The Objective
A medical OEM needed to reshore six injection molds, which produce 10 different components for their Huber needle set. As a new product, the performance benefits were creating demand ahead of planned production timelines which required a compressed engineering cycle.
The Challenge
Allegheny received six molds of unknown construction that required conditioning, validation and production in an ISO 8 environment. Limited information was transferred with the molds; missing tool components, drawings, documentation and models presented a significant engineering challenge prior to beginning production.
The Solution
Upon receipt of the tools, multiple parallel paths had to commence. Our production team began the process by specifying and taking delivery of a new press and robot. They constructed an ISO 8 clean room cell with RJG process monitoring capabilities.
Our tool room team evaluated the molds and began a course of repairs and corrections. Without drawings, the tool team had to reverse engineer the various components within the molds. Sampling, inspection and final grooming of all six molds were completed prior to production. The robot required end-of-arm tooling, which the team designed and built internally.
Once production began, we were able to get the customer back on track with the demand from their healthcare providers.
“Our in-house tooling and engineering made this project possible but it was the teamwork across our tooling, engineering, production, and maintenance departments, working in unison that made it happen. We accomplished all of this, as a coordinated effort, within 10 weeks. Our customer couldn’t be happier or more confident in their decision to choose Allegheny,” said Robert Stutzman, CEO.
