Compatible Manufacturing masters design challenges

Compatible Manufacturing owner Tim Miller has a good idea why a Montana manufacturing group has chosen to tour his firm on Tuesday as part of the Montana Chamber of Commerce annual meeting.

“I make the coolest stuff in the state,” he said.

Miller’s business, located on U.S. 2 north of Kalispell, does indeed make some “cool” stuff. In his 6,000-square-foot facility, the staff uses precision computer technology to forge things such as missile parts for one of its best customers, Raytheon, helicopter mounts for motion-picture cameras and complex rodent cages for the International Space Station.

The manufacturing floor is complemented by a climate-controlled inspection room housing gauges and precision-measuring equipment for each design. A well-organized tool room provides hundreds of intricate pieces to create a custom fit for each job.

Compatible Manufacturing is an AS9100 certified shop, which means that it can fill the requirements of a widely adopted and standardized quality management system for the aerospace industry.

With a current staff of nine (with two new employees starting on Monday), Compatible Manufacturing makes complicated machine prototypes and components for the defense and aerospace industries and more. Some of the company’s biggest customers are Raytheon, NASA and Yaskawa robotics in Chicago. Compatible is one of only 80 companies on Raytheon’s preferred suppliers list.

Some jobs are very complicated, requiring eight to 12 weeks from conception to finished product, while jobs of moderate complexity can be completed in a three- to four-week time span.

Variety is the key to a healthy business, Miller said.

“Every job I do can’t be one of those that takes 80 hours just to get it to the machine,” he said.

The finished pieces are not just a product of technology, but also of Miller’s imagination and his ability to visualize a complex three-dimensional design from something drawn on a piece of paper.

“I make stuff out of metal,” Miller said. “You can give me any designs and I make them.”

Most of what Compatible creates is whittled by a computer numerical controlled milling machine out of a block of solid material, such as titanium or aluminum.

“I’ll see a 3-D image from a drawing, and then I analyze and utilize the manufacturing process to create a program to cut the part,” Miller said.

Miller’s grandfather was a machinist and Miller grew up watching him at work. He can trace his love of mechanical work and his persistence to his grandfather.

“I never saw my grandfather give up on anything,” he said. “Someone would buy a new washing machine and put their old one out on the street, and he’d fix it and put it back out with a for-sale sign.”

Miller went to a vocational high school in New York City where he learned the fundamentals of the machining craft, then moved to California to work in machine shops in Silicon Valley.

He started Compatible Manufacturing in California in 1989 and opened the Flathead Valley site in 2000. He moved his family to Montana in large part to ensure that his children received the kind of education he thought was not available to them in California’s public schools.

For many years Miller operated at sites both in California and Montana. He sold the California plant — a 10,000-square-foot facility with 20 employees — in October 2011. He used to do a lot of work for Hollywood through the California business, and is especially known for making camera bodies for Panavision technology.

The pressure of holding down two plants became too much, Miller said — “I was killing myself going back and forth.”

He also wanted to focus on securing more aerospace and Department of Defense work and is currently working toward establishing relationships with Boeing and Lockheed Martin. Defense work can’t be shipped out of the country — and machinists can’t always compete with Chinese manufacturers for other work, he said. Plus it provides long-term contracts, allowing for reliable growth for his company, Miller said.

When Miller sold off his California business to concentrate on his Montana site he was a one-man shop. In less than two years he has grown to nearly a dozen employees and often runs two shifts. He can see himself eventually having to hire more people to flesh out the second shift, he said.

Miller is well known in the machining world and hasn’t had to spend too much time seeking contracts, though one of his new hires is going to manage the marketing end of the business.

“I don’t have the time to go out and look,” Miller said. “Most of the jobs here require my attention.”

Miller also knows that with his ability to conceptualize complex projects from start to finish, he has an edge that will always bring work his way.

“A lot of the things I make, other people say, ‘I don’t want to make them,’” he said.