Challenge: The customer began production of a highly successful consumer plumbing fixture, but it included an extremely complex design of a critical component. The customer was machining the final part completely from bar stock, with more than 60 percent of the raw material ending up as scrap.
Due to cost considerations of the stainless steel being used and the high amount of scrap, the customer was evaluating alternate designs and manufacturing processes.
Solution: Stork Kelch engaged our Metal Injection Molding engineering team. In concert with the customer, we came up with a design which was very close to final part configuration and required only a final turning operation.
Overall cost was also greatly reduced as the utilization of material usage with the Metal Injection Molding process made the part much less costly. This part was released to production and quickly surpassed 1 million units in the field.
Contact Stork Kelch to learn how we manage our business to meet your exacting requirements.
