BACKGROUND:
A long-time customer in the industrial industry produced an assembled battery from Pioneer Plastic’s molded component. The customer had 2 suppliers to fulfill their demand. Part required insert molding and 2nd operation assembly.
SITUATION:
The customer’s other supplier was not able to manufacture quality parts in parallel to the demand they were requesting. The customer had 6 months+ in backorders from this situation.
Out of tolerance parts
Missing inserts
Extra-long lead times
SOLUTION:
Pioneer Plastics Inc. was asked to overtake all the demands from the customer. Pioneer needed to semi-automate the assembly to keep up with demand while maintaining cost to stay cost-competitive. Pioneer took the initiative and created a robust process. Added cavity pressures to ensure insert were being properly molded in the part. Proximity laser sensors were installed in the tool to make sure inserts were loaded correctly. Pioneer also built an automation system that enabled the manufacturing process to require only one operator instead of two and decreased the cycle time by more than 25%. Automation implemented was to substitute the manual insert loading with a robot that would singulate inserts and load it on a nest in a correct position, while another robot transfers these inserts from nest to tool.
FULL RESULT INCLUDED:
Increase in quality and decrease in scrap rate
The process is more control due to the process being more repeatable
Less human errors
Customers can keep up with demand.
Built a stronger trust in Pioneer.
Reduced operation costs by over 50%
Customer does not have to worry about RMAs and 2 different suppliers