Variety was on the mind of Harlan Palm, who ran Palm Industries on the prairie farmlands of Litchfield, Minn.

Palm Industries makes roll-over protection for tractors and equipment, but its owner also saw a need for low deck-height trailers for skid-steer loaders, so he designed the first Towmaster pan-style trailers.

Originally there were two models; with 5,000-lb. and 7,000-lb. capacity.

Palm Industries was sold in the early 1970's, but Harlan kept the trailer portion of the business and in the early 1980's he began manufacturing them on his farm in Grove City, Minn., under the company Palm Sales.

During this time, Palm began developing skid-steer loader attachments that grew into several different types.

Sales for both the attachments and trailers grew to the point where in 1994 the company split into Palm Attachments and Towmaster, Inc. (www.towmaster.com).

Palm Attachments was sold a few years later to Bobcat, and Towmaster moved to the old Palm Industries facility in Litchfield. Trailer sales continued to grow to where Towmaster now produces several models that range in capacity from 2,000 lbs. to 120,000 lbs.

“Business has been exceptional ever since we moved in,” David Lundin, vice president of operations and a 17-year employee, said. By 1998, Towmaster had become an employee-owned operation and today, Towmaster trailers are sold in all 50 states plus Canada and Mexico.

Dozens of individual trailer models and numerous options are available, but the “sweet spot” is in the 10,000-lb. to 12,000-lb. capacity range.

“We build and sell a lot in that capacity range. That's a popular size for the landscape and rental industry,” Lundin said.

Product diversification and sales growth has been responsible for numerous expansions and additions to Towmaster's Litchfield headquarters and plant.

“When I joined the company, we were building trailers one at a time out of the machinery building in Grove City,” Lundin said.

Now the company has are seven full lines that can produce 25 trailers a day, with such fabricating processes as a two-head plasma cutter, robotic welding, a hydraulic jig fixture that can flip trailers over, and a computer-controlled painting and coatings operation.

The Idea for a Laser

Towmaster's dual-head plasma cutter produces between 20 and 30 different components per trailer model out of plate steel.

These parts go on to subsequent forming and assembly operations.

“Plasma processing was starting to become expensive to own and operate, and we had the idea to start looking at lasers about two and a half years ago. We started out not knowing a lot, but as we did the research, we saw the potential for better fit-up on our parts, less consumables, and the possibility of approaching a lights-out operation with an FMS,” Lundin said.

Lundin and Towmaster ultimately selected a Super Turbo Mark II laser-cutting system from Mazak Optonics (www.mazakoptonics.com).

The Mark II system includes up to a 4,000W resonator, with system engineering designed to maintain tight dimensional tolerances and consistent cut quality at high processing speeds. No manual adjustments or torch changes are needed to switch from cutting the thinnest sheet metal to ¾ in. plate. Material-handling automation options include a flexible manufacturing system with automatic load/unload capability and material storage and retrieval tower.

“The cut quality is higher on the laser cutter and we save time by setting up jobs on our FMS equipped with a 10-shelf tower,” Lundin said.

Once the raw material is loaded onto the shelves, no additional labor is required to process and finish parts. While the laser is cutting, line controller software automatically locates and retrieves the material for the next job and downloads nested cutting programs and material thickness to the laser's CNC.

“We run the laser three shifts, partially unmanned on third shift and lights-out on weekends,” Lundin said.

Learning Every Day

Not only is Towmaster saving a lot of labor costs in laser processing, parts fit up better and tolerances are closer in subsequent operations.

“I'm taking the tape measure out of my employees' hands with parts that fit together with tabs and slots. It works great, and we're finding other parts and applications we can redesign for the laser. We're even using it to laser-etch certain specialty parts. We're learning more every day,” Lundin said.

The Mark II laser system and FMS tower also proved to be the most space-efficient for Towmaster's needs. Given the history of Towmaster's additions and expansions, there may be room for another if conditions warrant.

“We have the footprint in place for a second one,” Lundin said.