"Four years ago the quantity demands got insane. I came to the conclusion that we just had to find some other way, because the scrap rate was just going crazy," Lyons said. "If the volumes had stayed rational, we probably could have kept up with press brakes and the existing setup. But when you go from a demand of 120 a month to 12,000 a week, that's a significant increase. "I'd seen folders at IMTS and FABTECH®, but I'd never really thought much about them." Lyons said he explored the use of folding technology by sending material to the folding equipment manufacturers and watching them run it on their machines. "I thought, 'This is good, this is smart.' "We got one folder in and said, 'Look how great this is. Let's get another one.' "Every time we bought one, we could see a significant increase in our production and our quality," Lyons said. The company now has 13 RAS Systems folding machines. | 