Protomet

Protomet Corporation is located in Oak Ridge, TN. They specialize in precision manufacturing of parts. Jeff Bohanan, the President of Protomet, was kind enough to speak with us about his start and success in the industry.

Early in his career, he and a partner left their corporate jobs and to start an engineering consulting business. After working in consulting for a while, their plan was to begin work in manufacturing. They wrote a business plan, as Jeff is a firm believer in written goals. He says that he typically rewrites his goals once a month, and that it's nice to see them progress over the years.

Protomet began work in manufacturing making a part for Mercedes. Mercedes needed a part that no one made, and they wanted one million of them made for $4 each. Protomet analyzed the part and bid to make the part with a combination of stamping and machining. They recognized the magnitude of this opportunity, but it was very intimidating. Mercedes accepted their bid to make the part, and Protomet ordered a $100,000 machine to begin the process. The day before the machine arrived, Mercedes told them that they would no longer require their services. Howwever, Jeff continued communication with them, and they agreed to let Protomet make the first 50,000 of 1 million parts. They soon received news that Mercedes wanted them to make all million parts.

They originally worked on making military parts, but the business was not sufficiently consistent. There were few parts, they were difficult to make, and they were few and far between. Protomet learned that high tech is not necessarily the key to high profit, but it may be how you get your foot in the door.

They began making lots of marine and aerospace parts. Now they work mostly with homeland security and wake board/boat manufacturing.

Many times, they create a single part out of a block of material. This may not be the cheapest method of making a part in the long run, but it does allow the client to make changes to the part and create new features. As the engineers change designs, Protomet can change the manufacturing to fit the part. Their reasoning behind this method was that they wanted to use the "cure" approach rather than the "band-aid" approach.

The recession was tough on them, but they are coming out of it slowly but surely.

Currently they have 18 CNC machines. One employee is typically in charge of 3-5 machines at a time; the competition in manufacturing business is tough and it is necessary to be very efficient.

They customized their extruded aluminum to save money. This seems counter-intuitive, but the distributers mark up the material price on standard sized parts, but the the mill can give cheaper parts for customized dies.

Jeff spends approximately 65 hours a week working at Protomet. His desire is to build a company that doesn't need him to continue. He advises to work ON your business, not just IN it. You must teach the process and not just do it yourself.

Some quotes Jeff likes are the following:

"We dent to overestimate what can be accomplished in one year. We tend to underestimate what can be accomplished in five years."

" The formula for innovation is a step function...output is not proportional to the input...though steady input is required to get to the next step."

"People are your biggest challenge [not technology]. You have to have integrity. You have to be honest."

I was pleased to meet Jeff on Monday night. He really cared for his business and cared about us coming there. I wish him the best.