Page 20 - MetalForming November 2014

New Stamping Press
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Additionally, to accelerate the press’s return on investment, Arnold ear- marked two additional fabricated parts to be converted over to hard tooling for stamping on the new press.
“All told, we’re expecting a 2.5-year payback on the press once Genu-Pro enters full production early in 2015,” he says.
One of the existing fabricated parts moved to stamping is a 2- by 2-in. flat part that is assembled into one of the firm’s post-operative knee braces. Pro- duction quantities average 5000/mo. Compared to laser-cutting the part, from 0.032-in. Type 301 stainless steel, stamping reduced piece-part costs by $0.35, a 40-percent savings, “so there was no problem justifying the tooling costs,” Arnold says. He also notes that to better-facilitate making the part on the Sutherland press, the firm switched from a full-hard stainless-steel alloy to half-hard.
“We felt that the original full-hard part was over-engineered,” Arnold adds, “and that moving to a half-hard alloy would increase the life of our stamping tools.”
Arnold also moved a second part for the same post-op brace from fabri- cation to stamping, this one a much larger gear-shaped part used to set flex- ion and extension stops as the brace is worn by patients. This part, actually two stamped parts (left- and right- hand), is Type 304 stainless steel; a plastic part fits between the two stamped parts in assembly. Why the move from fabrication to stamping?
“The teeth of the two stamped stainless-steel parts must align per- fectly to ensure repeatable, comfort- able operation of the brace,” says Arnold. “While we definitely were able to assemble quality braces used fabri- cated parts, we thought that stamping the parts would make the assembly task faster and easier, and we were right. In the end, running the Suther- land press at 35 strokes/min. to stamp the parts compared to 45 to 60 sec. to fabricate each part reduced piece-part cost from $2.00 to $0.60. That’s a huge savings.” MF
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18 MetalForming/November 2014
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