In this episode of CW Trending, Matt Christensen of Oribi Composites discussed the origins of the Colorado-based thermoplastic composite manufacturer, his role in the company, current products and projects, and the role of thermoplastic composites in wheels. Real application potential.  

Hi everyone, and welcome to CW Trends. My name is Jeff Sloan. I am the editor-in-chief of CompositesWorld, and Matt Christensen is with me today. Matt is the vice president of sales for Oribi Composites. Hi Matt.

Hey, Jeff, thank you for inviting us.

Thank you for being here. So, before we start, I just want to congratulate you. In CompositeWorld's annual survey of composite manufacturers, Oribi is one of the top 10 stores. Congratulations to you and Oribi. You will receive attention and official designation soon. But I just want to congratulate you on this award.

Oh, great. Well, we cherish this opportunity very much. We are not only nominated, but also considered to be the leader of the country's top stores, which is certainly an honor. We are very excited.

We are also very excited. Since you are a top store, I think we should learn more about you. So first, help us understand what Oribi does. Okay, I want us to start from Oribi's position, right? Tell me a little bit about what Oribi does with composite materials?

Yes, you bet. Oribi was founded by Jack Wilfley in 2008 and we are located in Denver, Colorado. So it's just north of you. We have a 50,000 square foot facility just northeast of Denver. Our focus in Oribi is to unlock the potential of continuous fiber reinforced thermoplastics. So, you know, unlike many people in the industry, the composites industry has always focused on thermosets and then turned to thermoplastics. In the past 12 years, we have only focused on thermoplastics.

So what caused people's interest in thermoplastics from the beginning?

You know, this is a very good question. Again, our boss Jack Wilfley, he has a long history and family history in heavy industry, large metal processing, industrial pumps, if you will. I think he is just passionate about composite materials. But, you know, Jack’s enthusiasm, another enthusiasm is based on automation and robotics. So when you see the ability to combine automation and robotics with thermoplastics, you can get very fast cycle times, which creates a very interesting approach for Oribi. Through robotics and automated processes, we now look at what we call the rate target method. So how do we bridge the gap where customers want to manufacture composite materials, but they need very large output in many industries other than aerospace. So how do we help build a bridge across that gap, I think this is where Jack and the team think Oribi was in the best position for the day. In the past 12 years, we have continued to develop on this basis.

right. So, tell me something about the materials and fibers you use and the craftsmanship you use to make these parts,

you bet. I actually have a piece of raw material here, if you can see this, but most of the materials we use are pre-impregnated unidirectional continuous fiber reinforced thermoplastic tape. So, this is a form of tape. The raw material usually plays an important role at about 12 to 13 inches wide. What we did was use these tapes in the cell-oriented fibers to strategically design parts with certain properties. I mean we have a few parts to show. Therefore, we can design a part with fibers running in a strategic direction. In this case, it may be possible to make the part have torsional bending, but it may become hard and strong in the other direction. Therefore, by using these unit directions, we can let engineers know exactly what the parts should do without wasting materials or a lot of other resources. Therefore, we can understand very well what the parts need to do and create some very interesting works.

So what is your process of converting from tape format to finished product?

Yes, good question. So it is usually a four-step process, the beginning part, or use these tapes, and then make an automated tape lamp solution. Similarly, according to the part design, we can lay these tapes on an almost unlimited number of fiber angles, regardless of What kind of laminate structure is required for the part? Therefore, we once again use robotics to place these parts in an automated format. This is the part of the layup. The next stage is to merge, if you want, we will take the blank at this stage, and in most cases, you know, it is covering the rectangular square. We consolidate this blank to eliminate all voids and air gaps in the parts, which mainly makes subsequent processing easier. From there, we turn this blank into a two-piece psychological tool for matching in most cases. Therefore, we will take out the blank, raise its temperature before melting the label, and then put it in a matching metal tool. This process is a combination of stamping and thermoforming. So you will end up with a piece that looks a lot like this, you know the shape inside, this flash is here, and then we will take this part to our trimming station, that is, you know, multiple CNCs. We now actually have multiple waterjets-three-axis, six-axis and 12-axis waterjets-to machine parts into final shapes or final contours. The sticky time of the whole process varies with the layer structure and complexity, but you know, it may be one to three minutes. So, you know, again, for us, because we want to focus on the market, you know, starting from a continuum, between aerospace and high-volume automobiles, large batches are required, strict tolerances are required, we can Circulate and produce a very large number of products simply because our marking time depends on the speed at which we transfer heat to and from the part, you know, not the chemical reaction. So, you know, all these elements come together and again let us focus very much on thermoplastics.

Therefore, we will discuss applications later. But you mentioned manufacturing blanks. Is it the equipment you bought or the equipment developed in-house by Oribi?

Yes, so all our equipment is developed in-house and in-house. You know, there are various automated tape or lamp solutions on the market, you know, we have been able to capture all four steps of creating and try to merge them into one manufacturing unit. So yes, tape laboratory solutions are of course an indispensable part of it, because it requires a very high level, which I call performance, to ensure that these speeds remain high. But everything we try to do is built and designed in-house. Now we are even trying to merge these cells into one cell or merge these stages into one cell. So, you know, on a very high level, Jeff, you see the raw materials come in and the parts come out on the other side, which is a kind of utopia for us.

So you are talking about combining blank construction with molding, or you are just talking about integrating all processes into a new cell unit that uses raw materials and launches the finished product.

At this point, it is all based on honeycombs. So there are still four different parts to this process. But by making these processes very close to each other and allowing robots to move materials within cells, we can contain all these practices in a very small space. So now we are focusing on building more and more cells in our facilities instead of trying to break the process and build more in this direction.

Okay, there is also a resin system. Which one do you mainly use now?

Yes, very good question. So going back to the material, 90% or 99% of the fiber is glass fiber or carbon fiber. The resin system has a wide range for us. So we have done a lot of work from polypropylene, low-end tee, to peak package, low melting point white, what will I consider in the middle of the resin matrix. There are many high-tech VTs in the nylon series, pa 6, 66, 12. Then there are many parts and PPS.

You mentioned that the best choice for Oribi is somewhere between the volume you might find in a car, while mass and volume might be found in aerospace. So, please tell me some apps you are developing or apps you have experience with.

Yes, we are an organization covering a variety of different industries. Of course, I think that aerospace and high-volume automobiles are best known in the entire composites industry. But we spent a lot of time and a lot of work focusing on military law enforcement security, through the form of helmets and backpack frames, and other structural components in these spaces. Of course, you can use a wheelchair to imagine many medical and health services, as well as some other components of industrial energy and renewable energy such as medical, oil and gas, and many different parts. Of course, we spend a lot of time in sports and leisure. In Denver, we are involved in various components, from skateboards to snowboards to snowboard elements. And, of course, in the bicycle industry, we have found some very interesting components in the bicycle industry. They only need to be light, strong and able to be used in extreme environments. In recent years, I think that, naturally, we have been able to focus on areas that our competitors do not have at all. We are somewhere between aerospace and high-volume automobiles.

You and I discussed earlier that one of your recent applications is thermoplastic wheels. So please tell me a little bit. Because wheels are important in the composites industry, but mainly in terms of thermosetting properties, thermoplastic wheels are a bit different.

It is a bit different. I have some examples here. The key to the wheel industry is to obtain materials in the required space while reducing waste. Therefore, we have a process that we call the spinning process, and we can place the unidirectional thermoplastic material exactly where it is needed. So we have a multi-head machine that runs in a circular form and produces this wheeled structure. We have a very good history, the recent history of cycling, you know, mountain bikes, road bikes and so on. Now apply this foundation to the power sports industry. So we are studying ATV and UTV, golf carts, I think gradually, we will start to turn to cars, because we start to become smarter about what we can do from a design perspective. But, once again, the spinning process allows us to maintain the high output required by all these industries, while at the same time placing the material exactly where it is needed. So, you know, in preliminary tests, we have been able to reduce the load, if you want, our weight is half of the same size aluminum wheels. However, they are testing, you know, impact testing and other types of stress and rotation fatigue testing. We are actually better than aluminum, and in some cases even better than steel. So we are very optimistic about this technology and try to enter a market that is meaningful to us.

So tell me more about the spinning process. Is this just through placement automation, or what? Talk more.

Yes, I think the difference in the rotation process is the automatic tape laying solution in the circular format. So everything we see is achieved through several lenses, one of which is to reduce the amount of materials used or wasted, because this may lead to higher costs. Another area is carried out in such a way that we can maintain the overall manufacturing speed and thus keep the label time low throughout the process. Again, as long as there is a very tight tolerance, you know, wheels, especially in all areas, have very tight tolerances that they need to maintain. I think the rest of the rotation process is very similar. You know that when you complete the rest of the process, you are thinking about merging, shaping, and trimming. So the magic here is to quickly create circular structures with tight tolerances.

As you know, thermoplastics have now become an exciting and hot material in the composites industry. Obviously, they have been around for a long time. But in the past 10 years, I have received more attention and growth. Of course, it sounds like Oribi is taking advantage of this. What do you think about the future of thermoplastics in the field of composites? Obviously, you see opportunities and wheels, which is really interesting. But I want to know, other than that, what are your prospects for the growth of thermoplastics? How do you see its expansion opportunities?

Well, you know, naturally, I am very optimistic about it, because that is what we really focus on. But, you know, other than that, I think there is something interesting in this industry now, you know, five or six years, listen to, learn more about the origin of thermoplastics. This is a broad and comprehensive statement, but I think thermoplastics come from, you know, a fix for bad design, you know, a bit like the selective enhancement in bad design of ordinary plastic. Therefore, add some one-way thermoplastics to the specific design to repair it, transfer it from that space to the beginning and design and design the parts purposefully, using this material from the beginning. By doing this, you can create parts that are usually lighter. They are thinner than you might have seen in the past. In my opinion, from sports and entertainment all the way to the military, all industries want to make things lighter, tougher and stronger. So how do we start to use thermoplastics to meet customer needs. Me, for me, I think this is the natural way we adopt these elements. Then, of course, produce the very large volumes required by various industries.

Tell me something about reconstruction. I guess that Oribi has received investment from the reconstruction—during the pandemic or before—but there is a return component in the reconstruction. Explain to us what this relationship is and what reconstruction is.

Yes, so manufacturing is our parent company, in Oribi. A few years ago we made some investments, mainly to expand our manufacturing. I think this is a positive change. A more positive change is when the leaders of our retail manufacturing team begin to consider, or in fact, their ultimate desire here is to bring manufacturing back to the United States, similar to the return of onshore manufacturing. . The point is, in terms of time, it's a bit accidental. We encountered COVID there. For various reasons, we encountered large-scale supply chain problems in all industries. But this team, you know, they are industry giants, and they have been around for a long time. Their focus and goal is to bring manufacturing back to the United States. It ranges from engineering design and development to product integration, component manufacturing, full assembly, and full contract manufacturing, all the way to picking, pulling and sending to distribution. Therefore, there is a complete supply chain opportunity line, even a few years ago, many industries in the United States did not have the ability to do this. Rebuilding manufacturing is changing the game. Oribi was one of the first pillars of the Rebuild Manufacturing Group and is now part of what we call Advanced Materials Group. Under the leadership of Steve Meade, we now have Oribi, which specializes in thermoplastics. We have a composite resource located in Charlotte, North Carolina/Charlotte, South Carolina. We are very focused on heat collection, which is great and very complementary to our work, as well as cutting dynamics in Cleveland. So, it's a bit of heat setting, but the tolerance is very small, the metal precision is high, metal processing, titanium and so on. Recently, a company called Dapper Engineering is located in New Hampshire, where we introduced more engineering resources to supplement everything we do in each industry or each independent business. So you know, we have been making acquisitions for the past seven months. All of this is beginning to merge and blend together very well, and we see that the projects of large companies have nothing to do with a type of composite manufacturing. We are basically looking for a real customer solution, we will figure out what materials and processes are needed, and finally deliver the solution, rather than our own method is very short-sighted. Therefore, despite the short period of time, it has been very successful and popular in the market.

It sounds like there will be an integrated approach, because you have these different companies in Rebuild, providing expertise in different fields, and then incoming customers will be able to use resources according to their needs and their needs. The material requirements are, and the design Require.

Yes, exactly. I mean, if you think about it, you know, the one-stop shops for design, engineering, and manufacturing are all located here in the United States, and there is a very obvious advantage there. Your supply chain will not be hindered by months of transportation or other obstacles-time zones are a good example-going overseas in a variety of different ways. Therefore, it is important to have customer support, as well as a commitment to creating meaningful work and manufacturing bases in the United States. We are very optimistic about establishing this specific type of partnership with customers here.

Well, it sounds like there is more.

there are more. There are always more things happening, and there has never been a dull moment.

So how many employees does Oribi currently have?

I think specific to Oribi, we are hovering between 40 and 50, depending on flex and those types of things. We do have some seasonality, but fortunately, the seasonality has flattened out a bit recently. So, we have about 40 to 50 employees in total. Interestingly, most of them are in engineering and product development. When you consider how we use robotic technology so extensively, we did not place this extremely heavy operator on the floor, we actually only need a few operators per unit, which can produce a large number of parts. This is a bit different from what others might consider in classic manufacturing.

OK. So the last question. How is the pandemic in Oribi? What will happen next year or so? what do you think? How optimistic or pessimistic are you?

So in the end, we are optimistic, you know, the pandemic is a challenge for everyone. And, for all kinds of people in our industry, this is really a struggle. Even from the pandemic to the shutdown in Texas last year, it had a ripple effect, and I think it made a lot of people Surprised. Fortunately for us, because we are ready to take full advantage of automation, the impact is minimal. We have excellent employees who have overcome all the situations that bother us and can truly support our customer base to keep growing. Likewise, when you look at the renewable energy, military, and law enforcement markets, the gap that we cannot fill in supply is unacceptable, and we must keep progress. Therefore, our raw material suppliers are able to keep us moving forward throughout the pandemic. For us, as we move forward, we continue to develop internally, even at Oribi. We have hired some very good business development and customer management staff, where we will research various new markets. Of course, the wheel is a kind of market communication type product, but we are studying a lot of drones and drone-type solutions, and do more in the field of sports and entertainment. How do we get creative there? Then, law enforcement agencies and the military always seem to have the opportunity to support the increasing needs of our people. So, we are considering yes, we think it is very positive for the future.

right. Well, I want to thank you again for joining my CW Trending. Congratulations again to the CW top store. Specify.

Well, that's great. Well, thank you for inviting me, Jeff. For this, I really appreciate it. Thank you again for your appointment. We look forward to putting it in the office.

OK. We hope to see you soon.

sounds good. We will see you soon. goodbye.

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