Business gurus often talk about the 30,000-foot view — the big picture that provides an overall look. Perhaps, however, the focus should be on the view from 30 feet — a close-up examination of specific processes and procedures that make an impact now. Archer Advanced Rubber Components, a North Carolina-based manufacturer of custom seals, gaskets, and molded rubber components, is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. The company was co-founded by George Halages, an engineer who began his career with the seal industry giant Parker Hannifin before deciding to launch his own business. “We started in my garage, where everybody starts,” Halages said with a laugh. “I’d been in the industry for more than 15 years and I was tired of the corporate mindset. I felt like there was too much emphasis on making money and not enough attention paid to customers and their needs.”
Halages has taken a different approach with Archer, focusing on what he calls the four cornerstones of manufacturing: safety, quality, productivity, and on-time delivery. This framework, combined with continual process improvements, has enabled Archer to grow from that garage startup to a company employing nearly 150 people, with ambitious plans to double revenue by 2030.
Revolutionary vs. Evolutionary Improvements
Halages explains that Archer’s approach to process improvement falls into two distinct categories. “There’s evolutionary continuous improvement and then there’s revolutionary improvement,” he says. “Evolutionary improvements are incremental, meaning let’s see if we can make a 10% gain here or reduce material usage by 5% there. Revolutionary is new technology or even entirely new processes.”
Both approaches have been essential to Archer’s growth strategy, especially as the company has shifted its business model. “When we started, only about 30% of our business was actually manufactured in North Carolina, and the other 70% we bought and resold, most coming from Asia,” Halages notes. “Now, we are manufacturing about 80% of our products in our facility in North Carolina.”
Revolutionary Process Innovations
Over the past year, Archer has focused on revolutionary improvements to its manufacturing processes, with automation leading the charge.
“Our focus this past year has been on automating our lathe cut lines — in our curing process, our grinding and cutting processes,” Halages explains. “We’ve also added four horizontal injection molding machines in the last 18 months.”
The shift from compression molding to injection molding represents a big advancement. “Injection molding is a more highly automated, faster cycle-time process,” says Halages. “It requires fewer people and generates less waste.”
One of the most dramatic examples of this revolutionary approach comes from Archer’s work with a high-volume component for the fueling industry. “We were using a compression molding process and doing a lot of visual inspection with people,” Halages recalls. “We had two molds running with six people per shift.”
The solution was an automated injection molding machine paired with a digital vision inspection system. “Because it’s fuel, you cannot have a blemish or a defect — when fuel leaks, bad things happen,” Halages emphasizes. The new process reduced staffing requirements while improving quality and consistency.
What happened to those workers? “The good news is, because we are growing, we were able to move them into other areas of our facility that needed help,” Halages says. “We provided opportunities for growth, cross-training, and becoming qualified operators, where they make more money and gain more skills.”
Another revolutionary improvement came in Archer’s secondary operations. For one customer, they needed to produce a fluoroelastomer (FKM) sponge material with precision holes drilled at regular intervals. “We were doing that manually — cutting it to length and drilling the hole, literally sliding it 10 inches, with a drill press coming down,” Halages explains.
The solution was an in-line robot that drills precise holes while the material runs at 80 feet per minute. “The bottleneck was not the person but because it was a manual operation,” says Halages. “Now that it’s automated, we increase our extrusion rates, have a higher quality hole, tighter tolerance, better location capabilities, and increased output.”
Materials Innovation as a Competitive Edge
Beyond process automation, Archer has focused on materials technology as a core competency. “We focus on providing solutions to our customers, and the material is a very big part of our core competencies,” says Halages.
This focus led to one of Archer’s most innovative solutions. A customer manufacturing 500- to 1,000- gallon holding tanks for liquids ranging from motor oil to maple syrup was experiencing field failures. The dense gasket in the lid was too hard, making it difficult for operators to tighten sufficiently, resulting in leaks during transport.
“We developed an FKM extrusion-grade continuous-cure sponge material, which is very unique,” Halages explains.
The innovation combined several challenging requirements: It used fluoroelastomer material, employed a continuous cure process rather than the standard autoclave curing, created a sponge structure rather than a solid material, and met food-grade requirements.
“Because it’s a sponge, it significantly reduced the closure force required when you turn the lid down,” says Halages. “Now you can hand-tighten the lid. The seal actually compresses and creates a shield.” This solution completely solved the customer’s problem and became a long-term product for Archer.
Building Quality Into the Process
Archer’s approach to quality control is proactive rather than reactive. “We start when we’re launching a product by focusing on the manufacturing process first,” Halages explains. “We do everything we can to design for manufacturability. We also do a lot of our quality planning on the front end, so we know what we have to check, how often we have to check it, and what process we have to run.”
This is particularly important for high-volume, tight-tolerance applications. “Even at Six Sigma capability, by definition, you’re going to have some defects—it may be .03%, but it’s in there,” Halages notes. Automated visual inspection helps ensure zero defects leave the facility.
Leveraging Process Diversity
One of Archer’s distinct advantages is having multiple manufacturing processes under one roof. “We have all the basic rubber manufacturing processes — lathe cutting, extrusion, molding, and die cutting,” Halages explains. “This gives us the ability to use the most cost-effective process to manufacture that part or any combination of those processes.”
This flexibility proved vital when a customer in the appliance industry saw unexpected demand growth. “They said, ‘We’re going to go from 100,000 pieces a year to 2 million pieces a year, and we need to do this pretty quickly,'” Halages recalls.
Rather than requiring the customer to invest in additional tooling for the traditional process, Archer used their innovative extrusion continuous process. “We went from four steps in the lathe cutting process to extrusion continuous cure, which is all one operation, right over to cutting,” says Halages. “We saved our customer a significant amount of money because they didn’t have to buy the tooling to ramp up the traditional process, plus we were able to take costs out by eliminating a couple of steps.”
Measuring Success
Archer’s improvements in processes and materials have yielded measurable results across their four cornerstones of manufacturing. “Over the past 18 months, our first-pass yield has improved significantly and so has our on-time delivery,” said Halages. “So far this year, we’re at 98%. The goal, obviously, is 100%.”
This improvement reflects Archer’s ability to identify roadblocks, understand bottlenecks, and systematically eliminate problems. As Halages puts it, “We find a way, or make a way.”
Looking ahead, Archer plans more revolutionary improvement. “Our next big area of investment is in splicing capability,” Halages says, referring to the process of joining extrusions to create larger parts. “In recent years, we’ve moved from manual splicing to semi-automation. Now we’re driving toward full automation.”
Underlying all these process improvements is Archer’s commitment to its “one team — one direction” philosophy. “We do the right thing because it’s the right thing to do,” Halages says. “That’s really what it comes down to.”
This approach has led to 25 years of growth, with Archer retaining customers for decades — including their very first customer from the garage days. With their process innovations driving both efficiency and quality improvements, Archer’s goal of doubling revenue by 2030 while maintaining its family-oriented culture appears well within reach.