Page 28 - MetalForming December 2013

High-Performance Nesting
...“gives speed to our manufacturing operations, which in turn gives speed to our customers.” So says the industrial engineering manager of MPE, a metal fabricator following a roadmap to quick-response manufacturing.
From 2006 to 2007, MPE Inc., Mil- waukee, WI (with a second plant in Mexico), saw sales of its med- ical carts and tables, and similar fabri- cated-metal products and assemblies climb by nearly 10 percent. Impressive enough, but I really sat up and took notice when I learned that over that same time period its material costs dropped by $300,000.
How can a fabricator increase sales while reducing material costs? “More efficient material utilization,” explains MPE’s Jason Grundel, manager, indus- trial engineering. “Better nesting— which also led to a 15-percent decrease
in the aver- age run time of our sheets— has increased our material utilization
by 30 to 40 percent.” Specifically, material utilization on MPE’s com- bination turret/laser machines has jumped from 50 percent to 85 percent, and on stand-alone laser-cutting machines from 60 per- cent to as high as 95 percent. The secret to success: the switch from static nest- ing on separate software packages for its various machine models, to dynam-
ic nesting with Jetcam software.
Just in Time Enters Another Dimension
MPE balances two types of customers and orders—it serves as a one-stop shop for OEMs looking for fabricating and assembly operations, and also as a job- shop supplier of parts. The medical industry dominates, comprising 70 to 80 percent of its load, although that per- centage has been shrinking in recent
years as the firm seeks to diversify. Diver- sification has brought customers such as electronic and telecommunication OEMs.
While Grundel and his fellow asso- ciates are sleeping better these days due to more efficient nesting, there are a few challenges that keep their heads spinning.
“The trend in medical is for cus- tomers to hold less inventory,” says MPE vp of engineering, David Bongard. “They don’t order until they have orders from their customers. We’ve seen this really tighten up in the last 4 to 5 years, due to changes in the medical industry.”
In turn, MPE’s average order quan- tity for medical carts, tables and the like has shrunk to a lean 20 to 50, down from average order quantities of several hun- dred just a few years ago. Here’s where manufacturing speed and the firm’s push toward quick-response manu- facturing (QRM) enters the equation— both initiatives fueled in part by Jetcam.
“We started our QRM journey in August 2013,” says Grundel, “in an effort to ensure jobs move through the
26 MetalForming/December 2013
www.metalformingmagazine.com
BY BRAD F. KUVIN, EDITOR
MPE manufactures an array of custom high-value carts, consoles and other similar products primarily for the medical industry. Quick-response manufacturing is helping
the firm manage the growing trend by med- ical customers to hold less inventory, meaning
average order quantities have shrunk from the hundreds to a lean 20 to 50.