A successful contract manufacturer specializing in large volume, high-precision products for medical, automotive, defense, and many other industries recently faced a new challenge. The North America-based company made a product with a very long-run rate for one long-time customer. The machining process took 4 – 6 hours per bar, which meant that the existing gravity-style bar feeders were adequate to load the 12-foot bar stock. This product, however, was being replaced with a new item that took only 20 minutes per bar to complete. Additionally, the new product required tighter tolerances of +/- .0003”. Loading and supporting the bar stock had suddenly become more complex.

According to the company’s spokesperson, “This new product not only requires faster and less labor-intensive bar loading, it is also very susceptible to vibrations that could impact the accuracy of the cut. This would be a serious problem with such tight tolerances, even though we use precision ground bars.”

“Our approach was to invite several bar-loading companies to participate in a competition. We used their recommended equipment in test runs and compared the results. The LNS Alpha 320 bar feeders won, hands down. Not only were they fast and consistent at loading the bar stock, they also support the bars, so vibrations are successfully dampened.”

“Based on their performance, we bought 100 of the Alpha bar feeders to enable us to meet our customer’s high-volume requirements that keep our lines running 24/7, 360 days a year. We’ve been operating this way for nearly a year, and the bar feeders keep running with no unexpected issues. Of course, these automatic bar feeders also help control product costs. We currently use only two operators per shift to manage production on 100 machines.”

“Our goal is to work in partnership with our customers and suppliers, and we find that same kind of commitment with the people we deal with at LNS.”