Fotofab President Charles Cohen joined the Manufacturing Tomorrow podcast to discuss Fotofab’s evolution as a specialty manufacturer and its role as the first company acquired by TPC back in 1997. With host Kathryn Kelley, the discussion covered photochemical machining, recent innovations driving lighter and more precise components, workforce development and how TPC’s integrated model enables Fotofab to better serve customers across the aerospace, defense, medical and electronics industries.
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Curious about the conversation? Here’s a transcript of the episode:
Host: Kathryn Kelley
Hello, there. You’re listening to Manufacturing Tomorrow. Brought to you by the Ohio Manufacturing Institute at The Ohio State University, where we discuss the latest innovations, challenges and advancements shaping the world of manufacturing. I’m Kathryn Kelley, your host. Today, we are excited to speak with Charles Cohen, president of Fotofab, a Chicago based specialty manufacturer and the first company acquired by The Partner Companies. Fotofab founded in 1967 is known for photochemical machining and making high precision metal parts. The company supports key industries like aerospace, defense, medical devices and electronics.
Charles joined Fotofab in 2000 as chief financial officer and became president in 2010. He has led modernization efforts, expanded the customer base and strengthened Fotofab’s role within TPC’s integrated group of specialty manufacturers. Under his leadership, Fotofab continues to push innovation and photochemical etching to meet emerging market needs for lighter, thinner and finely detailed components with fast turnaround.
Recently, Charles joined the Board of Directors for the Photochemical Machining Institute. In this role, he works to promote technical exchange, education and benchmarking within the photochemical machining community. Charles, welcome to the podcast.
Charles Cohen
Thank you for having me. Wonderful introduction.
Host: Kathryn Kelley
You’ve been in leadership positions at Fotofab for 25 years. What first drew you to the company and to this industry?
Charles Cohen
Well, first, I enjoy manufacturing. I enjoy helping customers solve problems in more of a mechanical approach. So just the industry, when I learned about the industry itself, it was exciting. Niche manufacturing that provides great solutions for difficult problems. A lot of our components that we make are very simple, but they go into incredible products that are up in space, in medical devices, defense, general and industrial electronics. So, just a very neat product that [I’m] very proud of being associated with.
Host: Kathryn Kelley
For listeners who may be unfamiliar, how would you describe Fotofab’s core capabilities and the kind of components you make?
Charles Cohen
Well, it’s a niche manufacturing process that most engineers and certainly buyers aren’t familiar with. So, we’re making a metal component, very thin, very precise that fits into, as I explained, aerospace and maybe a plane, maybe a satellite. Defense components, medical devices, such as dialysis machines, MRI machines. And what we’re doing is we’re making these precise components that allows these machines to work properly and solving problems for customers that enables their products to work better.
Host: Kathryn Kelley
As I mentioned in the intro, Fotofab was the first company acquired by The Partner Companies. Can you talk about how that relationship has evolved and what makes it work?
Charles Cohen
Great question. The interesting thing is that Fotofab being the first company was kind of a standalone so we were a little bit of an island, working by ourselves, competing against the outside world, whether it’s other chemical etchers, other manufacturing processes. As we’ve added additional companies, we’ve learned from that, we’ve been able to expand our products. For an example, Fotofab specializes in stainless steel, brass, beryllium, copper and a couple other metals. As we acquired more companies in the photochemical etching world, we’ve been able to expand our product to titanium, molybdenum, tungsten. So, we’ve been able to offer a greater breadth of products to our customer, and as we’ve expanded even further, we’re now able to offer larger metal. We CNC, we can powder coat, we can assemble, we can do plastic injection molding. So, what’s great is that when we’re talking to our customers, we can offer them a whole bunch more to solve their problems. There’s at the manufacturing side, but also, as we’ve grown our internal base as well. So we’ve been growing our finance team, our HR teams. We’re being a better employer. We’re able to treat our employees better because we have a depth of knowledge behind us. We’re able to study the market better so we can help our customers better, innovate better. There’s money behind us, so we can open up new plants, buy machinery. So, it’s just opened up a whole new world as the TPC family has grown.
Host: Kathryn Kelley
It sounds like with growth has come innovation. So, what recent innovations have proved important to your customers?
Charles Cohen
Sure, in the chemical etching world, we were in the first to purchase a what we call direct imaging machine. The direct imaging machine allows us to produce parts quicker. We’re eliminating one or two steps in our manufacturing process. In photochemical etching, there are basically eight to ten steps that have to happen no matter what. And with a direct imaging approach, we’re removing some of the photography portion of the industry at the front end. So we’re imaging directly onto the panel, rather than making a mask or a photo tool, as some people call it. So, it enables us to be quicker, number one, and produce better parts, better aligned top to bottom, because we’re etching from the top and the bottom. So, the direct imaging allows us to create a more direct, a finer hole that has straighter side walls. So, that’s one of the great innovations.
Another innovation is we’ve been combining other additional services to chemical etching, such as diffusion bonding. And what that is allowing us to do is put multiple layers together. I call it wormholes. By putting all these multiple layers together and having different engineering and designs on each layer, you can have wormholes between those different layers, and you can have you know, we’ve made a part of 135 layers of copper all bonded together so it can be pretty thick. And this has been a great innovation, especially in the world we live in right now, where heat exchange is critical. Medical devices, moving gasses, moving air. And chemical etching and diffusing bonding has been a great innovation that has opened up a lot of new opportunities for us and allowed our customers to create new products.
Host: Kathryn Kelley
And it sounds like you’re staying way ahead of customer demands for lighter, smaller, more precise components with these innovations.
Charles Cohen
Yeah, the key is talking to our customers. We’re just not here to say, to make a part. Customer gives us a print says, make this. We enjoy doing that, don’t get me wrong. But we also enjoy talking to our customer, giving suggestions on how to manufacture the part better. This part is, this one diffusion part that we’re making right now, the customer was brazing the parts together, and they had a whole bunch of leakage. So understanding what the part does, and talking with a customer, we suggested the diffusion bonding, and this has been a game changer for them. They opened up a whole new product line, just because this innovation. And again, talking with a customer, understanding their needs is what we enjoy doing to help them improve their lives.
Host: Kathryn Kelley
Where are you seeing the biggest growth opportunities for photochemical machining, beyond that example, on just in terms of markets in general, which ones are the most innovative right now?
Charles Cohen
Yeah, we’re seeing that across multiple industries. A lot is in the news, defense industry. So, we’re seeing a lot of growth in autonomous. Whether it’s underwater, air or on land. We’re seeing a whole bunch of growth in that, and that also ties into more of personal health because we’re seeing also wearables, and the wearables is also working over to the defense industry. So, we’re seeing a lot of opportunities for manufacturing, making wearables in the defense and also in the general populace. And those parts can be very small, so they’re ideal for chemical etching. We’re also seeing medical as we’re having an aging population, the devices are getting more intricate, and again, going back to that wearable. So, the industry is, if you learn about a disease and an issue with an individual quicker, there’s going to be a better outcome. So, a lot of devices are related to that of figuring out what’s wrong with a patient, whether it’s in the office or even at home. So those are some of the big areas that we’re seeing growth in.
Host: Kathryn Kelley
And with growth comes workforce and, you know, I have to ask a workforce question, or a number of questions, because, you know, I am at a higher education institution. Many specialty manufacturers are facing workforce pressures. Needless to say, I’ve seen, I’m sure you’ve seen, the National Association of Manufacturers, the gap in the skilled workers that manufacturers are going to need. So, what kind of skills are most important in your workforce?
Charles Cohen
Well, that’s an interesting question, because our industry being a niche, people aren’t going to school and learning about photochemical etching. Engineers aren’t taught about it, and so they don’t know about it. So, a lot of our challenges is to bring people who want to learn, who are open to learning, and working with them to advance our knowledge in chemical etching.
So, it’s certainly a challenge. We’d like to bring younger people in to learn the industry. Hope they stick around for a while, and we have a couple different approaches in going about that. Number one, as you mentioned, I’m on the PCMI, Photochemical Machining Institute, on the board there, so we try to educate people therefore enticing people to come work in our industry. I’m also on the board of the Coleman Entrepreneurship Center Advisory Board at DePaul University, and part of that is again, working with the students, educating them about our industry, educating about other industries, and answering any questions they have, and kind of mentoring them to again, our industry or other industries.
I also work with a class at DePaul, a strategic management class, and that gives me an opportunity, again to mentor and talk to the students about our industry and other industries. So, part of our strategy is getting out there, talking to students, mentoring them, and being a great employer. That’s key, you find people, and we like to have a fun workforce, I’m sorry a fun place to work, while also being very serious. Safety is critical for us. That’s kind of a starting point. We like to encourage growth, whether we send people off to classes, or mentoring programs. So, we have a lot of different plans to help grow people and retain people. Retaining the individuals is critical. You can find people hard enough, keeping them aboard is even more important.
Host: Kathryn Kelley
Have you found any approaches to be more successful than others in terms of retention?
Charles Cohen
My approach is to have the company, a lot of energy in the company, and to treat it as a family company, to care about the people. For me, that’s been the strongest tool I have in my tool belt for retention purposes. I care about our people. That’s pushed down. Our managers care about our people. If somebody’s out sick for a while, I’ll give them a call saying, ‘Hey, how are you doing?’ So really, that’s a key the retention.
Constant education, opportunities people to learn, whether it’s within our company or outside education. So that’s some of the critical tools we have in retention, whether it’s Fotofab or some of our sister companies, Elcon and E-Fab, they’ve developed internship programs. They’re bringing in college kids working the summer, working longer, so that’s giving them an idea of what chemical etching and some of our other approaches are. Elcon has an annual partnership with San Jose University. They also sponsor a Formula One team that’s student run, so again, allowing the students to understand what chemical etching is, and giving them an insight into it so they can learn about it and all these little things add up. You sponsor a team, somebody may come work with you down the road. So, we’re educating and just being a good employer in the community. Lattice, another TPC specialty manufacturer is involved with the Montana Manufacturing Extension Center. They’re on the advisory board made up of manufacturing experts, and that’s another way that we’re out there being seen, helping attract young talent to our organizations.
Host: Kathryn Kelley
That’s something that pointing out the MEP partnership. I don’t think that manufacturers, especially small, mid-sized manufacturers, realize that a lot of the MEPs do support workforce and, of course, participate in Manufacturing Day and you know, and have programs that can help. You know, can help assist. How do you see Fotofab evolving over the next three to five years?
Charles Cohen
It’s listening to our customers, listening to our customers’ needs, helping them solve their needs. That’s the key. That’s key for growth. And being part of TPC actually makes that easy, because it’s just not Fotofab that’s supplying them photochemical etched parts. We can supply CNC parts, electroformed parts, plastic injection molded. We do a lot of assembly work, powder coating. So, the whole network of TPC is going to allow and push the growth just naturally, as long as we’re in front of the customer, listening to them, listening to what they need.
Host: Kathryn Kelley
And lastly, what advice would you give manufacturers looking to adopt or integrate specialty processed technologies? I mean, of course, you have to have the equipment. You have to be focused on that. But what advice would you give if they are looking into these types of specialty manufacturing processes?
Charles Cohen
Number one, as I just mentioned, listening to customers, finding out what their needs are. Number two, whatever you do, be an expert in it. You need to be better than anybody else to succeed. You can listen as much as you want, but if you’re not supplying a quality product, that’s on time, meeting their needs, it’s all for not. So I would say those are the two keys. Beyond that to get there is having the right team. What makes my life easy here at Fotofab and my partners within TPC, is having great people around you. So, listening, being an expert, and having a great team around you. Hiring, creating a great morale, having people understand that the customer is number one, and it’s the drive to supply and what their requirements are in an expeditious manner and beyond their needs. So, people is critical.
Host: Kathryn Kelley
Thank you, Charles for your insights, I really appreciate you coming on the podcast.
Charles Cohen
Great. Thank you so much. It’s my pleasure.
About Manufacturing Tomorrow
Manufacturing Tomorrow is a podcast series from the Ohio Manufacturing Institute at The Ohio State University. Featuring the perspectives of manufacturing leaders, it focuses on the advanced manufacturing innovations, solutions and partnerships and that will propel industry in the future.
About The Partner Companies
The Partner Companies (TPC) is a global diversified manufacturing company that creates mission-critical solutions for innovators in the aerospace, defense, clean energy, medical, and technology industries. Founded in 2010, TPC has grown into an international leader with 11 specialty manufacturers in the U.S., U.K., Mexico and Asia: E-Fab, Elcon, Fotofab, Lattice Materials, LT Precision, Microphoto, Optiforms, PEI, Pinnacle Precision, Precision Eforming and UPG. TPC’s specialty manufacturers specialize in photochemical etching, ceramic metallization, crystal growth and electroforming along with core manufacturing capabilities such as injection molding, machining, metal fabrication and finishing. TPC supports each member entity with expertise in business growth, operations, finance, human resources, supply chain management and more. For more information about TPC and its specialty manufacturers, visit thepartnercos.com.
About Fotofab
Fotofab manufactures high-precision metal components with short lead times and tight tolerances. The company etches custom parts in prototype and production quantities, including fuel cell plates, medical snares, RF/EMI shields, shims, and washers. Engineering leaders in aerospace, defense, electronics, and medical device/implant companies call on Fotofab for its expertise in photochemical etching, thin metal forming, and finishing services.
