The Only Truly American

Coordinate Measuring Machine Manufacturer

Helmel Engineering Products, Inc. is located at 6520 Lockport Road in the Town of Niagara, just outside of Niagara Falls and a few miles from the Canadian border.  This location has strategic advantages since the three important industrial cities of Rochester, Buffalo and Toronto can be reached within 1 1/2 hours.  The airports of Toronto and Buffalo provide easy access to any airport in North America and Europe, important for sales and service.  The thruway entrance is only two miles away.

Helmel Engineering is engaged in the design, manufacture, sales and service of coordinate measuring machines (CMMs) and related software.  They are built mainly for the manufacturing industry in the automotive, aerospace and business machine sector and for tool and die shops, moldmakers, machine and fabricating shops, stamping houses, etc.  Practically anyone having to verify a physical part to dimensions on a blueprint to a high degree of accuracy is a potential customer.  A complete line of Bridge style machines are offered for manual and automatic operation.

Helmel Engineering occupies over 22,000 square feet of manufacturing and office space.  The building sits on 5 acres of industrial property owned by the company.  This facility is air conditioned with the exception of the storage and loading areas.  The extensive machine tool park includes several fair sized machining centers and two large surface grinders with a length capacity of 168".  Surface grinding to a very high degree of straightness is a specialty of Helmel Engineering and probably few, if any, measuring machine manufacturers could match this with the required consistency.  This capability enables Helmel to build intrinsically accurate CMMs.  Most operations to manufacture the above machines are performed in house i.e., milling, turning, drilling, welding, painting, measuring and assembly.  The electronic cabinet, which is part of the motorized machine, is also assembled in house.  Measuring machines are calibrated with a laser before shipment.  Field installations and training are performed by in-house technicians and engineers.  Full employment in this facility is approximately 28.

Specialty Components such as; granite plates, precision bearings, optical measuring systems, computers, digital readouts, motors and controllers that are part of the measuring machine are purchased from reliable vendors.  Helmel Engineering has developed a genuine relationship with most of these vendors; some go back to 1973.

Helmel Engineering participates and has always participated in most of the relevant industrial exhibitions i.e., the IMTS and Quality Expo in Chicago, WESTEC in Los Angeles and several local SME shows. The majority of the sales are accomplished through independent dealerships. Most of these are in the USA, but we also have representation in Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Korea, Australia, Turkey, Israel, India, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong and China. CMM Machines have also been delivered to countries of, Pakistan, Denmark, Sweden and Hungary. The deliveries to China were originally based on Helmel's reputation for reliability.

Background

Helmel Engineering Products, Inc. began as the Helmel Engineering Co. in March of 1973 in Rochester, NY.  It was involved in the design of automatic assembly lines for General Motors and performed general custom machine work for companies such as Kodak and Xerox.

Early in its existence, the Helmel Engineering Co. developed and began manufacture of the Checkmaster Coordinate Measuring Machine. It consistently increased in sales and popularity to the point that it was the only product and service offered by the company.

The Helmel Engineering Co. was incorporated in 1977 as Helmel Engineering Products, Inc. It continued operations in Rochester, NY until January of 1980 when it relocated to its own newly constructed facility in Niagara Falls, NY. The 8,000 square foot building was expanded in 1984. This 10,000 square foot addition included a high-bay area with a crane to handle heavy granite surface plates, enabling the company to build larger measuring machines. The new 4400 square foot office addition was built in 1988. It contains, among other features, a larger Demonstration Room, Training Area and Conference Room.

For the high-end measuring machines, Helmel Engineering had been purchasing the well-known Geomet inspection software system on an OEM basis from Multi-Metrics, Inc., located in Redwood City, California. Towards the end of 1985, Multi-Metrics offered its software division for sale and Helmel Engineering was the successful bidder. In January of 1986 Geomet Systems Division of Helmel Engineering was formed, taking over the development of the software. This allowed Helmel Engineering to expand its business and also diversify by directly entering the retrofit market, namely putting Geomet software on competitive coordinate measuring machines.

The Geomet division was subsequently set up as a California corporation as GEOMET SYSTEMS INC. It was moved to larger quarters in San Carlos, approximately 20 minutes from the San Francisco airport. Here Geomet Systems developed motion control software for computer driven fully automatic coordinate measuring machines.

In 1987 Helmel Engineering developed the Microstar Coordinate Measuring Machine to operate with the above software, incorporating advanced linear brushless motors into the design. The California office of Geomet was closed in 1994 in order to move control of development efforts to corporate headquarters.

A new team was rewriting the time-proven Geomet Software in the visual C++ language with all the additional features of Windows 95/98/NT. A stripped down basic version, Geomet Junior is offered free with the purchase of any manual system in the complete line.

The PcMM , a smaller and reliable DCC measuring machine for the shop floor, was added to the extensive selection of machine sizes in 1992. The small Checkmaster was also motorized in 1998.

The chart below shows the steadiness of Helmel Engineering. In 1973, when Helmel started, there were ten brands of CMM’s marketed in the U.S. of which 8 were domestic and 2 foreign. Meanwhile some measuring machine manufacturers closed their doors and some sold their CMM line or took them off the market. The sale of Brown & Sharpe leaves Helmel as the only original owner in 2001.