The MISUMI Voice In Action

Sourcing standard parts shortens production time
By Dwayne J. Roark, Misumi USA

To sustain growth and profitability in an increasingly competitive market, a company must be open to new ideas and innovations. ABCO Automation, Inc., North Carolina, U.S., has consistently decreased costs and increased profits by looking for new ways to source custom components used in its machine builds.

ABCO Automation is not a typical custom machine builder, as the company builds machines for a vast number of industries instead of focusing on a select number of industries. This strategy creates a situation where ABCO heavily relies on its innovations and its suppliers' innovations to remain cost and time competitive in the extremely aggressive custom machine building market.

ABCO is constantly searching for new ways to source its custom components and lessen the amount of custom components used in machine builds. In 2004, ABCO specifically was looking for a more cost-efficient source for machined linear shafts. Their process involved purchasing blank linear shafts from a distributor and then machining the shafts, using their in-house machine shop.

This process was becoming quite costly for ABCO, which prompted a visit with Misumi Senior Account Manager Donald Schmeltzer. "When I explained that Misumi Linear Shafts can be configured in one-millimeter length increments and offer a vast amount of shaft end configurations as well as a standard manufacturing time of 3 days, ABCO quickly understood the benefit of switching to Misumi for linear shafts," explained Schmeltzer.

In addition, Schmeltzer noted that no drawings are required, because ABCO engineers can use the Misumi online CAD Configurator to design shafts to their specifications and download the native CAD files directly from the site. This made ABCO quickly realize that it would cost less money and time to use Misumi linear shafts than to purchase blank linear shafts from a distributor and machine the shafts in-house.

In the past ABCO has experienced problems with custom components where no two components were the same. When dealing with custom components, it's common to get a one of a kind component that can't be copied exactly again, whereas with configurable components, it's easy to configure a component to the exact specifications needed and repeatedly order that identical component whenever you need it, simply by specifying the part number. As a result, machine component repeatability and modularity only increases.

"Unlike custom components, Misumi configurable components offered ABCO native CAD files that can be downloaded from the supplier's web site, as well as short lead-times, published prices and part numbers for every configured component, which can easily be added to the bill of material," noted Dan Pescariu, Senior Mechanical Engineer.

According to Pescariu, reducing component count proved to be a major benefit as the machine design and build was quickly executed because the machine components fit together so well and the testing stage was shortened, as well.

Naturally, another benefit from reducing component count comes in the form of cost savings. ABCO President Brad Kemmerer expects his engineers to meet their design and build budgets and encourages them to beat this budget on a consistent basis.

In total, each packaging machine contained approximately 10,000 components. Out of the approximate 10,000 components, about 3,000 were Misumi components. In the past, ABCO would have had to draw and machine many of these components.

Working with the configurable components has really changed the thinking behind designing and building custom machines at ABCO Automation. Pescariu explained that the previous thinking was to design the machine, then specify as many standard components as possible and then fill in the rest with custom components.

However, now, the thinking is to specify the standard components and then specify as many configurable components as possible. In turn, this decreases the amount of custom components and ABCO reaps the benefits. ABCO feels that using Misumi as a supplier of configurable and standard components has helped the business as a whole and has benefited ABCO customers, as well.