BIG KAISER Celebrates 25 Years

BIG KAISER Precision Tooling Inc. (Hoffman Estates, IL) is proud to celebrate 25 years of North American operations in 2015. Incorporated in the spring of 1990 under the name Kaiser Precision Tooling (KPT), the subsidiary of Switzerland-based Heinz Kaiser AG provided the North American market better access to products and more complete engineering solutions from a worldwide leader in development and manufacturing of precision boring tools and modular boring systems.

KPT officially opened its doors on August 1, 1990, in Elk Grove Village, IL and vowed to stay true to three core principles: quality, innovation and performance. These engineering-focused values have forged a trust in the marketplace and strong relationships that have enabled the supplier to double in size many times over.

“We set out to be driven first by our engineering capabilities,” recalls Jack Burley, the vice president of sales and engineering who has been with the company from the beginning. “We had an expression, ‘give us your toughest boring problem.’ We’ve always believed if we can’t solve it, there probably isn’t anyone else who can. This kind of cooperation has allowed us to relate to customers as peers for the long term, not just as opportunistic, looking to make a quick sale and run.”

Daily orders have gone from the teens to 150-plus in the 25 years. The engineering team is larger by more than ten times, and available parts that numbered around 2,000 in 1990 now exceed 20,000. A major catalyst of that growth came in 2003 when KPT formed an alliance with BIG Daishowa Seiki, a Japanese manufacturer recognized as a worldwide leader in tool holders, cutting tools and measuring accessories.

Acknowledging the importance of the alliance, KPT changed its name to BIG Kaiser Precision Tooling Inc. The partnership dramatically enhanced BIG Kaiser’s product offering, allowing the supplier to serve customers more comprehensively. It also injected a global outlook and reach to the company’s vision all while maintaining production and development of two-thirds of the company’s components in the U.S.

Perhaps no more significant a sign of BIG Kaiser’s commitment to servicing local customers and technology came in 2009 with their move to a new 33,000 sq ft facility in Hoffman Estates. Nearly three times larger than their previous headquarters, the location made room for a growing team and features a state-of-the-art showroom, high-tech training auditorium, larger shipping warehouse space, as well as a repair center to save customers time and money instead of sending tools overseas.

Regardless of how fast or how large this company grows, how they get there will not change. “Quality, innovation and performance — it’s always been about that,” says BIG Kaiser president and chief executive officer Chris Kaiser. “That’s gotten us to where we are today and it will not change. Whether it’s when we walk in to the office tomorrow or we’re looking towards the next 25 years, we’re not going to stray away from those things.”

The company is a leader in high precision tooling systems and solutions, with brands including BIG Daishowa, KAISER, Speroni, Unilock, Sphinx and more that focus on extreme accuracy and repeatability under the mission to support North American manufacturers with products that are designed and manufactured to a superior standard. Guaranteed.

bigkaiser@bigkaiser.com, www.bigkaiser.com