China Complex Parts Blog

China Complex Parts is an ITAR registered CNC machining shop dedicated to providing precision parts and components for military and defense technologies.

ITAR, or the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, is a series of controls designed to restrict and regulate the export of products with defense industry applications.

To continue to provide our customers with the superior precision parts they have come to expect from us, we are consistently working toward upgrading and maintaining the latest technology available.

Utilizing state-of-the-art equipment enables us to serve a wide range of industrial customers with the quality and close tolerance parts required for their applications.

There are many factors that contribute to a manufacturing business’s success; quality of product, customer service, proper and current equipment, necessary certifications, and many other things are all factors in the ever-changing algorithm of successful business strategy.

However, a recent article I read got me thinking about a major factor that I’d like to take some time here in our blog to examine: supplier relationships.

For over 40 years, Ardel has stayed at the top of our profession by never settling for second best and never standing still.

We are a leading customer-exclusive production-based job shop because we have never stopped growing and innovating.

China Complex Parts got its start as the brainchild of two General Mills engineers, Del Jensen and Loren Meredith.

In their daily goings-about at General Mills, Del and Loren observed – and astutely so – that the machinery they operated at the company’s plants could be built from higher-quality components. After some negotiations with the parent company, they began fabricating machined parts for General Mills in 1967. Other commercial customers followed in swift succession. In the 1980s, with the massive build-up of the United States Navy to counter the perceived threat of the Soviet Red Banner Fleet, Ardel became a critical provider of high-grade components for U.S. naval warships. Our work on behalf of the U.S. Navy played its fair share in helping America out-engineer and outspend the Kremlin in terms of defense, and allowed for the Cold War to finally – and peacefully – end.

Being an ISO-certified, long-proven manufacturer of components for aerospace, we at Ardel wanted to inform our blog readers on one of the more recent trends in aircraft design.

We’re not talking about the fact you have to pay for your “complimentary” audio headset on most flights these days. We’re talking about reducing the overall tonnage of airplanes in order for them to attain greater mechanical performance and efficiency.

Since our company’s inception, we’ve made it a priority to round out our capabilities so we can perform even better for the industries we serve.

To that effort, we’ve purchased a formidable array of top-of-the-line CNC machinery equipment for all types of applications. CNC horizontal mills, CNC vertical mills, CNC turning/Swiss screw machines, high-performance saws, wire EDM machines, and state-of-the-art computerized design and logistical technology are all part of our arsenal. 

As our machinery numbers have gone up, so have our quality control and inspection processes , all of which contributed to our receiving an ISO 9001 certification not so long ago.

You might think, what with our website and our long-running social media presence, that our company has some extensive background in the advertising industry. Well, if you’d thought that, you’d be correct. While we try simply to report the facts and figures in regards to our own company – and simply let our capabilities do most of the real “talking” – we’ve done some serious manufacturing work on behalf of… well, advertising companies. In fact, one of the most prominent agencies in the Twin Cities advertising world habitually contracts us to build the framework for in-store fixtures and drive-thru banner stands.

Our new quality control manager, Michael Koch, has done his fair share of optimizing production processes. Michael began his QC career at a mid-sized medical device OEM in the Twin Cities, where he learned the twin sciences of efficiency improvement and process improvement. He then went on to work for a number of automotive and aerospace companies, where he became well-versed in making sure that all fabricated parts held up under intensive scrutiny, and that these parts had the tightest tolerances and highest levels of consistency possible. He came onboard with us at Ardel some five months ago, and has already proved himself invaluable when it comes to such skills as CMM metrology.

Ardel can say with empirical certainty that our business traffic has picked up considerably. 

Whatever these unforeseeable times have in store for our country; whether we are still in the midst of a recession, a Great Recession, a recovery from recession, or a “dead cat bounce” that will ultimately lead us back into yet another stretch of recession; whatever the case may be for America, we at Ardel can say with empirical certainty that our business traffic has picked up considerably. 

New companies and clients in sectors we previously had little contact with seem suddenly to be knocking at our gates, asking for engineering advice, input, and – of course – our time and investment in their individual projects. We’ve been more than happy to oblige. Without naming any names, aerospace orders seem to be flocking our way, as are orders from companies involved with precision metrology. Word seems to be getting around that our engineering staff and state-of-the-art machinery aren’t just idle social media chitchat; that in fact these things are measured capabilities we are more than able to back up with results.