Press Builder-Customer Relationship Yields Technology-Transfer Benefits for Both
April 1, 2015Comments
Ultratech Tool & Design Inc., Fond du Lac, WI, has been supplying stampings from its 32-ton to 600-ton presses, with products ranging from simple washers to complex automotive and aerospace components. In 2002, the company formed a working relationship with press builder The Heim Group, Chicago, IL, buying its first Heim press. Today, Ultratech boasts an 80-ton Heim OBS with 5000-lb.-capacity feed line, a 500-ton Heim Maxi-Stamper with a 10,000-lb.-capacity feed line and a 600-ton Heim Maxi-Stamper with 20,000-lb. feed. Complementing this equipment are full resistance-welding, heattreating and assembly operations. Ultratech also supplies its customers a range of finishing and part coating options to facilitate ready-to-assemble requirements. Since that first press buy, the Ultratech-Heim partnership has proven mutually beneficial.
UItratech produces all its own tooling, from design through assembly, including this tooling running in a 500-ton Maxi-Stamper press from Heim Group.
“The first press we bought from Heim was an older machine and Heim helped us with a rebuild,” says Bill Melang, Ultratech president. “Since that time, we’ve developed a value-adding relationship with Heim, as they’ve provided us considerable assistance with press utilization and maintenance advice, while we’ve also been helpful to them with die-design ideas.”
Ultratech’s partner agrees.
“The relationship has benefited both of our companies over the years,” says Katie Heim, Heim Group president. “As our industry knows, the die dictates the press and we’ve worked closely with Ultratech, as this particular customer’s knowledge of die design and performance characteristics in the press has created a real synergy with our engineers, who bring decades of press design and die-handling mechanics to the task.”
Heim Group quite often is asked by its customers for a turnkey package, making partnerships and the sharing of expertise vital to success.
“The knowledge we’ve shared with and acquired from Ultratech has made us both stronger players in the market today,” Heim observes.
She adds that the decline in the workforce numbers and equipment manufacturers based in America has created the need for companies such as U.S.-based Heim Group to be more proactive in the turnkey area, as customers today seek this assistance on a much more frequent basis.
www.ultratechtooldesign.comwww.theheimgroup.com
See also: The Heim Group, Ultratech Tool & Design, Inc.
Technologies: Stamping Presses
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