Page 23 - MetalForming July 2009

metals-related purchases—raw materials and components— are done on the outside, primarily from about 50 core suppliers. We design here, and then rely on our suppliers to lend their expertise in manufacturability and methodolo- gy, to keep costs low and quality high.”
Covidien recently conducted a two-course training pro- gram in lean supply-chain management, attended by 25 employees from 13 Connecticut companies. According to an article in The Herald (published June 21, 2009), the training program was designed to “make the industry’s supply chain leaner and eliminate wasteful nonvalue-added activities... Participants focused on quality tools, evaluation and audit- ing, scorecards, metrics and organizational culture.”
Among the attendees at the Covidien training program was Allen Nadeau, supervisor of shipping, receiving and finish- ing from metalforming company Southington Tool & Man- ufacturing Corp., Southington, CT. The firm produces stamp- ings, springs and wireforms from presses with capacity to 100 tons, as well as from fourslide stamping equipment and CNC wireforming equipment. Among the medical products it supplies are ligating clips, medulary pins, surgical staples and sutures, and stents.
Describing how the course helped him focus on ways to identify bottlenecks that slow down the manufacturing process, Nadeau said: “On a skin staple, we discovered how to perform 100-percent mechanical inspection while increas- ing product quality... though we only have 40 employees, we’re expected [by our customers] to turn out work done by 100 people.”
How One High-Speed Stamper Made the Move to Medical
Southington Tool & Manufacturing’s successful migration into the medical-product industry exemplifies that of numer- ous metalforming companies. The common thread weaving the successful formula for most: The development of the engi- neering and design know-how to help medical-product OEMs such as Covidien develop those perfect partnerships, where designs are turned into reality by creative process-devel- opment engineers.
Case in point: Weiss-Aug Co., Inc., East Hanover, NJ, which manufactures surgical and drug-delivery devices. The firm specializes in new-program development, assisting OEMs early in the design stage to ensure quality and manu- facturability and at the same time help control costs and pre- vent overruns.
Weiss-Aug is a high-speed stamper and injection molder, with Bruderer presses from 20 to 90 tons. Born in 1972, the firm was raised on supplying primarily the telecommunica- tions and automotive industries, until it retrenched itself in the medical marketplace about five years ago.
“In 2001, to help us set our course in the medical indus- try, we hired someone from the industry to help us develop our sales team and make the proper contacts in the industry,” says Weiss-Aug president Dieter Weissenrieder. “We already
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