees in total. It's interesting, most of which are in engineering, and in product development. When you consider how we leverage robotics so heavily, we don't have this extremely heavy operator base out on the floor, we really only need a few operators per cell, which can crank out a ton of parts. It’s a bit different than what others might consider in classic manufacturing.

Jeff Sloan 

Okay. So final question. How was the pandemic for Oribi? And what is the next year or so look like? How do you feel? How optimistic or pessimistic are you?

Matt Christensen

So ultimately, we're optimistic, you know, the pandemic has been certainly a challenge for everybody. And it's, it's been really a struggle for a wide variety of folks in our industry, even from the pandemic to the shutdown in Texas last year, it's created a ripple effect that I think surprised a lot of people. Fortunately for us, because we had set ourselves up to leverage automation so heavily that the impact was minimal. We've got just fantastic employees that stuck through all of the situations that stuck with us and been able to really support our customer base to keep things moving. Again, when you look at the markets of renewable energy, and military and law enforcement, there's not acceptable gaps that we'd be able to lean into in terms of supply, we have to keep things moving. And so, our raw material suppliers, were able to keep us moving through the whole pandemic. For us, as we look to move forward, we've continued to grow internally, even here at Oribi. We've hired some really great business development and account management folks to where we're going to look into a wide variety of new markets. Certainly, the wheels are kind of a market spread type of product, but we're going heavy into drones and UAV type of solutions, doing more within sport and recreation, how do we get creative there? And then there's always seems to be opportunity within the law enforcement and military to support more and more of what our folks need. So, we're looking at Yes, we see it as very positive for the future.

Jeff Sloan

Right. Well man, I want to thank you again for joining me here on CW Trending. And again, congrats on The CW top shops. designation.

Matt Christensen

Well, great. Well, thanks for having me, Jeff. I really appreciate it. And again, thanks for the designation. We look forward to putting that here in the office.

Jeff Sloan 

All right. We'll Hope to see you soon in person then.

Matt Christensen

Sounds great. We'll see you soon. Bye.