Happy New Year

Best wishes to all our loyal newsletter readers for a prosperous 2012.  Things are well at CAR.  As you will see in this edition we have some exciting new updates to share.  Reflecting on 2011 we are very pleased with the direction the company is headed.  We finished 2011 with our 2^nd best year ever sales wise, 2007 is still the year to beat.  Both our CNC machining and stampings business performed above expectations, and we have a nice backlog to start 2012.

We are always tour ready and are proud of our people and shop.  If you have not been to CAR in awhile, or ever please consider a visit to Rochester, NY.  All visits should be coordinated through Yvette Pagano.  Hope to see all our valuable customers and vendors in 2012!

CAR Aces ISO 9001:2008 Audit

This past Oct. CAR once again went for its ISO 9001:2008 certification.  We are pleased to report that we passed the audit with no major or minor non-conformances.  CAR first became ISO back in 2006 so this marked our 5^th audit.  This audit was a one-day maintenance audit, where only certain departments were randomly audited.  Our auditor chose to do a deep dive into our stampings department.  Several staff members were interviewed and all performed extremely well.

2012 is the 3 full day complete re-certification audit where the entire shop will be reviewed…. we are ready for it!  ISO is a group effort but CAR would like to extend special thanks to our ISO coordinators, Carrie Hause and Brandon Tolnay.  If you require a copy of our ISO certificate it is located on the home page of our website.

Carrie and Brandon on their Q1 internal audit with machinist Mike Mendolera

CAR Renews ITAR Certification

Our ITAR certification it set to expire Jan. 31^st 2012 and CAR has once again renewed.  We are ITAR registered for another year, through Jan. 31^st 2013.  Being an ITAR shop means you are authorized to view prints and machine parts related to the US government, specifically areas of defense or special technology.  If you have prints in which ITAR is a requirement, look no further than your friends at CAR Engineering.

CAR Makes Huge Investment In Quality Control Lab

One of our core values at CAR is quality.  We have two highly skilled full time quality people, Dave Vincent, who has been with CAR for our entire 25 years and Brandon Tolnay who has apprenticed under Dave for over 3 years.  These two do a great job with checking parts and implementing quality processes and controls.  Our outstanding quality record reflects this.

However, CAR continues to manufacture more and more complex parts and we felt our technology needed an upgrade.  So the last quarter of 2011 we made the following enhancements:

• CAR purchased a new Browne and Sharp electronic height gauge.  That makes 2 electronic height gauges for the shop.  The existing height gauge has been relocated into the CNC production area so machinists have to do less walking to perform their in-process checks.

• Along with our new height gauge we have a new 8x4 surface plate

• We purchased a new set of “master” gauge pins.  These are under lock and key and available for the QC staff only

• The room had some cosmetic enhancements such as new cabinets and waxed flooring

• The most significant news is our new OGP Smart Scope.  This is a state of the art vision CMM with non-contact and touch probe capabilities.  It is fully programmable and since we do quite a bit of repeat work, we expect this to reduce 1^st article approval time significantly.  For our more technical newsletter readers the specs on the machine are:
  
  • XYZ Stage Travels:
    500 x 450 x 200 mm
    500 x 610 x 200 mm
    500 x 450 x 300 mm
    500 x 610 x 300 mm
    500 x 450 x 400 mm
    500 x 610 x 400 mm
  • Area Accuracy: (2.5 + 5L/1000) µm
  • Z Accuracy: up to (2.0 + 8L/1000) µm

QC veteran Dave Vincent gets familiar with the new smart scope

Welcome To the World Alayna Cynthia Smith

What?  Another girl?  It’s true.  CNC mill employee Austin Smith welcomed daughter Alayna Cynthia Smith on Oct. 25^th, 2011.  Alayna weighted 7lbs 10 oz and was 20 inches long.  She was delivered at Thompson Hospital in Canandaigua, NY.  This is Austin’s 1^st child.  Best wishes Austin!

New dad Austin with his baby girl Alayna

Late breaking news…Jolene Katherine Rogers is Here Too

Not to be left out of the Q1 newsletter Jolene Katherine Rogers made her appearance on Jan. 17^th 2012 at 11:30 pm.  Loyal newsletter readers know that this makes 6 baby girls born to CAR Engineering employees with baby boys still at zero.

Jolene was born at Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester, NY.  She weighed 8 lbs 1oz and measured 19.5 inches long.  This makes the 5^th grandchild for CEO Charlie Rogers and a new niece for President Yvette Pagano.  Romance first bloomed for parents Al and Lauren Rogers when Lauren accepted an administrative position at CAR Engineering in late 2005.  Al was quick to scoop Lauren up and the two were married in Dec. 2006.  Lauren no longer works at CAR, but supports Al with his outside sales and beer business (Rogers Beer) from their home office in Penfield.  This is the couple’s first child.  Warmest wishes to the new family!

Proud parents Al and Lauren with baby Jolene