Your Frontline Partners in Growth, Sales, and Support

Keith Brown • November 28, 2025

Your Frontline Partners in Growth, Sales, and Support

As we reflect on the continued growth of FactoryLink , one thing is clear: our success is built on people. Not just the tools, technology, or strategies we put in place—but the dedicated network of partners who stand alongside us every day.



Honoring Our FactoryLink Team!

Our regional sales managers, inside sales, marketing and technical support are the boots on/off the ground, the direct connection between our principals and the end users who rely on high-performance solutions. They are not only trusted advisors but also problem solvers—working tirelessly to ensure manufacturers have the right tooling, workholding, metrology, and finishing products in place to keep production efficient and competitive.

Recognizing Our Distributor Network

Distributors play a crucial role in expanding our reach and ensuring product availability where and when it’sneeded. Their commitment to timely service, local inventory, and customer support helps us build confidence with manufacturers throughout the Midwest. We value their partnerships and the many ways they help us bring innovative solutions closer to the shop floor.


Thanking Our End Users

At the heart of everything we do are the manufacturers who trust us with their most critical processes. To everyshop that has turned to us for precision cutting tools, deburring brushes, metrology systems, or advanced workholding—we thank you. Your pursuit of excellence motivates us to keep raising the bar, introducing new technologies, and finding ways to support your growth.


Appreciating Our Principals

Finally, we want to recognize our principals—the manufacturers and innovators who create the products that fuel this ecosystem. Without their commitment to quality, engineering, and continuous improvement, none of this would be possible. It is an honor to represent brands that align with our mission of providing manufacturers with world-class solutions.


Together, We Grow Stronger

To our sales managers, distributors, end users, and principals: you are not just business partners—you are ourfrontline allies in growth, sales, and support. Thank you for your trust, collaboration, and shared commitment to building stronger, smarter, and more efficient manufacturing.

Are Your Height Gages Keeping Up With Your Shop?

By Keith Brown • May 15, 2026
In most job shops, height gages don’t get a lot of attention — until something goes wrong. A part gets through inspection that shouldn’t have. A batch comes back. A customer calls. The reality is that height measurement sits at the center of quality control, and outdated or inconsistent tools create real problems: slower inspections, transcription errors, and dimensional issues that don’t get caught until they’re expensive. INSIZE digital height gages are designed to close that gap — across a range of applications and shop sizes. For shops doing high-precision inspection work, the Series 1155 brings resolution down to 0.5µm with a ceramic base for stability and USB output that sends data directly to Excel — no middleware, no manual logging. For production floor QC, the Series 1150 and 1151 cover ranges from 300mm all the way to 2000mm in stainless steel construction with ABS/INC measurement modes that let operators measure between features directly, without doing the math themselves. Smaller parts or offset surface work? The Series 1146 handles ranges down to 20mm with the same digital accuracy. The common thread across the line is that every unit is built to speed up the inspection process and reduce the room for error — whether that’s catching a bad part before it moves to the next operation, or giving a quality manager clean data for SPC reporting. If your current height gages are slowing your team down or adding steps to your documentation process, it’s worth a closer look at what INSIZE brings to the floor.  Contact us to see how Insize can optimize your quality control

Stop Fighting the Cutoff

By Keith Brown • May 8, 2026
If you’re cutting off parts in a Swiss machine, you already know where things go wrong. Not at the start. Not even mid-cut. At the worst possible moment—right at separation. That’s where everything stacks up: Heat Chip load Tool pressure Coolant dependency And that’s where most setups fall apart. The Problem Isn’t the Insert. It’s Everything Around It. Standard cutoff setups rely on: External coolant lines Slim holders One-point cooling And it works… until it doesn’t. Then you get: Bird’s nests wrapping the part Chips choking the sub-spindle Coolant lines knocked out of position Heat buildup at the tip Dimensional drift mid-run And the worst one: You stop the machine… again… to pull chips off with pliers. The Swiss Cutoff Nightmare (You’ve Seen This) “It’s choked up again.” “Coolant isn’t even hitting the tip anymore.” “Why is the face finish wavy?” “Now I’ve gotta pull the holder just to flip an insert?” On larger Swiss diameters (32mm+), it gets worse. Standard holders flex. Now you’ve got chatter + heat + chip control issues—all at once. multidec®-5000 Fixes the System, Not Just the Tool GenSwiss didn’t just improve the insert. They fixed everything around it. Internal Coolant Plus (IC+) Dual coolant ports: One hits the chip breaker → forces chip curl One hits the cutting edge → controls heat No guessing. No aiming. No drift. Hose-Free Coolant (multidec®-LUBE System) Coolant runs through the block → into the holder → directly to the cut. No external lines. No “coolant dance.” No nozzle knock. Built for Larger Swiss Work This isn’t a light-duty holder. The 5000 series is designed for: 20mm–40mm bar work High torque cutoff Stability under load No “diving board” effect. No flex-induced chatter. Real-World Usability (This Matters More Than Specs) Top AND bottom screw access. Meaning: No pulling the holder No tearing down the gang slide No 10-minute insert changes You swap inserts in-machine in ~30 seconds . What That Means on the Floor Chips break instead of wrapping Coolant always hits the hot zone Stable cutoff on larger diameters No chip nests stopping production No manual cleanup every 10 cycles And most importantly: You stop babysitting the cutoff. The Result Tool life increases (150–200% typical) Machines run longer unattended Cycle times drop with more aggressive feeds Setup time is dramatically reduced Dimensional stability improves across the run This is what “lights out capable” actually looks like.  Bottom Line If your cutoff process depends on: Perfect coolant aim Frequent stops Constant adjustments It’s not stable. multidec®-5000 removes the variables. And once you remove the variables… You get control back. Ask us How the Multidec 5000 can improve your workflow

Stop Setting It Up Twice.

By Keith Brown • May 1, 2026
Keyways shouldn’t be a production bottleneck. But they still are. Not because they’re complicated— because the process around them is. When you need to machine a keyway, slot, or internal feature, the decision often comes down to imperfect options: broaching (if the setup even exists), wire EDM (slow and expensive), running secondary operations on another machine, or sending parts out altogether. What follows is rarely efficient. The workflow breaks. Parts are pulled from the machine, re-fixtured, and re-indicated. Alignment becomes a concern, and with every additional step, you introduce more time, more cost, and more risk. What should have been completed in-cycle turns into a fragmented process. This is the reality many shops face. “We’ll just broach it later.” “That has to go to EDM.” “We don’t have that capability on this machine.” “We lost position when we moved it.” These are common phrases on the shop floor—but they all point to the same issue. A one-operation part becomes a multi-operation problem. The duMONT CNC Motorized Slotter changes that by bringing the operation back into the machine. By converting rotary motion into a controlled vertical reciprocating stroke, it allows CNC lathes and mills with live tooling to perform slotting, keyway cutting, and internal shaping without ever removing the part. What does that actually mean in practice? It means single-setup machining. No part transfers. No re-indicating. No alignment risk. The feature is cut exactly where it belongs, maintaining precision from start to finish. With full CNC control, the stroke is programmable, with controlled depth and feed, delivering consistent, repeatable results without the variability of manual broaching. Because it integrates directly into existing programs and runs on machines with live tooling, there’s no need for dedicated slotting equipment. Tooling flexibility is another advantage. Whether it’s keyways, internal splines, slots, or form features, if it can be cut with a reciprocating tool, it can be completed in-cycle. On the shop floor, the impact is immediate. Secondary operations are eliminated. Outsourcing becomes unnecessary. Fixture changes are reduced. Alignment issues disappear. Instead of building workarounds, shops can complete parts in one setup. The result is measurable: reduced cycle time, improved positional accuracy, lower cost per part, faster turnaround, and increased machine utilization. Most importantly, the entire process stays under your control. Bottom line—if you’re moving parts just to finish internal features, it’s not a tooling problem. It’s a workflow problem. The duMONT CNC Motorized Slotter—and indexable broaching solutions—solve both. Let us show you how duMount Indexable Broaching can speed up your workflow