I’m your host, Katherine Seymour. This episode is brought to you by MacRAE’S, trusted by North American businesses for over 100 years. As a leader in B2B digital marketing, we help industrial and manufacturing companies struggling with stagnant growth and lead generation by leveraging advanced AI integration and automation
In our SEO and lead generation programs, we help you appear more prominently in search and in AI results, such as chat GPT. This significantly drives more qualified leads to websites resulting in stronger lead flow and increased revenue, crucial in today’s highly competitive digital landscape. Learn more at mcraze.com today. Today I’m joined by Daniel Alford,
President and founder of Arc Specialties. Arc Specialties is a global leader in industrial automation, delivering custom robotic systems and turnkey solutions for welding, machining, and material handling. With a deep focus on precision engineering and innovation, Arc serves a wide range of industries, helping manufacturers solve complex challenges through events, automation, and robotics. What sets the company apart is not just their cutting edge technology,
but their ability to build systems tailored uniquely to their clients’ needs. Danielle, welcome. We’re so excited for you to join us today.
Thanks for having me on.
Thank you so much. Daniel, let’s start with Arc Specialties’ origin story. What inspired you to start the company and what was the vision in the early days?
On the very beginning, was my dad that inspired me. He was an English professor, but then ultimately he was an entrepreneur. And if you have one in the family, that usually indicates that there might be another. And so he inspired me. He showed me that it was possible. And so I had a great job back in 1983 when I filed the DBA, which is doing business, assumed name for this little company. But I had extra energy in the evenings and I wanted to do something more.
I started working and building machines and welding stuff in my garage. So what was the motivation? ⁓ Probably ADHD.
Yeah, and obviously something to keep you busy for sure. That’s amazing.
It went on and on, you know, and I’ve been doing robotics the whole time since 79. ⁓
Hmm
I was early in the game just because I was a computer geek who liked to do industrial processes. You combine computer geek with processes, you get a roboticist, at least you did back in the early 80s. Now it’s more of a formal set of training. They call it mechatronics or robotics, whatever you’d like. But in the early days, I had a unique and odd combination of skills and it worked out. And so around 90, I went full-time. So for the first seven years, it was part-time deal. But even during the first seven years, I was doing a
of fun projects. There’s a, you know, I did a hot tap at a nuclear plant. I built a wheel welding machine, know, a whole lot of stuff for the first seven years. But then ultimately I was working for a company and I didn’t approve of their ethics and so when I wanted to quit because of the ethical issues, the obvious solution was just to go full-time with Arc Specialties and that was 1990 and I haven’t looked back.
Amazing. Your leadership style and the company’s philosophy seem to revolve around innovation, customization, and precision. How have these values shaped your team culture and customer relationships?
⁓ I think I’ve got a bunch of guys like me and I can’t say that anymore. We just hired our first female engineer. but the.
They all like new challenges and to varying degrees. so we’ll go out there and somebody will ask us, how do you make titanium bulletproof or something crazy like that? Or how do you weld pure tungsten or how do you weld molyranium? so the guys, they’re like me, they go, that sounds interesting. Let’s go in the lab and we’ll play. And so that kind of permeates the whole company. So they’re always looking for new tasks. And the reality is,
Right.
you that’s all well and good but you need some standard products but in order to get standard products you have to start with that one off and for example yeah so for example the ⁓ the cladding we do we we reach into valves and we coat the inner surfaces of valves for h2s sours sours service in the oil field and that started with one one job because we were intrigued with how to create a simple programming technique for cladding all these intersecting bores and normally you each each
right.
Each stop and start on a weld is a line of code and we simplified it so you only have four lines of code to generate hundreds of stops and starts. So that’s how it started. It was an intellectual challenge, it was a math problem, it was a lot of fun, and now it’s 800 machines running all over the world.
Wow, that’s amazing. For those who are unfamiliar, can you walk us through what Arc Specialties does and the types of systems you design and build and who typically comes to you for help?
Fortunately for us, everybody does. So we’re diverse. So right now, if you wish you were here, I’d take you out in the shop. We’re building some robots ⁓ with eight axes of motion. That’s, you know, like six is normal. But this is for working on… ⁓
for the Navy. So we’ve got a lot of defense work going on, you because right now there’s a huge push to upgrade our ship building. So guess what? Robots are the way. If we take you over to another part of the project, another part of the shop, we’re putting robots on drill ships. So normally a robot, bolt it to the floor in a factory, right? And it does something for its whole life and then you throw it away. But,
Uh-uh.
Right.
Mm-hmm.
they’re getting to be, robots are getting to be so versatile and powerful that ⁓ we decided we would move them out of the factory and move them to the problem, you know? And so in this case, we’re doing something called running riser, which is assembling the tubing that goes from the drill ship down two miles to bottom of the ocean. And it is by definition a perfect robot job because it’s dull, dirty and dangerous.
Yeah.
And so we’ve got two robots, actually on three drill ships as I speak, we’ve got robots out there running riser and getting people out of harm’s way. This is a job that nobody on the rig complained about us taking away from people because it was, it’s truly a tough, horrible, dangerous job. People have been severely injured.
Yeah…
And then you walk through we’ve done everything from plutonium to potato skins. So, you we just got to get the word out right, you know, and so people will bring us problems and It could be trivial. It could be significant. And so we’ll either tell them yes, we have a solution No, that’s not technologically problem possible, but we’ll call you when it is and Or it will be door number three, which is we don’t know and if it if we don’t know we got a
Wait. ⁓
Yeah.
laboratory next door. We go in the lab and we play and we experiment and ⁓ if it works then we quote a project to the end user and if it doesn’t work we just don’t talk about it.
You know, but that’s how these projects start. then any industry in the world. We’re in 33 countries. in every industry I can think of, all the way from food to defense. But it sounds like it’s a huge variety. It’s not. What it is is motion control in a process. You know, the difference between robotic machining of steel and robotic machining of human knees?
Right.
Actually, I don’t, that would be…
Knees are softer and easier to cut.
For sure. Absolutely. So from your perspective, what are some of the biggest pain points manufacturers are facing today? And how does Arc address them? I know you mentioned that you work with any industry who has a problem, and your team is so excited to see if they can find a solution. So what are those pain points you normally see? ⁓
⁓ well.
You know, and I can, I can talk to you from both perspectives because we’re vertically integrated. We build everything here, right? Right. At our specialty. So we are a manufacturer. So hopefully that makes us a little more sympathetic to our customers. Yeah. Cause we’re no better. Right. And so I’ve got robots out there building robots. They’re starting to reproduce. that might worry you. But, ⁓ what’s so why are people, what drives people to automation? I’m going to, I’m going to rephrase your question a little bit. ⁓ it’s either labor, ⁓ cost or.
You ready?
You
Yeah.
Or in some cases, humans just aren’t as good at some things as machines. Fortunately for us, there’s still a place in world for people. for example, you wouldn’t want the lenses of your glasses to be made by hand. It simply requires a greater level of precision than a human can do.
Mm-hmm.
maybe there’s exceptions, but you want them mass produced with absolute precision by a machine. So people come to us because, you know, humans don’t have the ability or they have labor problems or I had one interesting one where they didn’t want to lay people off. They were in a very cyclical business, but they were willing to turn the robots off when business was down, but they didn’t want to lay the people off. I thought that that was kind of cool. And, ⁓
Yeah.
So, but, right now everybody’s talking about reshoring, onshoring, that kind of thing. And yet a robot is nothing but a labor saving device. It’s no different than a washing machine or a tractor or anything else. ⁓ They’re not taking jobs. They’re actually keeping jobs here because if you want to compete in a global market, because welcome to the modern world, you know, it is a global market. The only way you can compete with the, with a, a low labor cost country is
Right.
with automation.
Makes sense.
Yeah, and so it’s essential. a lot of people are trying to reshore and automate right now for that reason. But I’m going to I’m going to worry you a little bit. I’ve been putting machines in all over the world, like said, 33 countries. And I remember 20 years ago, I put a machine in China and I asked the guys, I said, why did you buy this machine? Because it was half a million bucks. And back then you could have a welder for $50 a month. How many months is that? You know, that’s and they said, we cannot compete with manually manufactured
Yeah.
Right.
and I thought they’d get it.
Yeah,
absolutely, absolutely. With the increasing demand for automation across sectors, how have you seen client expectations and technology requirements kind of shift over the years?
people don’t know what is possible and what isn’t. And to someone that’s not familiar with any given industry, it’s all magic to them anyway. And so I think some of the expectations are a little bit…
May.
too big. And so what I like to do, you know, people come to us and they say, hey, fix this problem. go, you know, maybe, but, you know, maybe that’s not the best first project for your company. And so my favorite example of down south of Houston here, we went to a place called easy line, they make the pipe racks. I don’t know if you ever been in a Kim plant, but there’s thousands of these things holding up the pipes all over the place. So they’re huge quantities, right. And the guy he said, man, I want to I want to get rid of my welders. They’re they’re probably
Right?
Right.
them
children and and a lot of defects and I go well that’s good but I said you know I’m here I’m gonna do what I call a map manufacturing automation audit program which means I walk from their receiving dock all the way through their manufacturing to their shipping dock and I just look for opportunities where robots will work and will work easily you know you don’t want to do the hard jobs you want to do the easy jobs
Right,
right.
And I barely
got into the plant. And the first thing I saw was this old template tracer that used a magnet and it’s a long story. And I said, Smithsonian wants this. And sure enough, what’s the old saying? Garbage in, garbage out. We sold them a robotic plasma cutting machine. And guess what? All of their welding problems went away. They didn’t have welding problems. They had part problems.
Late.
So they were, if left to their own devices, they would have fixed the wrong problem. And it might’ve worked, but the problem with bad parts is you have to have a more sophisticated welding robot because it has to have adaptive control. That means it has to compensate for the crappy parts that you put into the system. So we sold them the plasma cutting robot. Their, their, their welding problems went away. He didn’t, he didn’t run off his welders. That’s good. And, ⁓ and then he bought a second robot.
Amazing.
another cutting robot. So I’ve yet to sell him a welding robot. So that I think that’s the problem I get with customers is they look at their biggest problem. They go, that’s what I want to automate. I go, maybe not. Might not be.
Yes.
Might not be the case, yeah.
or it might not be practical or it might be harder than they really want. And so I recommend if you want to automate, you should talk to an automation guy, gal. That’s right. And then figure out if your expectations exceed current level of technology. Like I said, people ask us something, go, ⁓ technology is not there yet. But it’s so much fun when we call them back years later and go, we’re ready.
We
can do it for sure, absolutely. Custom automation comes with its own complexities. How does your team approach balancing innovation and reliability with repeatability?
Yeah
They try to do a good job. mean, you’re absolutely right. So by definition, a prototype probably isn’t as good as something that’s been refined over a few years. But, and I’d love to not sell you a prototype, but if you’re trying to do something that’s never been done before, sorry. You you’re the first, you know, you’re going to be the first kid on the block to have a, you know, a widget welding machine. And, and, and in my guy’s defense, I got to say, we do a pretty good job, you know,
Yeah.
But what’s fun, like ⁓ we do the sand screen machine for filtering sand out of oil wells. We built 30 of them. No two of them are alive. Okay, so is that bad or good? You at some point you’re supposed to kill the engineer, right? But my guys are good enough that without exception, they always make small incremental improvements. And I don’t discourage that. And my customer’s experience would indicate they’re doing it right.
Right.
You know, so yeah, we’re supposed to like, you know, kill the engineer, lock the design, but you know, every time we build one, we go like.
There’s always room for improvement and always room for evolution, for sure.
And
now they get to be more more subtle. And that’s a good thing. But ⁓ I don’t discourage that. so I guess to answer your question, you just have to be good at making prototypes.
Make sense? Make sense. Let’s talk growth. How does Arc typically generate new business? Through referrals, trade shows, a digital outreach or other channels.
Yes. And so all the above. guess, yeah. And for you marketing guys, you’re not going to like this answer, but you know, ⁓ the best way for us to find a new customer is an old customer. It’s word of mouth. Yeah.
I’ll leave.
For sure. And
that is like, it is powerful. Human connection and ⁓ referrals in terms of actually having that client say, no, these guys are amazing. They fixed my problem is extremely powerful, for sure.
Yeah, you can’t beat it, but we only know so many people.
I can’t really tell you which of the three is best now, but we do a whole lot on social media and I think that’s very effective. It’s surprising how effective it is. You know, we’ll make a post. There’ll be 10,000 people looking at it. And then same thing on YouTube. So we’ll post a bunch of stuff on YouTube. And I’m really flattered. ⁓ Some of the colleges will take our videos and the profs will tell me they use our videos to teach the kids advanced welding. ⁓
Mm-hmm.
That’s cool. That’s cool.
It’s such an honor. But you know, that also makes us credible as experts, right? And so, you YouTube, social media. And then I remember during COVID, everybody was saying, this is the nail in the coffin of trade shows. I go, don’t know. And I don’t know what your experience is, but trade shows are bigger than ever.
Mm-hmm.
They are a lot of our ⁓ because as you know, a lot of our our niche is that B2B manufacturing and industrial companies, they’re all doing trade shows and they’re all having a great time and the human connection for sure.
Well, we had to buy a $2 million milling machine. To us, that’s a lot of money. OK. And so in order to do that, I sent a couple of the engineers up to Chicago for the International Machine Tools Show, IMTS. And I said, focus on the problem. And it was great. They didn’t have any phones to answer. They were there to see all the different possible options on a bridge milling machine, bridge mill machines. And
They got to talk to the people they’re going to be working with. They got to kind of like look under the covers and see how stuff was built. And for a small company like us, a $2 million investment is like serious. And so it was absolutely the right way to pick out that machine. And I don’t think we’re unique. I think other people are on the same page.
Yeah.
For sure, for sure. ⁓
And our last one,
I got to tell you the last one of course is a website and we got a guy, he’s great and he really has made the website valuable and that’s working too.
Amazing, amazing. Many engineer-driven companies are still navigating digital transformation. What’s your experience with digital marketing, your website, and lead generation through online platforms?
You better embrace it because that’s reality. ⁓ But the good news is it’s relatively cheap. Anybody can put up a website. ⁓ Anybody can post on LinkedIn and YouTube. ⁓ So the bang for the buck is tremendous. ⁓ And what I tell people is you don’t have to be perfect. You just got to put something out there. Because if you don’t put anything out there,
Right.
no one’s going to see it. Now we’ll put stuff out there and you know we’re flawed humans and and in spite of that people watch it and that that creates leads that creates opportunities so everybody’s got to embrace them if you don’t uh you’re gonna lose.
If you can wave a magic wand and instantly optimize one area of your sales and marketing funnel, what would it be? Would it be more brand awareness, better qualified leads, stronger nurturing, or something else?
Better qualified leads, but how are you going to do that? know, that’s a rough gig. like, you know, the customers are asking for the wrong things at times. And, and so they asked for something that’s not feasible. Man, that’s a tough one. I wish our hit rate was better. You know, how do you do that? That, uh,
I don’t know, you know, our motto is we thrive on problems, send us yours. And that’s literally what we need. We need people to think of us as a resource. So how do you do that? We’re trying.
From what I’ve seen, your team is a key driver in Arc’s innovation. How do you foster that culture that attracts and retains technical talent while pushing boundaries of what’s possible?
Well, I like people and I like hiring people and I like creating jobs and a lot of people seem to like that. so, ⁓ you know, without my people, I’m nothing, you know, it’s nothing but an old building with old machines. Right. And so that’s everything. So it’s all about employee retention. So how do I do that? Well, there is no one way to do that. You know, I wish there was. If there was a magic bullet that would simplify my life. But some people like the Binnie’s, some people like, you know, we give away stock. Some people like ⁓
⁓ Just the working environment, know, like sours and such. ⁓
Yeah.
And so it’s interesting, my, the, gal that’s my, does HR with me, Emily, she and I, we brainstorm on ideas like, you know, let’s think of something that people might get a kick out. our latest one is a tool bonus. so whatever tool you want, ⁓ we’ll pay for half of it. And that, that, that includes everybody. so engineers too, they might want to, you know, they might want a set of calipers or something, you know, so they, and some people they’re just tickled to death with that. Others, couldn’t care less. And that’s fine.
Yeah.
fine.
And then we do, you know, get a Rolex after 10 years. Some people couldn’t care less and some people really like having a Rolex. So it’s all about creating jobs, creating an environment where people want to work and, and, and continuity because right now you can call in and want to talk about a machine that was built 15 years ago. Well, probably that project manager still works here. That’s a huge.
Yeah, and that’s amazing.
That is huge. Can you share a recent project or customer success story that reflects Arc’s impact? One that highlights the expertise and value your team brings to the table?
The one I mentioned earlier, we’re putting robots on drill ships. I like it because, you know, it’s radical. Nobody, nobody puts robots on ships, much less drilling ship. And, and it’s, and it was very, very stressful, you know, because currently to operate a drill ship is well over a million a day. Okay. So you don’t want to be that guy that shut down the drill ship. And so
Yeah.
Yeah, it’s true.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
just to show you how serious they are on drill ships, we, it’s two robots working together cooperating, but there’s a third robot and he just sits on the deck waiting. He’s on the bench, you know, like put me in charge. He’s, he’s never gotten to go and work, you know, but, but that just, no industry other than the oil industry could.
could tolerate the expense of one extra robot for every two. And so very stressful. We’ve lost a lot of sleep, but it’s working. And it works so well that we’ve got ⁓ three triples, three triplets of robots on drill ships.
Yeah.
just sold a fourth one to Brazil. But this could have still been a one trick pony, right? Because how many places can you put a robot on a drill ship? Well, we’ve already got two other jobs doing other stuff. And so I was really proud of the guys. They took it and ran with it. ⁓
Mm-hmm.
So many hurdles on that one. For example, even the standard connectors on a robot will not withstand constant splashing of seawater. So we’re having to up-
Yeah, salt everything, yeah.
Yeah, so we’re upgrading the robots and then everybody that goes to the drill ship has to get helicopter crash training. So five of my guys, we put them in a helicopter, we flipped it upside down underwater. And if you could unbuckle and swim out, you passed. And so far all of them have passed, which that’s encouraging. But it just it was just radicals because
Now, love.
It’s a non-standard environment. All the parts are completely random in positioning, a lot of sensing. And then when you’re disassembling this, this is after it’s been on the bottom of an ocean for quite a while. So normally in a factory, you don’t have to deal with the presence or absence of barnacles. But in this case,
Yes. ⁓
In this
case you do. So the guys did a killer job. I’m so proud of them. And that was a great one. So what relevance does that have to any of your listeners today? Everything. What I’m telling you is…
Don’t, I want you to think outside of the box. Robots are nothing but a precise motion control device. Back in the old days, they could go to position. Now they can go to force. You know, there’s a lot of new technology that has evolved in the robotics industry. So I’m looking forward to more of these projects where we’re doing non-standard stuff and getting people out of harm’s way.
Bye.
For sure, and it’s a testament to you and the Arc team to take on those challenges and think outside of the box and build something brand new. It’s amazing. What’s next for Arc? Are there new markets, technologies, or strategies that you’re hoping for or excited to see?
Well, you know, I’m in Texas, right? And I’m in Houston. That’s the oil field. And a lot of my friends that are entrepreneurs down here, that’s what they do. They do oil, oil, and more oil. And that’s a problem. So ⁓ me, I like to eat. I like to stay busy. And so we do this through diversification. We automate all sorts of processes, everything from
picking place to welding, to machining. We work in all sorts of industries, you know, and that way we can take a piece of technology from one industry, apply it to another, makes us look smart. But in reality, it’s something we’ve done somewhere else. And the third thing is…
Yeah.
geography. We’re diverse in geography. I’m in 33 countries. So if you get these three levels of diversity, then you’ll probably have some work, you know, because not everything follows the same cycle. you know, some of these industries or some of these countries, some of these technologies are countercyclical. And for us, it’s working. But it’s interesting. I was at a conference, a robot conference not too long ago, and they’re talking to the integrators. That’s what ARC is, is a robot integrator. And it was one of the manufacturers.
telling the integrators you need to specialize and so I was thinking like I think I’m doing this wrong but you know we’ve been doing it for 43 years so must be doing something right so what’s in the future I’m getting back to your question you gotta be patient is overseas for example right now who what country is buying over half the robots purchased every year that’s a question yes
Right.
I don’t know. ⁓ makes sense. Yeah, makes a lot.
China. China. So they are embracing
this. And so I look at that and I go like, that means half of my robots should be going to China. Well, they’re not. And so I’m looking at ⁓ a market that is underserved, at least by our specialty. So ⁓ that’s what I’m going to push is ⁓
Yeah. ⁓
is that level diversity. We’re already very diverse on processes, very diverse industries, but I want to do more overseas work. I believe in a global economy. I also believe that if I create a machine, it creates jobs in some country.
Yeah.
That improves people’s lives and it also leads to a more peaceful world. If everybody’s got to go to work, you know, then I think the world’s more peaceful. That might be naive, but that’s my philosophy. that’s what’s in the near future is more ⁓ exports.
Yeah.
Makes sense, makes sense. Daniel, thank you so much for joining us today and sharing your story, insights, and perspective. Your commitment to problem solving world problems through custom automation and advanced robotics is really inspiring. And I know our listeners will definitely love hearing your story as well. Thanks again for being here. And to everybody listening, we’ll see you on the next episode of Growth Challenges for Manufacturers.
Thanks for having me on.
This blog post is based on an interview with Daniel Allford, President and Founder of Arc Specialties, conducted by Katherine Seymour for MacRAE'S Growth Challenges for Manufacturers podcast.
In the world of industrial automation, few companies can claim to have worked on projects ranging "from plutonium to potato skins." Arc Specialties, founded by Daniel Allford in 1983, is one of those rare companies that thrives on solving the impossible—and has built a global empire doing exactly that.
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