SWIFA Convention April 2010

April 12, 2010 at 1:11 am  |   News, Travel,

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In April, Carlson Design attended the 2010 Southwest Industrial Fabrics Association (SWIFA) Trade show – we had a blast!

Booth Setup for SWIFA 201, Little Rock AR

Friday morning we gave a presentation on Cutting Technology with Ryan Chism from The Chism Company (see video).  Ryan and Tom explain the advantages of designing and cutting with CAD/T-Bar Digitizer and an Automated Cutter.  You can watch the video online – but the highlights were:

  1. Draw as easily (or easier) on the computer than by hand.
  2. Make cutting entry level – have your best people work on where needed, not on cutting.
  3. Reduce labor – Chism went from 7 people in the cut shop to 3, and grew their production.  Push the bottle necks down the line.

Best Q&A comment after came from Dan at Oklahoma Custom Canvas in response to ROI.  They’ve had their cutter for 3 years and he explained, “Over the last 3 years, I have taken on half a million dollars worth of jobs and paid for the cutter 3 times over — I would have had to turn down that business if I didn’t already have the cutter setup and installed.”

For Market Day on Saturday we brought everything needed to demonstrate a complete Awning/Canvas “system”.  This included our PT-72 plotter/cutter, our steel frame vacuum table, a computer, and T-bar digitizer.  Using the T-bar, anyone can digitize old and new awning patterns and then quickly have the plotter/cutter plot seam lines and cut perfect patterns.  Jobs are now stored digitally – making for an easy recover in 3-5 years.

The Captial Hotel in Little Rock was wonderful a wonderful spot –  Thanks to everyone at SWIFA for picking a great location and putting on a great show.  We can’t wait for Phoenix 2011.

If you are a fabricator in the Midwest, we highly recommend you check out this organization.