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ELRAE ROLLS WITH IT!: "Roll Forming vs. Stamping Solves Customer’s Problem, Saves Customer Money."
Problem:
One of the "Big Three" automotive companies was redesigning a major cooling system. The customer wanted to produce a family of seven components as a metal stamping.
The only differences among the components: two part widths and seven part lengths. Providing the parts as metal stampings required individual part dies or a complex family of dies with interchangeable inserts. The parts had to be oil-free.
As the customer’s supplier, Elrae was asked to comment on the design and feasibility of their current manufacturing concept.
Elrae was concerned about the numerous tools different material widths, set-up time and cost, part quality and consistency associated with producing the product family as a stamping. Cleaning the parts after shipping would require an additional operation and handling.
Elrae knew that with so many variables it would be difficult for any stamping house to produce the products within the target price while meeting the customer’s dynamic EDI and JIT shipment schedules.
Solution:
As a complete manufacturing solution specializing in manufactured stamped and roll formed components, subassemblies, to "Retail Ready" products, Elrae’s Early Supplier Involvement (ESI) team developed a better process for producing the parts. After an in-depth review, Elrae recommended the parts be roll formed, not stamped.
We designed and built a customer-dedicated roll forming work cell complete with an in-line automated wash system. The work cell was designed to expand as the requirements for the new cooling system increased. For example, one operator can run two roll forming lines while using the existing in-line wash system.
Roll forming eliminated the need for purchasing seven different widths of material and the need for seven different set-ups required, if the parts were produced as a stamping. With roll forming, a small timing adjustment is all that’s needed to vary the part "width".
To further reduce set-up and material changeover time, Elrae recommended oscillated aluminum coils (like spools of thread) instead of the traditional pancake type. Since the oscillated coils can hold more material, throughput and standard output per hour is increased.
Results:
Below Target Pricing - The reduced set-up and almost non-existent material handling allowed Elrae to quote 10% below the customer’s original target pricing. Narrowing material requirements from seven to two sizes allowed Elrae to realize economies of scale for the oscillated material.
Better design for manufacturing – Elrae’s manufacturing scheme allowed for an advanced design of the parts.
Improved Production - The roll forming process allows for increased production capacity and JIT shipments while consistently providing high quality, tighter tolerance parts.
A Better Partnership - Increased efficiency of the roll form process enables one supplier to supply parts to three of the customer’s assembly plants.
A Commitment of Resources – Elrae’s investment in an automatic wash system to clean the parts lets the customer eliminate a procedure in their operations to further improve efficiency and reduce costs.
