Over the past few days we have been working with a company who called us in to look at the facility to see how they can optimize their production. They where running five presses all where Mitsubishi. The customer wanted to make more parts during production( who doesn’t ). They wanted help putting together a plan over the next few months. After spending time watching the process it was easily determined that they are running long cycle times. We asked how old the Screw and barrel were? They had been running the same screw and barrels for the last 10 years.  We didn’t even have to look at the screw and barrel to know they were completely worn out because the customer was not able to hold a cushion and the recovery time was much longer than it should be.

The plan we put together had several parts for this blog I just am focusing on the first step for them which is to replace the screw and barrels on all five presses.  One per month to fit their budget. This requires an up front investment that is not cheep but will pay back very quickly.  To start we are rebuilding a 90mm Mitsubishi screw and barrel package with a new tip assembly and they will see much better control over the process, quicker shut off, able to run a cushion under pressure, also be able to pack out and get better part quality and much faster recovery times.

This will successfully give them the return on the investment that they are looking for. We will then move on to replacing the Screw, barrel, and tip assembly out of the next press until we have done all five. Then it will be on to the second part of the plan.