Page 14 - MetalForming September 2009

Ag Stamper
Takes Control of Part Flatness
Ag business is still strong, and is dom- inating the product mix at contract manufacturer GMP Metal Products, St. Louis, MO, a supplier of stampings, fabricated-metal parts and assemblies. The 220,000-sq.-ft. facility houses 70 stamping presses, to 1500-ton capacity, as well as equipment for laser-beam blank- ing and cutting, sheet and plate fabri- cation, robotic welding, and finishing. In addition to the Ag industry, GMP also supplies the construction and defense industries, and operates a second man- ufacturing facility in Tennessee.
For 20 years, GMP has specialized in the stamping of transmission separator plates and brake and clutch plates for the Ag industry, and continues to invest in new
metalforming tech- nology and fine- tune its processes to improve quality, productivity, and—of course—
reduce costs for its customers.
“We’ve gone through a crash course to become more organized, install 5S practices, upgrade our building and equipment, and institute Six Sigma training,” says GMP engineering man- ager Bob Mallmann, “including execu- tive-level training and blackbelt training for a few people. And, with the addition of new press controls on a few of our presses, a focus on quick-die-change practices and other improvements, we’ve been able to exceed customer expectations for quality and delivery,
while meeting cost-reduction targets.”
Straight Edges, Flat Surfaces
GMP processes some 700 part num- bers just for its Ag business, many of the part numbers comprising transmission separator plates of varying different
sizes and designs. Its use of EDI to com- municate is critical to successful pro- duction planning, says Mallmann, to keep up with order changes.
“We receive changes every day,” he says, “and a major download weekly. We use that information for order entry and feed the orders through our ERP system (TCM, from WorkWise, Inc., Milwaukee, WI) to initiate raw-material planning and production scheduling.”
Transmission separator plates are of a modified Type 1035 steel (Rc 20-28 hardness), 0.068-in. thick and typically 10- to 20-in. dia., although the firm does stamp a much smaller plate—5-in. dia. —that it ships to an assembly plant in China.
“The customer can’t purchase steel in China to the level of quality we can here,” says Mallmann. “So, our cus- tomer assembling the transmissions in China purchases stamped parts from us here in St. Louis.”
GMP produces the separator plates from coil, fed through a straightener
12 METALFORMING / SEPTEMBER 2009
www.metalformingmagazine.com
With stamping and assembly work for the agricultural industry now accounting for more than half of its production schedule, GMP Metal Products
counts on EDI, automation, QDC and other lean-manufacturing tools to efficiently schedule and produce more than 700 different part numbers.
BY BRAD F. KUVIN, EDITOR
GMP operates 70 stamping presses to produce a variety of Ag parts, from precise and close-tolerance transmission
parts to large deep-drawn parts formed on this 1500-ton transfer press.