Summary
- Pollington was chosen by a leading automaker to take over difficult machining and assembly of long extrusions (approximately 8’ long when assembly completed)
- Long extrusions had to be machined to compensate for bend, bow and twist with enough precision to facilitate the long friction stir weld seam.
- Customer sourced extrusions and components.
Challenges
- Seven previous suppliers were unable to produce a functional product at full production rate.
- Due to the process variability inherent in long extrusions, scrap rates had been 80% or higher.
- Customer was making manual adjustments for fit and alignment issues on production line.
- Critical timing to achieve production rates.
Pollington solutions
- Redesigned and resourced one of three extrusions to resolve tolerance and FSW issues.
- Worked with the customers extrusion supplier to reduce variation and resulting scrap at machining.
- Designed “free state” machining fixtures to manage extrusion variation and achieve tolerances needs for successful FSW.
- Redesigned one extrusion and mating components to improve containment of variation and gain cost save on components.
- Implemented single piece traceability for each extruded component and final assembly; able to identify and isolate any suspect material with 30 minutes of awareness.
- Implemented AI vision inspection at assembly to avoid any incomplete assembly reaching customer line.
end Result
- Full volume achieved with 100% on time delivery in six weeks
- Eliminated line stoppages for manual adjustments at vehicle assembly line.
- Scrap rate < 1% within 1 year
- Costs reduced
- Pollington assumed supplier management from customer.
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