An Anaheim-based company that makes precision software used in the production of commercial rockets and military drones has more than tripled its space with a new headquarters.
Verisurf Software Inc. recently moved into a 17,000-square-foot, two-story building near the 90 and 91 freeways to meet rising demand and put together what it calls the industry’s first large-scale metrology training center. Metrology is the science of measurement, and Verisurf software is used by automotive, biomedical and aerospace manufacturers to inspect machine parts, assemble aircraft and reverse-engineer components on older planes designed before the advent of three-dimensional modeling.
Equipment
The company has had a recent growth spurt, fueled by an industry push for portable inspection equipment to streamline production and improve quality control.
Such equipment allows the inspection of parts and components in 3D before and during the manufacturing process.
“We’re bringing the inspection to the parts rather than taking all the parts to inspection,” said David Olson, Verisurf’s director of sales and marketing.
The company’s software, which is licensed to companies, can check the dimensional accuracy of parts while they’re being made, help assemble them while measuring positioning, and reverse-engineer pre-manufactured parts and assemblies.
“These are all nice growth markets,” Olson said.
The company has grown revenue at about a 25% clip annually in recent years. It expects to see about $8 million in 2012 sales.
Verisurf employs 22 people in Anaheim, where the software is written and made and six elsewhere in sales and technical support.
Customers
It counts more than 500 customers including Chicago-based Boeing Co., General Atomics in San Diego, Torrance-based Toyota Motor Sales USA Inc. and European Aeronautic Defense and Space Co. N.V., the Netherlands-based parent of Airbus.
The company’s software has been used by Hawthorne-based Space Exploration Tech-nologies Corp. to measure parts and tooling for the company’s Falcon 9 rocket launch and Dragon spacecraft orbital flight.
SpaceX, founded by Tesla Motors Inc. Chief Executive Elon Musk, was awarded $3.5 billion in contracts by NASA to deliver cargo to the International Space Station through 2016.
General Atomics us-es the software for its unmanned Predator aircraft and Lockheed Martin Corp. in Beth-esda, Md., has used it for the F-35 series of fighter jets, Olson said.
“We have a very strong customer base,” he said.
Verisurf hopes to extend that roster internationally.
It began a global expansion effort through resellers about two years ago. International revenue is growing an estimated 10% annually and accounts for about 30% of total revenue.
The company hopes to eventually get 40% of its revenue through domestic sales, 30% through Europe and 30% in Asia-Pacific markets.
Training Center
Verisurf hopes its planned training center—where it will educate skilled workers and measure large parts and assemblies such as aircraft wing, fuselage, tail and rudder sections—will spur software sales.
“It’s going to create a work force for our customers, which results in more software sales,” Olson said. “They don’t have the trained personnel. It’s not something you can learn by going to college.”
Verisurf in the second company to announce plans for a manufacturing training center for customers.
Sweden-based metalworking tools maker Sandvik Coromant last month opened a training center in Cypress for manufacturers and students here.
Sandvik Coromant is a subsidiary of Sweden-based Sandvik AB, an engineering group with business in more than 130 countries and about $14 billion in annual revenue.
Sandvik Coromant is part of its parent company’s Machining Solutions division, which had about $4.2 billion in sales and more than $958 million in profit last year. Sandvik Coromant itself employs 8,000 workers worldwide, and serves customers in the metalworking field, which includes the automotive and aerospace industries, the die and mold industry, and various engineering firms.
The training center in Cypress—dubbed the Sandvik Coromant Productivity Center—arrives as the manufacturing industry is seeing a pickup in work but facing a shortage of skilled workers.
Jobs
Estimates suggest up to 600,000 potential manufacturing jobs in the U.S. are unfilled. The number of job openings in Orange County’s manufacturing sector, which totals about 150,000 workers, is difficult to determine, though recent trends indicate a demand for labor.
The job openings have grown in large part because of increasing amounts of work coming back to the U.S. from overseas, where cost advantages that once drew many companies have shrunk in recent years. The trend has brought to light a shortage of skilled employees, as well as educational programs for manufacturing jobs.
—Jane Yu contributed to this story.
