Employer Spotlight: ARCH Cutting Tools

Flushing’s ARCH Cutting Tools is an American manufacturer of cutting tools made for everything from medical microtools to aviation landing gear. The company has one of the largest research teams in the nation, with several manufacturing locations across the United States. Their ability to provide standardized and custom tools to fit any solution have made them invaluable in their industry.

“We are a manufacturer of cutting tools that the CNC machine shop puts into their machines and creates,” says Dennis Irwin, general manager. “We make round and square tooling, special custom tooling for anything from high-production machines to low-volume products.”

In a crowded market, one of the things that sets Arch Cutting Tools apart from its competition is its ability to take on a project and complete it with a shorter turnaround time than other companies.

“We’re in a saturated market,” Irwin says. “Some of the big players are 20-30 weeks to get tooling, and we can make it in eight weeks. Our competitive advantage is price and delivery time because we’re smaller.” That nimbleness and their ability to keep their prices low gives them their edge.

With so many different projects, it takes a dedicated and reliable staff to see that jobs are seen through until the end. In employees they look for people who are eager to learn, with a mechanical background, and ideally with three years of experience. To set themselves apart, applicants will want to have some schooling beyond high school, like a training or trade program. ARCH Cutting Tools employs 90 people with different skill sets and jobs.

“Businesses come to a company like us because we have engineering, we have programming here on site, and we can respond quickly to them and provide concepts and different solutions,” Irwin says.

Arch Cutting Tools handles CNC work, OD (outside diameter) grinding, ID (inner diameter) grinding, deep hole drilling, as well as other positions, the smaller size of the business allows them to react to market needs more quickly and makes it easier for them to adopt and implement the latest technologies.

Other advantages to working for ARCH Cutting Tools include yearly appreciation picnics and occasional celebrations upon reaching monthly goals, and there are plans for a family picnic in the future. Their benefits package is very competitive. ARCH Cutting Tools understands the importance of its workers and invests in them to help them grow their skills and knowledge.

“Since I’ve been here, we’ve instituted what I call ARCH University. So, every month, we bring in an outside company and have guest speakers who teach about new technologies,” says Irwin. “We have someone who’s well-versed in cutting tools, and she’ll do everything from nomenclature about cutting tools to what types of tools they should use for the type of material they’re machining. We do training programs online or through customers.”

With a strong business model, skilled employees, and the ability to adapt to meet the marketplace where it is, ARCH Cutting Tools is positioned to be successful for many years to come.