Success Secrets

Marlon Gaines sets up an OGP optical comparator used to check the profile on the parts. Leading Edge does 100% first article inspection as required by its customers. The company also uses a Winzel CMM to inspect air foils.

So what is Gaines’ secret that allowed him to achieve such rapid success?

“Well, our success is based on a combination of things,” he says. “First is that our customers trust us to deliver a product that works. We work with expensive customer-furnished investment castings of the turbine blades, and our customers are comfortable knowing that everything’s going to be done in spec, and they’re not going to have rejections. That trust is the main thing, but the second thing is our efficiency. In these times, if you have a high price, you’re not going to get the contract. We’ve learned to produce high-quality parts at extremely competitive prices. That’s where we’ve excelled.” Along with trust and competitiveness, Gaines says having a talented helpmate, experienced employees and good equipment are extremely important. “Julia is a real estate broker and has extensive financial, accounting and HR management experience,” he says. “Having her to worry about those things freed my time to fully concentrate on engineering and manufacturing. “And, of course, having great employees is extremely important, too,” he adds. “Our employees are very astute. They have a lot of experience with turbine blades. They know what the end result must be, and they sound the alarm when they see things that don’t look right. If they see a problem, they don’t just keep running parts, because they know what I expect, and they know what the customer expects, too. That also makes my life much easier.” Gaines’ attitude toward equipment is like most shops striving to produce quality parts. “We buy the best, most reliable equipment we can afford,” he says. “We require fast service if we need it, maximum reliability and quality output, which is why we chose both Charmilles and Chevalier for our equipment team.”