Industry: General Machining
Application: Heat treating and custom forgings
Location: Midwestern United States
Problem
A small shop that focused mostly on heat treating and castings and forgings was looking to reduce inefficiencies and regain quality control on their materials. The previous workflow was to purchase raw 4340 alloy bar and process it to aircraft quality discs of specific sizes. The customer was purchasing raw material from Castle Metals, shipping it out to be cut to size, returning it in-house for heat treating, inspecting, sending it out again to be surface ground, returning it in-house, repackaging it according to customer specifications, then finally shipping to the customer. In overseeing so many areas of the process, the customer often dealt with cracked parts during heat treating, operator errors during saw cutting which was then scrapped, or parts surface ground under tolerance—each of which resulted in costs incurred by the customer.
Solution
A Castle Metals representative took the time to study the customer’s entire supply chain procedure and work with them to identify areas where Castle could specifically help in removing cost from their process. The customer learned that Castle Metals is able to produce aircraft quality 4340 alloy bar, and began purchasing it up to 6 inches, heat-treated, saw cut to size and surface ground as a finished product.
Result
In receiving the 4340 aircraft quality alloy bar as a finished product, the customer was able to get the products shipped out in four to six weeks, eliminating 60 days of holding costs and reducing lead times by 30-60 days. The customer confirmed annual savings of just over $100,000 per year. Not only is the process reducing costs and increasing profits, but the customer also recognizes that the product satisfies its mechanical requirements every time and is ready to ship as soon as it arrives from Castle Metals.