September 30, 2025 Growing Manufacturing 2.0

Volume 28 | Issue 3

Wisconsin-based Urban Manufacturing designs and produces custom engineered and machined components.

Click here to read the complete illustrated article or continue below to read the text article.

By David Soyka, Senior Editor, Industry Today

Back in 1978 Alex Urbanchek bought a used manual machine tool to perform part-time work machining component prototypes in his garage; in a few years, he was operating a full-time business and became a GE certified supplier. Over four decades Urban Manufacturing grew into a more than $45 million enterprise producing custom parts for major manufacturers such as GE, Harley-Davidson, Eaton, and Smith’s Medical. In addition, Urban Manufacturing provides high level mechanical assembly, finishing and delivery services of delicate parts and sub-assemblies.

A lot has happened over these years in terms of technologies, customers, and general business operating conditions. As successful as Urban Manufacturing has been since its inception, 21st century business demands required a reassessment of how it operates and responds to customer needs for specialty machined products that achieve close tolerances using the most demanding materials.

Which is why in 2022 when Alex retired and his son Tom took over the reins, the company embarked on what it termed its Urban 2.0 Stratagem to improve operational efficiencies and customer relationships and more effectively deploy personnel resources, new equipment, and automation.

Underlying the Urban 2.0 Stratagem was upgrading to more modern ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) systems that integrate with manufacturing systems and use real-time monitoring to evaluate process flows. “Epicor is a great system for mid-sized businesses such as Urban Manufacturing,” comments Joel Anders, Supply Chain Manager. “Just one example of what we’re now able to do more efficiently is parts tracking. Customers want to know if their part is going to be arriving on time. Under the old system, there was a kind of makeshift numbering system where you had to go through a lot of workarounds to try to figure out where a component actually was in the production process. That’s obviously time-consuming for us, and frustrating to customers when they aren’t getting immediate updates.”

Anders points out that, under the new system everyone is trained and uses the shop management system that generates real-time data. I can know exactly the status of my jobs and ensure they are on track. And if any aren’t on track, I can quickly identify the roadblocks and work to get them resolved. The technology allows us to track, measure, and monitor our manufacturing and business processes with greater visibility all the way from sales and purchase orders to the shop floor to the customer.”

Automation of these processes helps Urban Manufacturing reduce waste and achieve faster lead times, thereby increasing customer satisfaction and improving cost efficiencies. This is further improved with the use of emerging artificial intelligence technologies. “We used to generate a lot of paper and a lot of time managing all that paper,” Anders says. “AI has reduced all that, doing all the tracking of sales orders and other support functions that we were doing manually. Instead of time spent doing paperwork, we have more time to spend with customers.”

Another example of AI application with Internet of Things (IoT) integration with its equipment to enable predicated maintenance to reduce downtime and process optimization to improve throughput. “These are Industry 4.0 advancements that are truly revolutionizing manufacturing,” Anders says. “They result in improved productivity, improved product quality, and helps us to maintain margins as the business faces inflationary pressures.”

Process Improvements

Urban Manufacturing’s ERP and other integrated business systems assure tight control over the full range of sales and manufacturing processes. Key benefits include:

• Accurate rate estimating and effective cost tracking provide customer confidence in pricing
• More efficient order entry and tracking
• Job routing helps plan effective information and material flow
• Scheduling and shop loading to keep delivery promises
• Shop floor control that supplies real-time production data collection
• Quality assurance module providing integrated reports and traceability
• Shipping reports ensure accurate fulfillment.

“We’re making capital investments to replace time-consuming manual processes and old-school technologies,” Anders. “This allows us to work better with our core customers and suppliers and simultaneously bring on new customers and capabilities to introduce new products.”

An equally important technology is the equipment used to make custom engineered and machined components. Urban Manufacturing maintains over 110 CNC (Computer Numerical Control) machines as well as state-of-the-art precision measuring equipment capable of measuring at a sub-micron level including five CMMs (Coordinate Measuring Machines), three vision systems, and an XRF for verification of raw materials.

This equipment is housed in a 100,000 square foot facility in Pewaukee, WI west of Milwaukee. Urban Manufacturing is ISO 9001: 2015 certified. Also as part of its Urban 2.0 Stratagem, the company operates an 85,000 square foot facility in nearby Brookfield under subsidiary Oliver Manufacturing to deliver advanced CNC milling, Swiss screw machining and a dedicated tool and die work to as a scalable, high-performance partner for industrial OEMs.

Skilled Operators

Urban Manufacturing employs about 160, including 20+ journeyman machinists and two apprenticeships; 80% of journeymen machinists trained in the apprentice program stay with the company.

“We have a diverse workforce with a very low attrition rate,” Anders says. “Most of our employees have been with us over ten years, and more than 30 employees have been with us for more than 20 years. Urban Manufacturing has never laid anyone off in its history, which says a lot about our commitment to training and retaining our people. We’re a family-owned business that treats its employees like family.”

The company’s reputation for manufacturing and engineering know-how helps maintain its leading position as a supplier of choice regardless of changing economic conditions. “If there’s a price increase of maybe 5%, the OEMs aren’t going to go out looking for new suppliers. If it is 20 or 30%, then they are going to look at offshore alternatives. So far, even with the tariffs, we haven’t experienced a lot of pricing pressure, so it’s not much of an issue for us.”

High Tolerance Performance

Most importantly, Anders points out that, “We’re a Tier 1 OEM supplier with vendor numbers that in many cases go back 40 years,” Anders says. “The future of modern manufacturing involves high tolerance machining with precise measurements to ensure high accuracy and quality that satisfied intricate designs and performance standards.”

He adds, “Urban Manufacturing isn’t just some contract machine shop, we employ proprietary intellectual property combined with experienced machinists using the most advanced tools to produce complex parts, often using exotic materials. That’s a significant competitive advantage that becomes more so as we continue to employ new technologies that make us more efficient, more customer responsive, and more capable to provide critical parts to a range of industrial partners.”

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