At Motobilt, every bumper, skid plate, and piece of armor we build starts the same way... steel goes on the laser table, gets cut, then moves to the press brake for forming. If either of those machines isn't performing, nothing else in the shop matters. That's the lesson we learned the hard way, and it's why we made one of the biggest equipment investments in our company's history last year.
The Problem We Were Facing
Our press brakes had become the single biggest bottleneck in our shop. Angles weren't holding. Operators were chasing correct bends for hours on parts that should have taken minutes. It didn't matter how many service calls we made or how many maintenance appointments we scheduled, we could not get consistent, accurate bends.
When you're running a shop with 55-60 employees and orders to fill, that kind of downtime doesn't just slow things down. It creates a ripple effect. Late parts mean late shipments. Late shipments mean a customer's Jeep is sitting in the garage waiting on a bumper that should have been there days ago. That's not who we are, and it's not the standard we hold ourselves to.
Our laser was still functioning at that point, but here's the thing most people outside of manufacturing don't realize; the laser and the press brakes are a package deal. We program them together. The cut profiles on the laser are designed around the forming capabilities of the press brake. If one side of that equation isn't right, the whole workflow suffers. We knew we had to go in a completely different direction with both.
Shopping for Over a Year
We didn't rush this decision. Dan and I spent over a year evaluating major equipment manufacturers, visiting showrooms, talking to other shop owners, and comparing what was out there.
The specs matter, and obviously you need the right tonnage, table size, and wattage for your work. But the single most important thing we were looking for was customer service and response time.
We've been in manufacturing long enough to know that machines will fail. Parts wear out. Things break. That's just the reality of running equipment hard in a production environment. The question isn't whether you'll have a problem, it's what happens when you do. How fast does someone pick up the phone? How quickly can they get a technician or a part to your shop? Do they actually care, or are you just a ticket number?
What Sold Us on Mitsubishi
Dan and I visited the Mitsubishi showroom and technology center in Chicago, and one detail stuck with both of us more than any spec sheet or sales pitch ever could.
In the middle of their office area, there's a large screen displaying every open customer service call in real time. It shows the problem, how long the customer has been waiting, and who on their team is responsible for resolving it. Every employee walking through that space sees it. Every single day.
That's accountability. Not a promise on a brochure, an actual, visible, built into the culture accountability. That told us more about how they operate than anything else we saw that day.
What We Bought
We went all in. A Mitsubishi 12kW GX-F Fiber Laser with a 60" x 120" table, full automation, and material tower. Three Mitsubishi press brakes: a 60-ton, a 135-ton, and a 252-ton.
The 252-ton press brake has a feature that our operators love; a projector system that displays bend information directly onto the work surface so the operator can see exactly what they're doing, especially when handling larger parts. No more guessing, no more chasing angles. The part comes off the brake correct the first time.
Proof It Was the Right Call
Just last week, we had a part get damaged on our laser. Before 8 AM that morning, we were on the phone with the Mitsubishi service team. They didn't put us on hold. They didn't open a ticket and tell us someone would get back to us in 48 hours. They immediately started working the problem, and when they realized the replacement parts were too large to ship LTL, they scheduled a hotshot truck from Chicago to get them to us as fast as possible.
That's the difference. That's what you're paying for when you invest in quality equipment from a company that actually stands behind it.
What This Means If You're a Motobilt Customer
You might be wondering why you should care about what equipment we run. Here's why: the precision of your bumper, the consistency of every bend, the fit when you bolt it to your Jeep and all of that starts with these machines. When our laser cuts cleaner and our press brakes bend accurately every single time, you get a better product. When our machines run and don't sit idle waiting on a service call, your order ships on time.
We didn't make this investment to have the shiniest machines in the shop. We made it because our customers deserve parts that fit right, show up on time, and hold up on the trail.
A Note to Other Shop Owners
I see the questions constantly in manufacturing groups and forums, "What laser should I buy, what press brake brand is best, can I get away with a cheaper machine?" I get it. The price difference between budget equipment and a Mitsubishi is significant and impossible to ignore on a spreadsheet.
But here's what doesn't show up on that spreadsheet: the cost of your laser going down for a week with no support. The cost of operators spending hours chasing angles that should take minutes. The cost of shipping late and having a customer post about it online. The cost of your reputation.
Buy once, cry once. If I could give you advice for your next laser and/or press brake purchase it would be this: The price of Mitsubishi laser was more than Chinese import lasers, but you're paying for service, reliability and a relationship.
You can't afford for your equipment to let you down and not have a team behind you that moves fast to fix it. We learned that the hard way so you don't have to.
- Hunter DuBose
