Taurus International MFG, Inc. Factory Tour

[BigSkiff]

Introduction

A visit to Taurus International in Miami, FL


​On December 14th, 2011 two of the TaurusArmend.net moderators were invited to the Taurus International Mfg., Inc. factory in Miami for a tour of the facility. Airwrench and I volunteered to go. I'm not sure exactly what we were expecting but I can tell you that this plant tour far and away exceeded all expectations of what I was prepared to see. The plant is exceptionally well managed, exceptionally well run, and exceptionally clean. The level of professionalism was stellar from the security guard at the front gate right on up to and including the new President and CEO, Mark Kresser. The type of positive attitude we witnessed doesn't happen overnight and it isn't something you can fake. It was genuine and I for one was impressed by it. We were introduced to the staff, sat in on a Question and Answer meeting with the CEO and Industrial Manager, were given a complete tour of the entire operation from manufacturing, to assembly, to test fire, to shipping, to customer service, warranty repair and warehouse. In every area the professionalism was evident. People were smiling, they worked easily with each other and were not uncomfortable having the company President talking to them and looking over their shoulder.

The pictures and narrative's below tell the story of our trip to Taurus. We wanted to pass this along to our members so that you can see some of what we saw. This forum has no affiliation with Taurus International MFG, Inc. We are an independently owned and managed forum comprised of Taurus owners and gun enthusiasts. We have always called things as we see them, and have always tried to be fair and even handed in our assessment of all things related to Taurus, guns and shooting. This trip and the resulting report is no different. Taurus is not an advertiser on this forum as of this writing nor have they ever been. This trip was initiated by the owners of this forum in an effort to give you, the members, a better look at how some of our favorite guns are made and who makes them. As with anything that is manufactured in quantity, sometimes something gets sent out when it shouldn't have. This happens to all manufacturers of all things. I hope that when you see the pictures and read through the narratives that you will begin to realize just how few firearms are actually returned to Taurus relative to the numbers of guns that they sell. I hope you will try and see through our limited ability to photograph all that we saw, and appreciate just how well this plant is run and how state of the art this gun manufacturer really is. Please feel free to ask Airwrench and I any questions you may have and we will do our best to get you an answer.

[BigSkiff]

Taurus International MFG Inc. Miami, FL




Once you go through the Sally Port and security this is what you see walking up to the plant.



This is the receptionist at the front desk in the entry area of the building.



This is the lobby and waiting area. It's very nicely decorated with comfortable furniture and a full assortment of Taurus pistols and revolvers.




The Man on the left is Eduardo Barros. He is the real genius behind the manufacturing and industrial plant. He's a very personable and exceptionally knowledgeable man that spent nearly the entire day showing us the in's and out's of gun manufacturing and how everything works. It was obvious that the employee's really like this guy. The man on the right is Mark Kresser. He is the new President and CEO of Taurus International MFG., INC. here in the USA. He took over from Bob Morrison in September of 2011. It is evident every where you go within the Taurus plant that Mr. Kresser has made customer satisfaction his number one priority. He's certainly motivated the staff and employee's in a very positive way. The thing that stood out to me as we walked through the Taurus facilities was that the employees were happy, they were smiling, they were motivated, and they exhibited a pride in their work that was real, not contrived. When you see that in a large work force it's a positive reflection on the management. I genuinely felt that the employees like both of these men and were very comfortable around them. That isn't something you see every day in a manufacturing plant!

[BigSkiff]

Manufacturing

Our day began with a lengthy sit down with Mr. Kresser and Eduardo Barros who is the Industrial Director. This meeting to my surprise was more than just a meet and greet. We were asked to give our thoughts and opinions on a variety of subjects concerning the Taurus brand. Mr. Kresser also shared his vision for the future of Taurus firearms. This included a plan for improved customer service and warranty repairs. On these issues he gave us a very positive plan for continued improvement. We then started our tour, visiting the manufacturing area of the plant.



The first thing you notice when you enter the manufacturing area is all the CNC machines. CNC is short for Computer Numerical Control, or in other words the machining process that these machines do are controlled by a computer using a complex numerically based tool path to perform the machining operations. The machine above is a CNC machine that cuts pistol frames from blanks of aircraft grade aluminum. There were several of these and each was busy making pistols.



This machine is another of the CNC machines that makes pistol frames for the PT22 and PT25. This machine has a 40 position tool head, shown in the picture below. This allows the machine to change bits and cutters automatically as the tool path requires. The machine performs the entire process of changing from one tool to another automatically. The frames are cut in a spray of lubricant and coolant that cools the parts during machining. All of the over spray, fluid, and metal filings are captured within the machine. The noise from the cutting is also contained within the machine's cabinet. This was one of the cleanest manufacturing plants I've ever seen. It was spotless!







Above is an aluminum blank on the right and a finished frame on the left. The blanks are mounted in a pattern jig like the one below and then placed in the machine to be cut. The frames below have already been partially processed as you can see, the holes have been drilled into the blank.





The picture above shows the frames after part of the machining process while they are still mounted in the machining jig. The top jig has the blanks mounted but not yet machined.



This machine is one of the slickest devices in the entire manufacturing plant! It is a laser measuring device, what I believe they call a Comparator. Random parts and pieces are selected from the CNC cutting line, mounted on jigs, and then scanned by this device. It has an articulated stylus about the size of a needle, that rolls over every square millimeter of the parts surface and probes into every recess, and every hole, taking exact measurements of the newly machined part. It records the data in it's data base and compares all of the newly collected data, to the previously collected data, and to the baseline tool paths for the CNC machines that make the parts. It is checking for consistency to ensure that each part is exactly the same, and the each part meets the dimensional parameters set for it by the design. It not only monitors the current production and CNC performance, it also makes corrections in the tool paths on all the CNC machines in the plant to keep the dimensions consistent on all parts produced. This device is the first parameter in assuring quality control at Taurus.





The pictures above are the barrel boring and rifling machine. The barrel is inserted into the machine at one end of the tube with the spiral groove, and a cutter is fed into the other end of the tube. The tube advances the barrel onto the cutter with the rate of twist being determined by the grooved track in the tube. The barrel is rifled in a series of cuts slowly increasing to the final bore diameter. Again, take a look at the work areas around these rifling machines. No chips, no filings, no mess! This plant is really clean!



Here is another view of the plant floor.

[BigSkiff]

MIM


MIM is an acronym for Metal Injection Molding. It is a process that the public has a lot of misconceptions about. When the average gun owner thinks about MIM parts they tend to relate those parts to what we used to call Pot Metal castings. Remember the old aluminum screen door handles that used to break off and fall apart? Those were Pot Metal, aluminum castings made from scrap aluminum, melted down and poured into a sand mold. MIM parts share nothing in common with that old Pot Metal process other than the word molding.

MIM parts are made from finely ground mixtures of various types of metal scientifically selected and measured. The type of metal is determined by the design of the part and what it's intended purpose is going to be. This allows the process to be manipulated for strength, finish quality, and durability. The way it works is pure genius. The metal particles are mixed with plastic particles to form a semi fluid or plasticized mixture and then that mixture is injected into a machined metal mold. The molding is done at very low temperature and the parts come out of the molding process on tracks or rails. Remember those model cars you built when you were a kid? All the little plastic parts for the model came attached to a plastic frame or rod? The MIM parts come out of the molding process the same way. Groups of the molded parts are all attached to a molding frame.

Here's where things get interesting! If you will look at the two parts in the mans hand below, you will see one is bigger than the other. The bigger part is a MIM part that has just been molded in the process described above. It is part metal and part plastic. It has almost no strength and you can snap it in half easily with your fingers. So, what good is that, you ask? Well that MIM part is only half done. The next step of the process is to place those newly molded parts into a furnace with a controlled heating process. Some of those furnaces are shown below. The newly molded and plasticized parts are placed into the furnace and heated in a controlled process that vaporizes the plastic and molecularly bonds the remaining metal within the part. This is a controlled process that shrinks the MIM part to it's final size and increases the strength of the part at the same time. That part is now as strong or stronger than if it had been machined from a block of the same metal. The big advantage in this type of manufacturing is that there is no wasted metal, the temper and finish of the parts are all controllable and you can make hundreds of them in the time it takes to make just one by conventional machining. The finished part, the one with the number 2 written on it has shrunk by about a third and is now unbreakable, possesses all the qualities of a machined part, and requires little more than a buffing or in some cases on things like sears, a stroke or two with a file to fit it properly. MIM parts are superior in every way. So, the next time you hear someone complaining that MIM parts are somehow inferior, set them straight, because now you know what they really are! Oh yes, there is one other thing that you might find interesting here. Taurus manufactures MIM part for more than 100 other companies, many of them other gun companies!







This MIM furnace is being serviced by a technician.



The MIM furnace above is shown full of MIM parts waiting to be heated and transformed into finished parts! This oven is used to solidify the moldings into solid metal. We were able to handle the parts after molding and after coming out of the oven. It was amazing how fragile the molded parts were before the plastic was vaporized and then how hard they had become after the cooking process. The times and temps varied some depending on several variables but I remember the temp on one monitor saying 800 degrees centigrade!






These two photo's show Taurus employee's inspecting MIM parts and loading them onto trays and into bins for the next step of the manufacturing process. Note the racks of parts on the rolling trays to the right and behind these workers. You can see one of the furnaces in the background. It's the big blue box in the upper right corner of the photo! This injection molding system or the MIM process is the reason we can afford guns with small parts. We were able to handle and inspect the individual parts as they went from raw material to hardened gun parts. Very little filing was required after the parts were heat treated. Some individual parts also require a polishing. This is done one at a time by a Taurus employee with a polishing wheel.

[BigSkiff]

Assembly PT22 PT25 and TCP 738





The picture above is the assembly area where Taurus assembles the PT22 and PT25 and the TCP 738 all of which are made in the Miami plant. All other Taurus firearms and Rossi Firearms are made in Brazil and shipped to America. The assembly line on the left is where the PT22 and PT25 pistols are assembled. The right side is the line for the 738. Both assembly lines work from both ends to the middle. On one end of the line starts the assembly of the slide & barrel, and the other end starts the assembly of the frame and trigger group. The two meet in the middle of the line and the two sub assemblies are joined there. The assembled pistol is then placed in a bin for test firing. The speed and agility with which these folks work is impressive. If you will notice the bench in the lower right portion of the picture above, it has two TCP 738 pistols laid out for Airwrench and BigSkiff to assemble! More on that below!



The gentlemen in the picture above are left to right, Amaro DaSilva who is the Firearm Production and Repair Manager, and Eduardo Barros, the Industrial Director, and our very own Airwrench! Amaro was telling Airwrench that he's been a Taurus employee for several decades, starting at the plant in Brazil and eventually coming here to work in this plant. Amaro is a really pleasant guy with stories about all kinds of things. He's always happy and he is genuine in his desire to make every gun perfect! He's also an excellent shot as was demonstrated in the company range. Oh, he's also probably forgotten more about building Taurus firearms than the rest of us will ever know!




Remember those pistols that were set aside for Airwrench and BigSkiff to assemble? Well here they are close up! Let me tell you it's not as easy as it looks, but it sure was a lot of fun! Below we see Airwrench working diligently on the assembly of the safety lock. His attention to the task at hand is obvious!





Here's the gun BigSkiff was assembling with the barrel just inserted into the slide after the firing pin assembly was installed on another bench. The firing pin assembly requires a special jig to assemble and they didn't have a extra one for our temporary bench. One side note here; Airwrench and BigSkiff were the first two non employees to ever assemble a Taurus firearm in the Taurus plant! That was both an honor and a privileged, not to mention fun!




Well Skiff seems to have his gun almost done and Airwrench is closing fast, but wait, is that the trigger bar I see still laying on the table? Actually there's two of them, I'm not sure how that happened!



Note the silly grin on Skiff's face? That was there most of the day! This was a terrific experience for both of us.





This man is Russo Horta. He is the Production Supervisor. If it wasn't for him and all of his help neither BigSkiff nor Airwrench would have gotten those guns put together! Russo has more patience than any one human should have! He never gave up on us and he never stopped smiling. I think he was having as much fun as we were! Russo is standing in front of the test firing chambers and is loading a 738 magazine with .380 FMJ ammo. Taurus stocks a huge amount of ammo for testing the guns it sells and ships an even greater amount of ammo every month to Brazil for test firing the guns made there. Their annual ammo bill runs in the millions. They also do not test with just one brand or type of ammo. They randomly mix it up by brand and by type. We were here in this room getting ready to test fire the TCP 738's we just assembled. Taurus requires the assembly line to shoot at least two magazines of ammo through every newly assembled firearm or repaired firearm before it is given an O.K. for final packaging.

[BigSkiff]

Test Fire




These two gentlemen are gunsmiths that work for Taurus. They are preparing to test a couple of repaired guns and are waiting for the maintenance guys to clean the lead out of the bullet traps in the chambers behind them. The table to the left is a loading and prep table and the rack to the right holds extra testing ammo. They not only repair handguns at Taurus Miami, but they repair Taurus and Rossi long guns, also.



Here is one of the bullet traps for test firing the pistols for function. You insert the pistol barrel into the hole in the foam circle and pull the trigger. You have to make sure that you've got the barrel all the way into the foam ring so that when it recoils you don't pull the barrel out by accident and shoot the bullet trap or hit the walls! The hood above the shooting port is an exhaust hood that extracts the smoke and powder residue that is expelled into the air. The bullet travels to the back of the red box and hits a steel bullet trap and the spent lead then drops down into the bin behind the machine.



This is the shooting range on the opposite side of the room from the testing traps. It's a two lane range with state of the art digital controls and virtually no bullet marks on the floor or the walls. I forgot to ask but I believe the range is 25 yards to the trap.





Here is BigSkiff testing that 738 he assembled! It shot very nicely! The trigger on these pistols is particularly nice. It has an even and clean feel and breaks crisply. The gun didn't malfunction and it worked perfectly, so I guess Skiff assembled it correctly! If you're wonder about Skiff's shooting posture, he had to duck to get below the steel beam above. I'm guessing the range was designed by a short person!



Now it's Airwrench's turn to test his. He's just working the slide in this picture. His functioned perfectly as well! Airwrench also shot much better groups than BigSkiff ............ show off!



We also were given a opportunity to test fire a few other Taurus guns. Here Airwrench is shooting the new G2. BigSkiff got to shoot it also. The G2 is really nice. It's a large gun and it has great balance and feel. This one was a 9mm. We also shot a Judge seen below, and a poly framed snubby revolver in .38/.357. BigSkiff found that one very much to his liking. It was an accurate and very comfortable gun to shoot.





The picture above is a cart full of newly assembled TCP 738's waiting to be test fired. I count 31 pistols times 12 rounds; that's 372 rounds that need to be fired before this cart full of guns gets to go on to the next part of the process!

[BigSkiff]

Post Test Fire





Once the new pistols have been test fired and given the O.K. to be shipped, they are taken to a room at the end of the assembly line, and given a bath is solvent to clean out the crud from assembly and firing. As you can see above the guns are racked up and scrubbed and the barrel brushed, and then hung up to drip dry. they are then put back into the cart and rolled across the room to this laser scanning device that reads the serial numbers on the frame. This machine compares the scanned serial number to the serial numbers assigned to the assembly line and then prints a package label. The pistol is put in a box and the label with the proper serial number is used to seal the plastic case or cardboard box. The boxes are then stacked on a cart, scanned again and taken to the shipping department where they are packaged in groups for delivery to the distributors.

[BigSkiff]

Warehouse



This is the receiving area of the warehouse. All inbound shipment of materials, supplies, and Taurus Firearms from Brazil, are in processed through this receiving line. When you ship your gun back to Taurus this is where the shipping service delivers it! The truck can literally back right in, in front of these desks and unload out of the weather!




This young lady with the nice smile is trying to figure out who the revolver in the open box belongs to. Every day Taurus receives guns from people across America that send their gun in for repair and include no letter, no return name or address, no phone number or email address, and no description of what the problem is. This young lady starts with the serial number and tries to trace the gun back to the owner through the distributor and the dealer that sold it. She then calls the owner, or sends him or her an email, or sends them a first class letter. If all that fails they hold the gun hoping that the owner will call in.

Come on y'all, a little due diligence would go a long way here! Follow the instructions on the Taurus website for returns or Call Customer Service first before you ship your gun. Phone (305) 624-1115 and for heavens sake, put your contact information in the shipping package! Here's the link to the Taurus website for returns.Taurus International Manufacturing Inc - Repair Policy Be sure to click on the three links at the bottom of Returns page for work order, shipping, and repair policy information.



This man is the first person to handle your gun when you return it. It's his job to insure that every returned firearm is unloaded. Taurus frequently receives returns that are still loaded, some with full magazines, cocked, locked, and ready to rock! DO NOT send a loaded gun in for repair. Check your gun before you ship it and make sure that is is unloaded, that the chamber is empty, and the slide is locked back or the cylinder is empty.

Once your gun has been check and cleared, the serial number is recorded into the Taurus system and the gun is placed in a cart, like the one directly behind this employee, and taken to the repair center, elsewhere in the plant. All of the guns at Taurus, whether new, or returned for repair are tracked by serial number. Every time a firearm is moved within the Taurus plant it is scanned in and scanned out by serial number so that Taurus can identify exactly where that gun is at any given time. That includes all of the guns in the picture below, all newly arrived from Brazil and waiting to be shipped out to the distributors! Just like the manufacturing area, the warehouse is kept spotlessly clean.





This is the prep area in the warehouse where outbound firearms are shipped. The firearms are packaged in boxes and on pallets for shipping to distributors all over America. They also ship test ammo back to Brazil for the Taurus factory to use in test firing the firearms made there. What you see here are the orders being assembled in the morning that will be loaded onto trucks later in the day.

[BigSkiff]

Customer Service






During our visit we spent some time with the customer service staff. A quick tour of the office displayed a fluid operation. The first thing I noticed was the office was under construction while the Customer Service agents were still working. Taurus is expanding and improving the Customer Service Department and increasing their capability to handle calls. The Customer Service Manager also told us he plans to improve communications with the customers on things such as the status of a repair. This was backed up by the CEO with a statement saying turnaround times will greatly improve. The photos above shows some of the construction in the ceiling area and only shows about half of the customer service area.




The picture above is typical of the customer service cubicles we saw. This woman is talking to a customer and gathering all the required background information about the owner, their gun, and what the problem is. It was very interesting to watch these people work. They were all very intent on trying to get the right information and do so in a positive way. The customer service agents have information screens from which they work depending on the call, the request, and the type of firearm. The various screens prompt them with questions to ask and give the agent a place to record the information collected. In addition to better communications, it is the new CEO's policy to have all returns for warranty fixed properly and returned to the owner with in two months. If that is not possible the gun will be marked for destruction and replaced with a new one. We have seen a marked improvement in the customer service responses on this forum in the past couple of months. That is not a coincidence. Taurus is very focused and very proactive on improving their customer service program.




The gentlemen above are the main driving force behind the customer service improvements and policy changes. They are left to right, Mr. Mark Kresser Taurus CEO, Mr. Robert Crescenzi, Customer Service Manager, and Eduardo Barros, Industrial Director. Their desire to make a good thing even better can not be overstated. All three are very down to earth, understanding individuals, and all three are personally driven to keep improving. That was our assessment, and it was echoed through out the entire facility. I see only good things to come from this!



In the picture above we see Robert Crescenzi demonstrating the ability to retrieve any record of a repair done by Taurus. He is pulling up the repair record from 2008 on a gun owned by BigSkiff. The records identify when the gun was repaired, what was found to be wrong with it, and what the disposition of the repair was.

[BigSkiff]

Repairs



When you return a firearm to Taurus for repair it is received in the warehouse, checked to make sure it is unloaded, and then the serial number is logged into the Taurus tracking system. Your firearm is then taken on a cart to the Repair Center, shown above. It is scanned in and placed on the rack you see below while it waits it's turn to be fixed. Take a close look at that rack. That is the sum total of firearms from across America waiting to be fixed. Now go back to the warehouse section above and look at all the guns waiting to be shipped out to the distributors. Anyone that thinks that Taurus isn't careful about it's quality control needs to look at these two pictures! When you consider how many Taurus firearms are out there in the hands of American gun owners and then consider the number returned for repair, you can't help but be impressed.





The man above is one of a dozen or so gunsmiths that work full time for Taurus. Here he is working on a Raging Bull, cycling the trigger to check it for function! He has a full compliment of tools and equipment, most of which are out of the picture behind him, to make any repair necessary. Taurus has set a new policy of allowing no more than 2 months for a repair. If parts can not be found or manufactured in sufficient time to meet that schedule, the firearm will be destroyed and the owner will be given a brand new firearm. If the gun is out of production, the owner is given several options for similar guns still in production. This is all part of the new customer satisfaction program recently put in place by the new CEO, Mark Kresser. Below we see a couple more of the Taurus factory gunsmith's working on the warranty returns.



All firearms returned for repair are test fired. The company policy is a minimum of two cylinders or two magazines be fired before the gun is marked repaired. More rounds will be fired if anything is detected during the firing that would indicate there might still be a problem. When your firearm has been repaired, the repair information is logged into the computer, the gun is scanned back onto the outbound repair desk, and then packaged for return to you, the customer. Once packaged and addressed with a shipping label, the gun is taken to the warehouse and scheduled for pick up and shipping. When it's logged back into the warehouse to be shipped, the customer is notified by email that their gun is being shipped back to them with the carrier information, and the estimated delivery date!