Case Study: Cost Reduction of an Existing CNC Machined Component

This customer has a successful product that is sold to the medical industry and they wished to market the product in a more cost-sensitive industrial market.

This customer asked WS Associates to bid on the manufacture of one particular component that is manufactured from CNC machined 316 stainless steel and contains numerous intersecting holes. The component has flatness and other tolerances of +/- 0.001.

The existing supplier of this component was unable to reduce the cost or increase throughput and, in fact, was implementing an annual 10% price increase!

WS Associates engineers examined the component drawings and determined that using conventional machining centers would require a manufacturing time of 45 minutes per piece.

However, by using horizontal CNC machining centers and specialized cutting and de-burring tools, this time could be significantly reduced. The machining time was cut to only 14 minutes per piece.

Results

WS Associates was able to reduce the cost of the components by half and increase throughput from 200 pieces per week to 500 pieces per week! This allowed the customer to increase their deliveries and to enter the new market.