Published 12/1/2016

Top Shops Profile: Donson Machine

Donson Machine was 2016's Top Shops Honors Program winner in the category of machining technology.

Top Shops

Editor-in-Chief, Production Machining magazine

Joe and Jim Bettinardi, president and CEO (respectively), of Donson Machine.

Donson Machine’s operators and quality inspectors perform in-process inspection and audits to ensure consistent, high part quality. The shop commonly uses statistical process control (SPC) to ensure quality for both prototyping work and production runs.

Registered to ISO 9001:2008 and ISO 13485:2003 standards, Donson Machine has invested more than $1 million in inspection gages, CMMs, vision systems and related equipment and software in its newly expanded, environmentally controlled metrology department. These tools enable the shop to use customer CAD models to generate inspection routines and create detailed, highly accurate part documentation.

The shop has 60 machines, including VMCs, HMCs, and specialty and prototype milling machines. Some of its machining centers offer fourth- and fifth-axis capabilities, spindle speeds as high as 14,000 rpm and high-pressure coolant. Donson Machine uses pallet changers, tombstones and other quick-change fixtures and tooling to reduce setup and production cycle time and improve machine/operator utilization.

Company Description

Donson Machine is 2016’s Top Shops Honors Program winner in the machining technology category. The sophistication of equipment the shop has is very high as is the range of machining platforms it has in-house compared to other shops, including VMCs, HMCs, five-axis mills, turn-mill lathes, Swiss-types and wire EDM. It also continually reinvests in new capital equipment and shopfloor technology.

Led by brothers Joe and Jim Bettinardi, president and CEO, respectively, the 140-person shop has seven machining areas and 70,000 square feet of manufacturing space. It also actively collaborates with customers to improve part performance, manufacturability and cost. Complementing its machining rocesses is a range of finishing, cleaning, passivation and packaging capabilities. These include tumble and manual deburr; bead/abrasive blasting; bore finishing and specialty surface conditioning; nitric and citric passivation; ultrasonic cleaning; laser and epoxy-ink marking; surface decontamination; and part protective packaging and bar-code labeling.