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Elrae Industries Inc.

Manufacturing Solutions that Win the Day™

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Innovations

Quality systems help Fortune 500 company reduce costs, increase productivity, and relieve backlog problems.

A division of a Fortune 500 company, an assembly operation located in the Southeast, was receiving stamped parts from a sister plant in the Midwest. Increasing requirements of their own made it difficult and inefficient for the Midwest plant to run stampings for the assembly operation.

The Midwest plant began scheduling the stampings whenever possible between their own work. This resulted in the assembly plant receiving large volumes of stamped parts per shipment, sometimes one or more months' worth. In addition, quality problems with the parts significantly reduced the efficiency of the assembly operation.

Outsourcing the work seemed to be the answer but stamping sources located near the assembly plant did not have the necessary resources to do the job.

Elrae responds to Request For Quotation and finds need for quality.

The purchasing manager of the Southeast plant was familiar with Elrae and he contacted the company to discuss the opportunity. An RFQ was generated involving 20 parts currently being produced by 28 dies. During the quoting stage, Elrae's operation was surveyed by the company's purchasing department.

Elrae prepared a quote based on using the existing tooling, assuming that it was capable of producing parts to the blueprint specifications. As a follow-up to the quote, a team from Elrae - including operations, quality, manufacturing engineering, and sales personnel - visited the customer's facility.

The visit enabled Elrae to review the parts and to see how they were used in the assembly. Elrae discovered many quality problems and learned that due to the large volume of parts received in each shipment, the assembly plant was often forced to make the parts work.

Quality makes the difference and Elrae makes the parts.

Elrae was awarded the work based on their quality system, competitive pricing and J.I.T. shipment capabilities. Elrae personnel then visited the Midwest plant to review the tooling and discuss problems.

A bank of parts was produced and then tools plus excess material were transferred to Elrae.

Review, repair and rework.

The tool room at Elrae inspected the tools and prepared them for use. Process capability studies were provided to the customer on each part.

Most of the tooling required repair and/or rework for the parts to meet print specifications. The blueprints and capability studies were reviewed with the customer to determine the actual part characteristics required. Elrae then modified the tools to produce acceptable parts.

Elrae improves even more than quality.

Elrae's quality system not only resulted in improved parts, but also helped improve the customer's operations as well.
  • Cost Savings - Improved quality reduced assembly costs and Elrae shipped the parts J.I.T. which reduced inventory costs.
  • Increased Producivity - Productivity at the assembly plant increased and the Midwest plant was relieved of their backlog problem.
  • Improved Scheduling - Elrae insisted the assembly plant in introducing and internal KanBan scheduling system.
  • A Strong Partnership - The customer/supplier partnership formed with Elrae is now being used to develop additional parts and sub-assemblies.