The manufacturer machines die components to micrometer tolerances, using what is referred to as ultra-precision machining. It produces a wide range of components in small lots of just a couple of units at a time, spending between one to four hours on surface roughness and internal bore finishing after internal bore grinding. Because these processes depend on the experience and intuition of skilled workers, these skilled workers had no choice but to work only on the internal bore finishing processes. This hindered the manufacturer’s efforts to train subsequence workers.
An employee from the Production Engineering Division explained:
“No matter how hard we tried to improve efficiency, it was nearly impossible to cut costs because everything was done by hand and this process took time. As the process also requires experienced operators, we anticipated that future labor shortages will cause longer lead times, with a commensurate increase in costs.”
In the course of looking for ways to make the process more efficient, the employee had the idea that hand-finishing time could be reduced by performing internal griding on a honing machine and using lapping for all final finishing. One of the manufacturer’s other divisions had access to a honing machine, so the employee decided to talk to their honing specialist.
“The honing specialist explained that a different mandrel would be required for each machining diameter. As there were 35 different bore diameters for die components, this approach would have been too expensive, and we were forced to abandon the idea,” recounted the employee.
Faced with this dilemma, the employee struggled to find an effective solution.
