Steve Alviti is the President of Bel Air Finishing Supply Corporation, where they engineer individualized mass finishing solutions for industries like jewelry, metal finishing, precious metal polishing, and recovery applications. This is a really insightful conversation into the process of Bel Air in creating these individualized automation solutions. We cover their value proposition, how automation drives their solutions, and how they handle customer pain points. Take some time to learn from Steve’s vast experience in the manufacturing industry.

Nate Wheeler is the owner of weCreate, a nationally recognized marketing agency that helps manufacturers grow, save money, and become more efficient.

Watch the Full Interview on YouTube!

Chapters:

• 0:00 Intro
• 1:50 Introduction to Bel Air
• 3:30 Creating Versatile Vertical Integration
• 9:45 Different Finishes for Different Applications
• 13:45 Creating Custom Solutions
• 17:45 Steve’s Start in Ocean Engineering
• 24:00 Incorporating Automation
• 28:20 Creating Relationships
• 33:30 Understanding Customer Pain Points
• 37:20 The Vision for Bel Air

Manufacturing Insights

1. R&D can turn a manufacturing supplier into a problem-solving partner

Bel Air doesn’t simply sell finishing equipment. The company evaluates the customer’s part, production volume, existing process, required finish, labor requirements, and manufacturing culture before determining what solution makes sense. That changes the relationship from equipment supplier to manufacturing partner.

2. Continuous improvement should extend all the way through the manufacturing process

Steve describes his grandfather’s instinct to find ways to make even simple processes better. That philosophy became part of Bel Air’s approach to manufacturing: constantly look for opportunities to improve efficiency, quality, consistency, and cost.

3. Advanced manufacturing equipment doesn’t solve much if the final process is still manual

One of the best examples is a medical implant manufacturer using sophisticated CNC equipment and CMM inspection, only to hand the part to an employee who polished it manually using an essentially subjective visual standard. The lesson isn’t that manual work is always bad. It’s that a highly controlled manufacturing process shouldn’t necessarily end with an uncontrolled process.

4. R&D should focus on the customer’s actual production requirements

Bel Air doesn’t assume that the most technologically advanced solution is automatically the best one. The company evaluates multiple finishing technologies and considers the customer’s production volume, required finish, equipment cost, operating cost, ergonomics, and manufacturing culture before recommending an approach.

5. Automation doesn’t have to completely replace a process to be valuable

This is one of the strongest takeaways for manufacturers dealing with labor shortages. A manufacturer doesn’t necessarily need to automate 100% of a finishing operation. Reducing the manual workload by 25%, 50%, or 90% can still reduce labor requirements, improve throughput, and make the remaining work easier to manage.

6. The right ROI depends on what problem the manufacturer is trying to solve

Different manufacturers value different outcomes. For one company, the biggest concern might be labor. For another, it could be lead time, rejects, outsourcing costs, quality consistency, or throughput. Bel Air asks customers what their actual pain point is before determining how to measure the value of a solution.

7. R&D can create new capabilities that manufacturers can offer customers

Bel Air has continued investing in new finishing technologies even when the company doesn’t necessarily manufacture the equipment itself. The goal is to understand what is possible so the team can recommend the right technology to customers. You don’t have to manufacture every technology understand how it can solve your customer’s problem.

8. Vertical integration can make manufacturers more competitive

Nate points out that machine shops, fabricators, injection molders, and other manufacturers often compete against companies around the world when they offer only one step of a customer’s process. Adding finishing, inspection, assembly, or other capabilities can allow a manufacturer to offer a more complete solution and become harder to replace.

9. Understanding the customer’s supply chain can reveal opportunities for additional services

A machine shop might think its responsibility ends when the machined part leaves the facility. But if the part then goes to another company for deburring, polishing, finishing, coating, or another process, that represents a potential opportunity. Manufacturers can ask:

• Where does this part go next?
• What happens to it after we ship it?
• Who performs the next process?
• What does that process cost?
• What if we polished it before sending it over?
• Would the customer value receiving a finished part?

Those questions can uncover opportunities for vertical integration and value-added services.

10. Robotics can be valuable even when they’re not performing the core manufacturing process

Bel Air’s automation isn’t limited to having a robot perform the finishing itself. Robotics can also handle loading, unloading, part transfer, and other repetitive tasks around the process. That creates another important automation lesson: look for the bottleneck and automate the repetitive work surrounding it.

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Nate Wheeler (00:00)
Welcome to Manufacturing Insiders. Today I have Steve Alvede Jr. with me. He is with Bel Air Finishing. Really smart guy. Very interesting background. Not something you necessarily expect for a guy that moved into a finishing company. But we’ll get into kind of what some of his areas of expertise are in a minute. But Bel Air Finishing is really focused on helping manufacturers complete that last mile of manufacturing. Really one of the most important components of that is making sure that the parts are finished correctly. There’s a lot of complicated issues that can arise there, know, whether from, you know, part geometries or materials or whatever it might be. So Bel Air actually helps develop the process, develop the machinery to do that finishing, then provides all the consumables that go along with that. So very interesting, applicable to a lot of manufacturers. Welcome to Manufacturing Insider, Absolutely.

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (00:53)
Hey Nate, thanks for having me. Appreciate it.

Nate Wheeler (00:56)
So I guess just give us a little synopsis, know, if I didn’t completely get everything right with Bel Air, tell us what you do and why it’s applicable to manufacturers.

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (01:08)
Yeah, yeah. So Bel Air Finishing, we are manufacturers of finishing equipment and solutions for basically every industry, firearms, medical, aerospace, electronic components, anybody that’s currently manufacturing a component and needs some sort of surface finishing or deburring done to their product, they come to us and we’re basically their continuous improvement for, for finishing. We’ll go ahead and develop a process, hear about their manufacturing culture, learn about what’s worked for them, what’s not working for them. And then we dial in the right equipment solution for them to use in their production line to make their product more competitive at the end of the day. And

Nate Wheeler (01:54)
Yeah.

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (01:56)
my grandfather started the company and

Nate Wheeler (01:58)
Yep.

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (02:00)
he always had this knack for making whatever he was doing better, you know, that continuous improvement. You know, for instance, we, after he passed a couple of years ago, we were cleaning out his garage and on his weed whacker was this little plate with two wheels that was, you know, not off the shelf. This was something he made and adapted. And so he bolted it onto his weed whacker so his edging would be perfect along the edge of his yard, you know, and that, that little tidbit, that little nuance in that process, that’s what we are today for our clients.

Nate Wheeler (02:40)
That’s very interesting. So, you know, I kind of think about some of the stuff that you make being applicable. I work with lot of machine shops, for example. And I wonder is there an opportunity for a machine shop to have, you know, kind of that finishing process available to their customers just to consolidate supply chain, to add a little bit of extra value and to be a little bit more competitive in the marketplace.

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (03:11)
Definitely there. We see that all the time. And a big challenge for machine shops is they’re machining a bunch of different components for a bunch of different industries. Right. So versatility

Nate Wheeler (03:22)
Great.

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (03:25)
for a machine shop is very important. And there are a few technologies that we offer that fit into that versatile finishing. Right. You know, high energy finishing and centrifugal discs and triple barrel and vibratory. And then we also offer some tool holders that you can actually use in your CNC equipment to do deburring on the component within the machining op. So there’s a few different ways to attack that and having that conversation of what they’re experiencing in the way of paying for that final finishing process. That’s kind of the initial start to our conversation when we help our clients.

Nate Wheeler (04:06)
Right. Now, do you feel like a lot of these shops have kind of like thrown in the towel, you know, until they came to, you know, maybe for a number of years said, there’s just really no economical way that we can finish these parts. We got to send somebody else to do that part of the process. We just do the machining. They come to you and they’re like, wow, I didn’t realize that that was possible. Like, let’s let’s go. Do you see that?

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (04:36)
There are a lot of wow moments on both ends. Sometimes I’m like, wow, you’re still doing it that way? You

Nate Wheeler (04:42)
Right.

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (04:44)
know, and we, have processes in my shop that we’re still, are a little bit archaic that we need to improve, but that’s the name of manufacturing is continuous improvement. So usually someone that comes out to us is already on that mantra, right? They’re looking to improve something that they’re doing, whether they’re outsourcing and they… They need to bring it in house to make it more efficient or controlled, you know, through quality or to lower the overhead cost or to lower lead time. You know, those are, those are some reasons why they come to us. But yes, there are a lot of, a lot of pain points of, of that we address, right?

Nate Wheeler (05:22)
Yeah.

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (05:25)
You know,

Nate Wheeler (05:25)
So when you say you’re like, wow, you’re still doing it like that. Like what what what is that? Like what are you usually seeing there?

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (05:35)
Yeah, so you know this I got a part right here. This is an implant. Can you guess what what it is?

Nate Wheeler (05:44)
Let’s see, hold it just a little bit closer. it’s a it’s a it’s a hip.

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (05:54)
It’s a knee, you were on the right track, it’s a knee, right? Yeah, so this is the top of the knee and there’s a bottom plate that goes on the bottom part of your leg with usually some sort of in between space or maybe a delrin or something like that.

Nate Wheeler (05:55)
it’s a knee. Okay, yeah, I knew it was one of those joints. goes like… Okay. Yep.

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (06:11)
so we, you know, not too long ago, we show up at one of the major manufacturers worldwide and they’ve got just the most high end sophisticated, you know, CNC, equipment cutting these out of the metal. They’ve got this high-end CMM measuring device equipment. I think it was a hexagon unit, which is right down

Nate Wheeler (06:31)
Yep.

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (06:33)
the road from us. One of the biggest manufacturers in the world measuring it, tolerances, tolerances, know, surface finishes. And then they’re taking it from that machining and inspection process and they’re handing it to, you know, Joe the polisher and Joe’s over there like it’s a piece of jewelry, finishing it by hand, right? And using what qualification? The eye test, right? How polished is this show. And so, and this is just one example. that’s, you do all of that high-end, use all that high-end technology to make this part. And then at the end, before it’s ready for its application, you’re gonna do something by hand with not much control of consistency, not many quantitative for this part, right? It just, it doesn’t make sense, right? And so we see that a lot and people within their own company see that a lot and that’s kind of why they come to us, say, hey, you we know there’s gotta be a better way. Belair, help us figure out what that better way is. And so we take

Nate Wheeler (07:44)
Yeah.

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (07:45)
this part and we say, hey, what’s your production volume? How are you doing it currently? Is the guy doing it on one series of belt, three series of belts too? And then we can kind of manipulate that information into maybe two or three different production solutions through two or three different technologies. And we go ahead and demo that process right in our lab and show you what’s possible, what finish you can actually get to, what finish do you need to get to. And then we can size you up with the equipment and the cost of operating that equipment for your production volume. So you kind of get the whole picture, right? You

Nate Wheeler (08:25)
Yeah.

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (08:27)
get the immediate capital expense and then the expenses into the future, right? For operating it and maintaining it. And so, you know, we walk into a lot of places where, you know, people are having that problem, you know, they only know what they know. Right? And they know their product usually, you always much better than I know their product. But I know finishing and I know that I’ve finished a lot of parts like this and I can take, you know, some tailored solutions out of my tool belt and into their facility.

Nate Wheeler (09:03)
Yeah. there’s different levels of finish or polish, you know, and I’m just like vaguely aware of these. Like I’ve heard the term like diamond finish. You know, people obviously talk about mirror. Is there like a. a level to which you can reach with equipment and then you need that manual effort to take it that last step or how does that work? Yeah.

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (09:33)
Yes. So we actually come from the jewelry industry way back when Providence, Rhode Island was a significant hotbed for that. When we were up and coming, we actually were initially a tool and die company manufacturing belt buckles and other other things. know, funny story. My grandfather took my dad when he was young into the back room stamping room and it was loud as all hell. Right. And it was just pooching, pooching, pooching, pooching. And my dad’s like, it’s so fricking loud in here. I can’t even hear you. And my grandfather takes him aside. goes, no, Steve, listen, a nickel, a nickel, a nickel, a nickel, a nickel, a nickel. So

Nate Wheeler (10:05)
Yep.

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (10:18)
side, side, no, that’s, that’s just a funny story that I always hear. But yes, jewelry, the jewelry industry required the finest finishes in the world. Right. You got, you’re buying your wife an earring. You know, that thing’s got to look primo.

Nate Wheeler (10:21)
That is cool. Yeah.

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (10:31)
Right? So by default, we realized as we were manufacturing jewelry, what it took, right? And say we can’t get you a hundred percent to that. Maybe you do need because of the geometry to buff that out as a final step, but maybe we can take out 80 to 90 % of the handwork, right? And then your guy just takes it out of a machine and touches it up for a couple seconds before packaging or before going to a quality QC, right? So.

Nate Wheeler (10:59)
Right.

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (11:01)
Having that conversation, understanding the specifications of the component and the limits and the limits of our technology, we try to deal with that conversation upfront. I’d say, you know, 90 % of the time clients that come to us, we can achieve the finish they need. Right. And then there’s that other 10 % where, you know, they’re either looking for the silver bullet or, you know, maybe it has to be touched by hand as, as a,

Nate Wheeler (11:04)
you

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (11:27)
as a final step. But we talk about that in that initial kind of research and development phase. And just

Nate Wheeler (11:33)
Right.

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (11:35)
touching on the other point that you were discussing, there are so many different types of finish, right? So this is a client in the firearms industry. These are obviously scopes for rifles. These are turned on a milling machine. And then they are prepped and then they are blasted and then they are coated, right? This is a black oxide, right? And so to make this part nice and matte and nice and pretty and not see any of those machine lines, you can’t just coat this piece, right? Everything on this surface would show through here, okay?

Nate Wheeler (12:02)
Yep. Right. Yep.

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (12:19)
Now this client makes two different types of black oxide finishes. They make this matte style and then they make a shiny black oxide, right? So there are two different things in here that you have to do to this piece to achieve that, right? So in this case, we did a kind of initial surface blending step and then we did a blast to give it that matte look, right? If you

Nate Wheeler (12:29)
Gotcha. Mm-hmm. Okay.

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (12:46)
wanted a shiny finish, we would do the initial kind of blending step and then kind of a super polishing step to yield a shiny finish on the oxide. again, there’s probably to do those two different finishes in here, there’s probably, I don’t know, 10 different pieces of equipment that could yield that, right? So our job to our client, our commitment to our client is to evaluate those and tell them, hey, this is what it’ll look like in production. Here’s the ergonomics of operating it. Here’s the overhead, you know, the cost for operating it in the different technologies, which way do you wanna go, right? We try to lead that horse to the water and have them take the drink that makes sense for them in their manufacturing culture. I know I just word vomited on you there, but.

Nate Wheeler (13:37)
It is, no, no, it makes a lot of sense. No, it makes a lot of sense. And so is the, I would assume that there’s also some focus on, you know, a little bit of flexibility in the process. For example, that scope manufacturer may want to have a different diameter scope or a couple different variations. .

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (13:56)
Correct, correct. And there may be features on here that they want masked, right? And masking is very good in certain technologies. There’s, you you’re fixturing the part when you’re finishing it. Others are kind of just isotropic. So that was a conversation that we did have with this client and they wanted to mask the part. They didn’t want anything on the inside. So basically their operator locks this into a fixture in, you know, two seconds and walks away. This thing gets finished. He takes it out puts it into a second machine for a secondary op, and then it goes into a cleaning operation and then towards the anodization or coating surface treatment process.

Nate Wheeler (14:36)
Yeah, no, that’s a really cool example. I’m glad you brought that one up that so Into like the capabilities of bel-air so you guys are doing The you know, you’re helping make the actual piece of machinery that’s gonna do the polishing You’re helping design the process that needs to be done. You’re developing the fixturing for that process So in terms of like to be able to do all that like you guys must have a pretty comprehensive shop there I mean if you’re building equipment, I mean you got to have fabrication welding Machining do you do all that in-house?

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (15:13)
Yeah, we do a lot of that in-house. also subcontract, we do all design. All design of our equipment is in-house. All assembly of our equipment. And then we subcontract out a lot of the individual component manufacturing to local vendors that we’ve been working with for 40 to 60 years. We’ve got a significantly large, I would say, maybe not large, but pretty big in our world approved supplier list, right?

Nate Wheeler (15:41)
Yep.

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (15:44)
So we’ll do, we’ll design the part, for instance, one of our main components on our high running products. It actually, we design it, we send it for casting, we get it casted locally, we bring it back in, we inspect it, we machine it, it then goes back out to a secondary vendor, again, locally within the state. It gets poured. That comes back, we then inspect it and then we remachine it. And then it gets a final coding application applied to it. And then it goes into stock for equipment assembly. And then when it comes time for build or an order, we pull that part from stock and then we build that piece of equipment right here.

Nate Wheeler (16:25)
Gotcha. Gotcha.

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (16:29)
So I’ll say, you know, probably 25 % of the components in our equipment are actually machined from stock here. You know, the others are purchased and the remaining are subcontracted out and inspected and assembled here.

Nate Wheeler (16:44)
I see. Wow. Yeah, and that’s some pretty interesting engineering too. mean, these are not simple machines, right?

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (16:54)
Very abrasive resistant, because that’s our world. We’re in a very abrasive world, right? So naturally things are gonna break down. How do we make that happen aggressively and as fast as possible on the parts, but not on the equipment, right?

Nate Wheeler (16:59)
Yes. Right. Right. So you’ve been there since what, 2012? So, yeah, so, right, right, right.

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (17:15)
That’s correct. Yep. Actually, probably, probably longer than that. I was sweeping the floors at 10 years old. So

Nate Wheeler (17:24)
So, when you went to, so then you went to school for underwater robotics and ocean engineering, what prompted that degree choice? Yeah.

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (17:38)
Um, honestly, I love the ocean. Number one, you know, I’m in Rhode Island. It’s, uh, that’s what half the state’s about is the water here. Um, you know, so I had a passion for that. Um, the university of Rhode Island at the time was giving out centennial scholarships, right? So you had to have a certain GPA, a certain, uh, SAT score. And they had one of the best, if not the best, uh, ocean engineering program in, uh, the states. And it was led by the guy who discovered the H-bomb and the Titanic, Bob Ballard. So he set up a pretty big facility there. So I saw it as a huge opportunity. I was always intrigued by robotics. So that’s kind of the way I went. My father always tried to push me out of the company, say, hey, go work for somebody else, go to school, get a degree, go work for somebody else, then come back and bring what you learn.

Nate Wheeler (18:16)
Yep. Such a, such an important thing.

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (18:35)
Yeah, it is. It is. And so I did a few different internships. You know, one was actually on the Endeavor, is the their large NOAA, NOAA’s largest research vessel, excuse me. They had an inner space center at the University of Rhode Island. And I was in there, you know, in the wee hours of the morning, funneling footage to different, you know, oceanographers and whatnot, just as a little peon at the time.

Nate Wheeler (19:04)
Yeah.

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (19:06)
but, saw some pretty cool stuff and was exposed to some pretty, unique projects with, some very important, people in the graduate program teaching undergraduate classes there, doing a lot of research, a lot of paid research over there.

Nate Wheeler (19:22)
wow, yeah.

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (19:24)
So, I got, I definitely got my money’s worth with robotics and then, you know, I ended up really wanting to come back to the family company and I did, and I started on the engineering side. You know, and that kind of, I brought a bunch of automation to our finishing equipment, you know, over the past, you know, 10, 12 years. And you can see a bunch of those options on our website. You know, we’re system integrators, we’re solution integrators for surface finishing, right? We’re not

Nate Wheeler (19:55)
Yep.

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (19:57)
just trying to pedal a vibratory bowl on you. You know, we want to figure out how it’s going to fit in your production process best. And a lot of the times using robotics, especially in this recent future, is the way to go, at least for handling maybe, if we can. Maybe not doing the finishing itself, but at least passing things off. So

Nate Wheeler (20:12)
Right.

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (20:18)
that’s kind of my background there.

Nate Wheeler (20:22)
Yeah, the ocean subject is so interesting. I’ve always been, like, I have this weird part of me that is just absolutely fascinated by, like, untouched places on the earth. You know, when we go on vacation, I don’t want to go to where the family wants to go. I want to like take the, you know,

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (20:40)
Explore.

Nate Wheeler (20:41)
the most, you know, unknown path somewhere and try to find something that nobody’s seeing. Like, I always want to get there. The ocean is the place for that. I’m curious to know, in your in your previous career, if you will, like, did you see some things that were just like mind blowing? Like you wouldn’t have expected. I assume underwater robotics, you’re going to deeper depths than anybody’s gone before is kind what you’re after, Okay.

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (21:13)
Yeah, yeah, one of the biggest projects that they were working on was documenting the underwater thermal vents near the island of Santorini in Greece. So and they’ve been doing that for a while. But, you know, just to see, you know, I mean, the how deep they were, you know, and that’s in the Mediterranean Sea, you know, there’s just there’s just, there’s just so much unknown out there. It’s just

Nate Wheeler (21:40)
Yeah.

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (21:40)
It’s insane. When the vehicles are down there and they’re just showing you footage, it’s just so dark and so vast. It’s truly amazing. I’m actually, I’m looking forward to a trip coming up soon. taking my two daughters and my wife to St. Thomas. I’m gonna get the three and a half year old snorkeling with some sea turtles and some sea creatures. Get her ocean fever going.

Nate Wheeler (21:50)
Yeah. nice. Nice, nice, nice. Yes. Yes. We were.

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (22:10)
You know?

Nate Wheeler (22:10)
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it’s not hard to catch. We actually went to St. Croix last year and we did a nice little snorkel. They have this island that’s maybe, I don’t know, mile, half mile, something like that, away from St. Croix. It’s called Buck Island. And you go out there in the boats and get off and do the snorkeling. And it was amazing. Like, I have never seen so much underwater life. It was just like you’re swimming in an aquarium. You’re seeing, like, snapper and, you know, little swordfish, like just all kinds of different underwater species. And that’s cool with

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (22:51)
That’s awesome.

Nate Wheeler (22:52)
the vents too, you know, because I know that they found like those anaerobic life forms that, you know, are living off of sulfuric compounds and things like that and, don’t need oxygen. And, you know, I know they’ve tried to like, it’s led them to some conclusions about possibly life being on other planets and stuff like that that don’t have oxygen or much of it. But yeah, that is a fascinating world there. Yeah,

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (23:19)
It is, it is still so much to be learned about as well.

Nate Wheeler (23:24)
yep. So in terms of the robotics incorporation into Bel Air and the changes you brought there, what would you say is like the most important one, the most impactful automation related change you made there?

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (23:42)
I would say probably, in one of our core technology offerings, it’s called drag finishing. All right. and it’s named drag finishing. We’re actually coming out with a pretty big, article, probably next month about if drag finishing is right for you in production. and there’s many different ways to do it, but essentially you’re dragging a part, a fixtured part, either held or fixtured through some sort of medium to do the finishing, right? Simply put.

Nate Wheeler (24:11)
Okay.

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (24:13)
And we have the only system that we know about that we research that does that with robotics and as fast as we do and hits the surface finishes that we need. For instance, we work with a few manufacturers worldwide of automotive valves, okay?

Nate Wheeler (24:37)
Okay, yep. Because it inserts

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (24:39)
These are engine valves. And one of the best surfaces in the finish, one of the best surface finishes in the world is needed on this surface here. And over the whole part, but specifically this surface.

Nate Wheeler (24:52)
into a tube and it needs to. Yep.

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (24:54)
Right? It’s pumping like this, right? To create the combustion. And so our process uses the robot to super polish that in one step from an as ground valve.

Nate Wheeler (25:08)
Wow.

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (25:10)
Yeah. you know, nobody else has been able to see the finishes that we have on this type of part. And we just completed a validation set for another manufacturer. Internationally actually, that’s gonna be purchasing a system soon. using the robot as the finishing tool in this application, that’s when you can use the robot, you wanna use the robot because it just speeds things up. You know, the downside is you’ve got that robot working in an abrasive environment, but we’ve got ways to protect against that. But that, that.

Nate Wheeler (25:40)
Right. You can build a little cleaner room around it or something.

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (25:52)
Correct, clean arm, couple blow off stations, know, where you don’t have to add into the tack time of the part. You know, we just strategically locate some things and that’s kind of why each cell is customizable. So on our website, you see our very basic cell, but there’s a lot of different nuances to the ones in operation in the field. And that same process is actually used in this industry, the manufacturing of cutting tools.

Nate Wheeler (26:19)
okay.

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (26:20)
And cutting tools are obviously, well, probably, I think, the largest consumable in manufacturing, right?

Nate Wheeler (26:21)
Yeah. Yep.

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (26:29)
Whether you’re doing taps like you see here, or end mills or drills, you know, our robotic drag finishing process, it does two things. One of them hones the edge of these cutting tools so that they don’t fracture and they last longer in production. And then on tools that are coated, like this one with a, you know, tin nitrate or whatever you’re coating with some sort of PVD coating. It does a super polishing effect because in that PVD process, plasma vapor deposition, you’re spraying it right onto the tool. And there ends up being these little droplets all over, which naturally increases friction when it’s running, which is counterintuitive to the point of the coating. So first you hone the tool.

Nate Wheeler (27:04)
Yep. Right.

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (27:20)
then you coat, then you polish the coating. And we’ve got an automated system that does that. And I’d probably say that that’s the biggest thing just because of the sheer volume of opportunity, I would say.

Nate Wheeler (27:31)
Right. Yep. Yeah. It would take an incredible amount of manpower to manually polish those or even partially manually do it. Wow.

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (27:43)
There are people doing it though. There are lots of people doing it.

Nate Wheeler (27:49)
weird little side note. So I have a customer. That this is a really, really weird situation, but I’m hoping maybe you have an introduction for me. He’s got a company that incidentally ranks really, really well when you look up machine tools. Kind of a generic term, but usually referring to cutting tools, end mills, things like that.

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (28:12)
Yep.

Nate Wheeler (28:13)
He doesn’t sell any cutting tools or end mills or anything like that. He does electronics for CNC machines like servo drives and things like that. And so I talked to him, was like, dude, we need to figure out a way to leverage this ranking that we have in this traffic that we’re getting and find a way to incorporate some cutting tools in a pretty, you know, we need to do it like in a low overhead, low impact or workload sort of way, like a drop shipping way or something. We need a relationship with a cutting tool manufacturer that we can somehow embed their product line onto his website and sell these tools. So if you know

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (28:51)
Great idea.

Nate Wheeler (28:52)
somebody, let me know. That’d be great. That’d

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (28:54)
I will probably let me know after the show we’ll talk about location and maybe I put them to put you guys together with a you know maybe a smaller manufacturer that doesn’t have an online store that maybe you can be that person for them right.

Nate Wheeler (29:06)
be great. That would be perfect. So yeah, anyway, And that’s one thing I love about this manufacturing insiders thing and my main business, is in marketing manufacturers is I have so many relationships, so many people I work with, so many introductions that like, you know, when I’m talking to somebody, they have a need. I can usually find somebody to fulfill the need. You know, we just have so many referrals to make. And I think that’s what the manufacturing world needs. They need more, you know, connectivity. And because I’ve always been shocked, you you talk to a manufacturer. And he’s like, yeah, I’ve been looking for somebody that does X, Y, or Z. And I’m like, dude, there’s somebody two blocks away that does that. And it’s just they don’t have this, a lot of times, broad awareness of what’s around them and the resources that are available. And I think that…

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (29:57)
Yeah, I mean…

Nate Wheeler (30:00)
No, go ahead.

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (30:01)
Yeah, and I mean, you you connected me with a colleague for the the training. He’s what’s the name of the company again? The training the training video.

Nate Wheeler (30:09)
I’m trying to yeah Ramon yeah that was super cool yeah yeah

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (30:17)
Ramon, yes, yeah, we’re gonna be looking into that. I think that’s a fantastic idea. You know, I’ve been looking for a way to do this and his solution seems like, you know, the way to go, so.

Nate Wheeler (30:32)
That’s very cool. I think he really needs some case studies. He needs some success stories. It’s a pretty new product to market but it is ingenious. It’s something that’s very much needed. I would be really interested to follow that journey and see how you’re doing with it. I think that the manufacturers that are listening really need to think about finishing, like we said before, as a value add that they can bring to the table because in the manufacturing space, especially when you have like those, you know, sole service offerings, you know, I’m a machine shop, I’m an injection molder, I’m a fabricator, whatever it might be, you’re up against the world. You know, you’re literally up against the world. And so it’s all about thinking about how you can have a more, you know, vertically integrated offering that, you know, a manufacturer OEM can come to you and say, they can do step one, two and three of this. I’m going to choose them over the people that can only do step one or step two.

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (31:41)
Right, right. I think that’s an invaluable, you know. And you know, that’s one thing we pride ourselves on in the finishing world is we spend a significant amount of time and money every year in R &D and, you know, doing our own homework on different surface finishing techniques and capabilities that are out there in the world that are coming new to market, right? Because we

Nate Wheeler (32:06)
Yep.

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (32:08)
wanna stay ahead. By default, we stay ahead because a lot of our clients know who we are. We’ve got good brand recognition. We’ve got a lot of repeat clients and they come to us with new components that they’re manufacturing, right? Or new coatings or

Nate Wheeler (32:19)
Right.

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (32:21)
new stuff. So we, by default, stay ahead, but we also are responsible for staying ahead for them. You know, and there’s been a lot of new technologies over the past 15 years. And we try to take it in-house, even if we’re not gonna be the one that manufactures the equipment or solution. We wanna know that it’s possible and we can kinda outline that and what that would look like for a client, right? Because we don’t wanna fit a square peg in a round hole. We wanna have every tool in our tool belt and say, hey, honestly, this would be a pretty good application for this process even though we don’t necessarily manufacture that offer.

Nate Wheeler (32:58)
Right. And you brought up another good point earlier. It could have been our previous conversation where I think and I come across this mindset a in manufacturing where they’re like that won’t work for us because because we’ve tried that or something like that. But I think it’s really important to kind of think about some of the finishing processes that you can enable in a way that what can it replace? It may not be able to replace 100 % of what you’re doing but if it could replace 50 % or even 25 % what does that mean in terms of your workforce shortage? You know, you’re having people quit the job, come in for two weeks and then leave, then you got to retrain somebody. What can replace in terms of just your overall efficiency? So, I mean, maybe talk to me about some cases where maybe it didn’t do 100 % of it. Maybe it only did 50 % of it, but it was impactful. And how did you measure that impact?

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (34:09)
Yeah, so let me think for a second. That definitely happens frequently. You know, and people value different things in their when they’re doing their ROI, right? You know, some areas of the country may have better workforce for this for finishing or, you know, whatever they may have a good clientele for that for their internal team. Some people are worried about just strictly the time that it takes to manufacture the process and get a lot out the door and contract finishing is an issue, right? Some people

Nate Wheeler (34:46)
Right. Yep.

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (34:50)
care strictly about the dollar amount, right? So I can’t think of an exact example right now off the top of my head, but we do, that’s part of what we call the company culture, right? Where do you value your savings? You know, that’s a question that we ask when they’re bringing the part to us. Especially if they’re already in production with this component. You know, we need to understand, okay, what is the pain point? Why are you coming? Is it because you are having trouble, you know, with finishing people? Are you getting a lot of rejects from hand finishing, from your current finishing process, even if it’s not hand finishing? Or

Nate Wheeler (35:27)
Yep.

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (35:30)
is it, hey, you are outsourcing it you need to bring it in-house? Is that the pain point, right? Understanding that company culture, how they’re doing it and where they’re looking to move towards. That is one of the first questions we ask once we get our hands on some parts.

Nate Wheeler (35:45)
Right. Right. Yeah, and I mean, I think in some cases, you know, a machine shop could kind of investigate the supply chain a little bit. You know, their mindset might be, well, yeah, we’re just hired to machine this part and then we send it down the line to the next step. But maybe if they ask some questions from the person who’s ordering the parts from them or from the company that’s doing the finishing, you could ask them, hey, is it going to save me some costs if I bring you a polished part before or whatever deburred part before? What does that add up to over time? They could ask the OEM, are you sending it somewhere after we’re done with it? What would it mean to you if I could do this? And you could

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (36:26)
Right.

Nate Wheeler (36:27)
probably justify cost pretty quickly just from having some of those conversations. Right. Right.

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (36:32)
Right, right. And it’s got to happen through the whole supplier chain, right? That’s why you’re here, right? Spread that news.

Nate Wheeler (36:40)
Absolutely. So, you know, what’s kind of the next five years look like for Bel Air? What are some your broad goals for the company or would you like to see in terms of maybe revenue growth or new markets you want to get into things like that.

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (36:59)
so I’d say, you know, in the, in the near future, on the shorter end of the five years, right now we currently have some really good, distribution paths, with a lot of boots on the ground. but I personally would like to, increase that, and increase our dialogue with those personnel. you know, see something, say something, but for deburring. If you’re in a facility and you see some issues with finishing and deburring, say something to me, I’ll help.

Nate Wheeler (37:32)
Great. Yep.

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (37:35)
So making our distribution paths aware and just staying top of mind with them, that would be one big thing. And then the second item I’d probably say is I’d like to increase our personal contract finishing. Big contingency of some DOD facilities or DOW, Department of War facilities around us. I would like to take advantage of that for them, take a load off them. We can finish in pretty short lead times. We’re set up pretty well in the way

Nate Wheeler (37:56)
Okay. Yep.

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (38:14)
of getting product in and out. And obviously we know what we’re doing so we can hit finishes that are needed. So I’d like to increase

Nate Wheeler (38:21)
Yeah.

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (38:22)
that avenue. You know, or even support. Yeah.

Nate Wheeler (38:25)
We’re trying to like that a lot, by the way. You wouldn’t believe how many OEMs out there make the equipment. And it’s like, why don’t you also do some of the contract work? You know, I understand that sometimes there’s a conflict of interest, you you don’t want to compete with your customers, etc., etc. You know, in your case, the applications are so diverse, I don’t think that that’s too much of a concern. But I think it’s really smart to think about it from the contract side as well as from the product side. Yep. Hmm.

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (38:54)
Yeah, yeah. that’s, you know, we’ve, we’ve got some higher end low volume contracts already that we do, but we, think that we’re at the point where, let’s, let’s exploit that opportunity. You know, so that, and then, continuing to build a core team, we’ve got a pretty young team here with a couple, older guys in, kind of teaching the young crew. So I just, I need to add more to my team and, know, I’d like to just strengthen that. We’re currently hiring. So we’ve got a couple of positions open, you know, so check out our website or check out our LinkedIn. You’ll see them there if anyone’s

Nate Wheeler (39:31)
Yeah.

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (39:31)
listening.

Nate Wheeler (39:32)
Yeah, absolutely. Just real quick, can you list off a couple of positions that you’re looking to fill?

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (39:40)
Yeah, technical sales and also a machinist technician, a machine assembly personnel. You know, we’re growing, we’ve got capacity. So, you know, we’re looking to grow the sales and we’re looking to have the sales support more work in the backside, you know. I’d say those are the two most

Nate Wheeler (39:59)
Yep. Yeah, absolutely.

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (40:01)
important positions.

Nate Wheeler (40:04)
Okay, perfect. Well, hey, this was super informative. Really love what you’re doing with the company. I really love what you’re doing with automation. You know, also focusing on both the contract work as well as the product, which a lot of manufacturers, by the way, need to think about it the opposite way. They’re doing all the contract work. You guys have the machines. Why not sell a high margin product? All you need is an idea. So that’s something that I preach about quite a bit as well.

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (40:33)
Hehehe.

Nate Wheeler (40:34)
But yeah, I think it was a great conversation. Really enjoyed having you on.

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (40:38)
Yeah, I appreciate it. One thing I did want to mention, we do a lot of workshops and seminars at our facility. You know, we’ve got a pretty cool showroom, bunch of parts behind me. We’ve got an awesome lab that you can get in hands on in the workshop. You know, I’d love to have you up or any

Nate Wheeler (40:55)
That.

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (40:56)
of your other colleagues. Our next one is in March, but, you know, for the purposes of Rhode Island, we also do a couple in the summer. So maybe you target that. We do a special secret offsite event as well. So plan on staying the night. We have a good time and we learn a lot, you know.

Nate Wheeler (41:07)
Okay. Yeah. Well, I’d love that. Yeah, I would absolutely love that. I’m sure I get to meet some some new people. How many how many companies do you usually participate in that? Okay.

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (41:27)
Usually we have anywhere from like 8 to 20 people on a given and it’s usually just a half day in the classroom, half day in the lab and then a late afternoon event with a dinner.

Nate Wheeler (41:42)
That’s awesome. Good. Well, hey, I have some really interesting things I want to chat with you offline which we’re building out an exclusive platform that’s kind of an extension of manufacturing insiders. It’s kind like the manufacturing insiders insiders. That’s not what calling it. At any rate.

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (42:01)
Creative.

Nate Wheeler (42:01)
So, yeah, so we’re actually going to include some of the, you know, connections, what are you looking for, things like that on that platform. let’s jump off of here. Thanks a lot for coming on again and look forward to continuing the conversation.

Steve Alviti – Bel Air (42:19)
I appreciate you. Thanks.