 |
|||||
|
|||||
 |
Twitter
YouTube
Facebook
Share
|
CUSTOMER SPOTLIGHT | ||||
|
BRINGING OUTSOURCED WORK BACK IN HOUSE Hutchinson Manufacturing uses Hypertherm plasma to fabricate and manufacture a wide spectrum of products for the energy, gas, and oil recovery industries. Founded almost 60 years ago in Hutchinson, Minnesota, this company has stayed strong due to their ability take on demanding jobs while also offering customers cost effective options. Hutchinson Manufacturing had some challenges to resolve recently. It needed an alternative to its outdated cutting technology if it wanted to bring outsourced work back on-site. This was a necessity for them since some customers were demanding a tighter control of the cutting process, especially customers in the nuclear industry. Isaac Marceau, Vice President of Operations said, "Outsourcing so much cutting didn't give us good control of our schedules or quality, so we needed to make a change." In their shop they had two 10 year old CO2 lasers and a 20 year old ESAB plasma machine that needed replacing. The cut quality produced by these machines was very poor and Hutchinson Manufacturing was forced to outsource all of their metal cutting on material thicknesses above 1 inch. Contracting the work out to other suppliers had slowed projects down and it added to production costs at an annual rate of $110,000. Hutchinson Manufacturing selected an Integrated Plasma Cutting Solution from Hypertherm. Essentially, this is a suite of Hypertherm products designed to work together and offer additional benefits when used together. For their application they combined the HyPerformance HPR400XD plasma system and ProNest 2010 nesting and process optimization software. The HPR400XD gave them the ability to cut a wide range of metal thicknesses with superior cut quality and ProNest 2010 increased profitability by saving programming time and minimizing scrap. Marceau says, "We saw immediate benefits from the investment, with cut speed improvements two to three times faster than the lasers, and three to four times better than the old ESAB plasma system." These improvements nearly eliminated outsourcing, reduced lead times and enabled Hutchinson Manufacturing to extend production to two shifts a day. By bringing work back in-house, they saved more than $220,000 during a two year period. |
