Tri Tool is the winner in the Advanced Manufacturing category of the Sacramento Region Innovation Awards. TechnipFMC Schilling Robotics is the runner-up.
Christopher Belle saw a company poised for growth in Tri Tool.
The Rancho Cordova-based company was in what Belle called a period of stagnation. It’s one reason why, in May 2020, he opted to change jobs in the middle of a pandemic and become Tri Tool's CEO.
Since then the 49-year-old company has undergone a rebranding, with a new website and logo. The company wanted to show it was still innovating and producing.
“This was a way for us to reintroduce ourselves to our customers,” Belle said. “We are very much an energetic company. We’ve introduced ourselves as a 49-year-old startup. We’re not your father’s tooling company.”
The first product it’s launched since the rebranding is the Tri Tool 300STS — a portable tube-facing machine. Justin Tripp, the company’s vice president of engineering, called it the largest departure in comparison to Tri Tool's other tube-facing tools.
“It’s kind of like two tools in one,” he said.
It’s also why Tri Tool is the Sacramento Region Innovation Award winner in the Advanced Manufacturing category.
The 300STS, about the size of a small clothes iron, is designed to seamlessly cut pipes that can be used, for example, in submarines, aircraft carriers and rocket ships.
Cuts of this nature must be perfect and precise, because after cutting they’ll be welded together. They could be used for a gas or fuel line.
“You can imagine a hydrogen leak coming out of a pipe with a bad weld,” Belle said. “It’s got to be done right.”
The 300STS has also been designed for easier use in tight spaces, where tube-facing tools are often needed. A previous version had a handle — a grip used to feed the machine into a tube — on its side. The 300STS' grip is in the body of the machine, Tripp said.
With the 300STS, Tri Tool has also taken four products, and reduced them to two, Belle added.
“Really, it was consolidating the amount of work to get the job done,” Belle said.
Tripp said the size of these machines has been an issue in this field. The smaller they are, they easier they are to use. The new design also helps with operator fatigue and carpal tunnel problems. Operators no longer have to let go of the grip during a job.
“You have more control and tactile feel for what the machine’s doing,” Tripp said. “It makes all the difference in the world.”
The 300STS provides a higher level of precision, along with more speed and ease. These are key in an industry that Belle said has strong competition, where everyone is trying to go faster.
Belle said customer feedback last year made the company realize the opportunity for a tool like the 300STS. It then took eight to nine months of innovation. It launched in July.
“This is a tool that is anything but old and dirty and slow and oily,” Belle said.
The Essentials
Tri Tool
What it does: Designs high-performance machine tools
CEO: Christopher Belle
Revenue: $25.5 million to date in 2021
Employees: 134, including 88 in the Sacramento region
Headquarters: Rancho Cordova
Runner-up: TechnipFMC Schilling Robotics
Innovation: The Gemini remotely operated vehicle system. Schilling Robotics’ systems perform repair work underwater in situations where human divers can’t be sent. Schilling's remotely operated vehicles perform intricate tasks in deep-sea settings around the world for the oil and gas and renewable energy industries, for military applications and for deepwater research.
Top executive: CEO Douglas J. Pferdehirt
Location: TechnipFMC's headquarters is in Newcastle upon Tyne, England; its Schilling Robotics unit is in Davis
Employees: 20,000 worldwide; 200 in the Sacramento region
Revenue: $13.1 billion
