Metal to Machine
From raw materials to machining and fabricating, final assembly to shipping, Atscott Manufacturing Company offers turnkey manufacturing for an array of industries.
Pine City's Atscott Manufacturing Company has been in business for nearly 50 years, providing products and services to a varied array of customers. What is Atscott's secret to success? According to John Norris, president, it's a three-pronged combination of diverse customer
industries, great service and talented employees.
"No more than 20 percent of our business is with any one customer, and no more than 20 percent is in any industry," Norris says of his customer base, which ranges from defense and aerospace to medical and industrial companies. Customers include Goodrich, 3M, BAE Systems,
Honeywell, Medtronic, Eaton Corporation and Norris's own Tower Solutions, a self erecting tower products company housed within the same facility as Atscott.
Atscott's unique strength, Norris says, is its vertical integration approach: "taking something from raw stock to a finished product and boxing it up so that the next person that sees it is the customer." For some customers, the company serves as a stocking location,
shipping customers' inventory directly to their customers and manufacturing each product according to a monthly forecast that Atscott employees create.
Atscott's diverse range of capabilities requires a highly skilled staff, and Norris says he feels privileged to work with "capable, flexible" employees. Employees seem to feel the same, as shown by their average 21 years of service.
To keep up with changing technologies and customer needs, Atscott has received a Company Based Jobs Training grant distributed by Pine Technical College and funded by the U.S. Department of Labor. To kick off the three-year grant, Atscott is working with Enterprise Minnesota
to instruct workers in Training Within Industry, a program that helps workers integrate GreenLeanSM principles into their daily work lives.
Enterprise Minnesota also is assisting Atscott in upgrading its ISO certification to AS9100, an increasingly necessary quality standard within the aerospace industry. As for future grant-funded training efforts, Norris says, "the possibilities are endless" and may include
lean manufacturing skills, CNC machining, management or statistics training.
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