Elrae Industries Inc.

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Innovations

Unique expertise in both metal stamping and roll forming results in advanced design and manufacture of parts.

Elrae's idea helps customer keep their cool with savings of nearly $200,000.

One of the "Big Three" automotive companies in the United States is in the process of redesigning a major cooling system assembly to eliminate the use of fluorocarbons. The company will produce the assembly in their plant, however, all component parts are to be purchased.

Elrae is a current, certified dock-to-line supplier for the company and has been involved at the design stages of other projects for this customer in the past. We were contacted to provide preliminary costs estimates for tooling and parts.

Elrae meets to comment on the customer's metal stamp concepts.

The customer's original concept was to produce a particular component as a metal stamping. Elrae was asked to comment on the design and the feasibility of manufacturing. A meeting was held with the customer's project engineers to fully understand the function and design requirements of the parts. Elrae also studied how the parts were to be added to the final assembly.

Elrae provides a better idea.

A family of seven parts was originally presented - the only differences being that there were two part widths and seven part lengths. The cross section and end configuration of the parts were identical.

Providing the parts as metal stampings would require individual part dies or a complex family of dies with interchangeable inserts. The customer's original budget estimate for tooling was $250,000.

Elrae's unique expertise in both metal stamping and roll forming allowed the development of a better idea for the customer. After an in-depth review of the parts, Elrae recommended that they be roll formed, not stamped.

Elrae proves the process and produces the prototypes.

Elrae was asked to prototype the parts as a roll form and prove our production concept. The customer introduced an additional part design requirement that had previously been ruled out as not feasible in the metal stamping process. Elrae was to try to include this design requirement in our roll form manufacturing process.

Prototype tooling was produced and the resulting parts were enthusiastically accepted by the customer. The Elrae part met all the design requirements including the one thought not feasible in a metal stamping process.

Elrae saves costs in more ways than one.

Elrae was asked to submit a formal quote on tooling and parts. Our quoted tooling cost, to produce the part to all the customer's requirements, provided a savings of approximately $200,000 based on the customer's initial estimates. The cost of parts, due to minimal scrap and reduced set-ups required, was 10% under target pricing.

The roll form tooling as built by Elrae is adaptable to produce all part variations with minimal adjustments to the tooling. Since the project began, the original list of seven parts has expanded to 12 with more parts to follow. All the parts will be produced with no additional cost for tooling.

Elrae is now producing parts for three assembly plants, two domestic and one offshore. Phase two of the project involved Elrae's commitment to add an automatic wash system to clean the parts to the customer's specifications. This system is in place and parts are fed by conveyor directly from the roll mill to the wash system and then to packaging.

Elrae improves even more than cost.

Elrae's early involvement not only significantly reduced tooling and parts costs, but also helped improve the customer's operations as well.