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Gearing down cleaning costs
When manufacturers are
hobbing and machining drive train gearing and transmission
components, the process typically uses large amounts of lubricants
and produces many chips. If these chips are not thoroughly cleaned
away, they can play havoc with the finished product. Noise,
excessive wear, premature failure and improper operation may result
if even tiny shards or degraded fluids are allowed to contaminate
parts.
Gears also have sharp
edges and surfaces where the slightest ding can also create quality
problems. Washing components removes traces of metal chips and
coolants, but vigorous washing can also create part-to-part contact.
A simple fix, switching
to molded plastic dunnage trays and inserts for parts washing, has
eased many of these worries for one U.S. automaker. The company’s
original wash baskets were perforated welded stainless steel
containers that weighed more than 7.8 pounds each. In addition, the
company needed two different styles of baskets. The baskets also
failed to prevent part damage because their formed pockets did not
restrain gears from sliding or tipping into one another.
Gears were robotically
loaded into the baskets but then manually loaded onto the wash
system’s chain conveyor, and manually offloaded again onto a flow
rack for transfer. Each stage created opportunities for part damage,
and the extra weight of the containers also created ergonomic
issues.
To address these issues,
PolyFlex Products, Inc. proposed a new custom polyolefin tray that
weighs just 1.8 pounds. The new trays weigh 25 percent of the old
ones and cost 40 percent less. The new units, when empty, also save
storage space and require less transport space.
In addition, the trays
better prevent contact between parts and have resulted in up to 50
percent fewer part rejections.
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Pretty good ROI for a
piece of plastic. When an automaker dumped its old steel parts
washer trays (far left), for new plastic ones (near left), it saved
money on the trays, more on overall cleaning costs and even more in
fewer rejected parts. |
For additional
information regarding PolyFlex Products, visit
www.polyflexpro.com.
Item 157
This
article appeared in the August/September 2007 issue of
MRO Today
magazine. Copyright 2007. Back to top
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