Raising productivity rates to increase customer profitability was the challenge facing this successful industrial manufacturer. With offices located throughout North and South America, Europe and Asia, this company is a world supplier of spray nozzles, tips and spray systems for applications ranging from automotive sealants and protective coatings, to agricultural and high pressure wash systems, spray guns, gas conditioning and air control nozzles. Their focus: to identify and reduce inefficiencies and raise productivity throughout their operators.
Alcoa Global Cold Finished Products was called in to review the in-house parts production process and seek greater efficiencies. Alcoa's sales engineer found that the parts producing company uses numerous CNC lathes to produce a variety of round and hexagonal shaped parts for use in spraying equipment. The cold finished aluminum rods and bars are machined into finished parts. They undergo a secondary process for oxidation. Using the available local supply material, the machining cycle time was approximately 100 seconds and the product yield was approximately 90% satisfactory quality parts. The secondary operation cost approximately US $0.05 per finished machined part. This secondary operation became unnecessary when the manufacturer switched their product choice to Alcoa's Toolrite 2011®.
Using Alcoa Global Cold Finished Products Toolrite 2011®, this manufacturer has seen and increase in productivity of nearly 20% based upon machining cycle times alone. The production yield has increased from 90% good quality to nearly 100% good quality parts. And, using Alcoa cold finished products has completely eliminated the costly secondary operation that was required on the local supply material.
Increased good finished parts yield means less risk of a quality escape. The improvements in productivity and yield translate into: lowering finished part costs, improving the manufacturer's bottom line, and creating extra machine capacity to book more orders or reduce overtime costs.
