Acro’s Success Leads to More Dies Transferred

Success Story: Customer Seamlessly Transfers 80+ Tooling Dies to Acro Metal Stamping

A company that is an industry leader in automated clamping solutions approached Acro 3 years ago with a crucial need for a stamper to run, maintain, and refurbish over 80+ of their metal stamping dies. Acro was able to leverage our robust in-house toolroom capabilities to get these dies repaired and fitted into our hybrid servo presses. The customer was so satisfied with the quality improvements, improved on-time delivery, and cost savings when moving their dies to Acro; they continue to transfer additional dies to Acro today.

Background: The Customer’s Need to Change Metal Stampers

The customer was utilizing their old metal stamper for several years and struggled with many issues. As their demand for parts grew, their old stamper couldn’t keep with die maintenance due to limited in-house toolroom capabilities and struggled to deliver parts to the customer on time. Part quality and on-time delivery was severely compromised due to the previous stamper’s inability to maintain the die toolings. The customer was in a crisis due to severe delays to their own on-time delivery. At this point 3 years ago, the customer decided to transfer 80+ die toolings from their old metal stamper and transfer the dies to Acro to use to stamp their much-needed parts.

The Transfer Process

Transferring metal stamping dies and tooling may seem like a daunting task, but through planning and collaboration several of Acro’s customers have had much success in transferring their dies from their previous metal stamper to Acro.

In Acro’s transfer process we assess what tooling is suitable for transfer to Acro and we will make any updates to the dies that are required to run the tooling in our presses. Once the tooling is setup to run and parts are made, Acro does a full Production Part Approval Process (PPAP) and submits the PPAP paperwork (and parts) to the customer for approval prior to a full production run. Once approved, the production quality and inspection frequency is performed adhering to ISO 2589-1 AQL Level II 1. for critical dimensions and 4.0 for non-critical dimensions.

Outcomes and Success Metrics

3 years after the transfer process has been completed, Acro’s Customer had some key success outcomes which include:

• Reduced Lead Times: With Acro’s robust in-house toolroom capabilities and ability to retrofit dies to run in our hybrid servo presses, the customer has experienced up to a 25% reduction in lead times over the last 3 years. Acro’s capacity allows us to run and keep inventory of 90% of the customer’s parts to maintain inventory prior to releases being put on.
• Increased Production for Capacity for Customer: Acro is able keep up with increased demand from the customer. The customer increased annual usage on some parts over 80% the last 3 years and Acro has kept up with demand and on-time delivery.
• Enhanced Quality Assurance: Overall, part quality for the customer increased tremendously after transferring the dies to Acro. When transferring dies to Acro, the customer approved a PPAP prior to any part deliveries were made which proactively combatted quality concerns that could arise with a die transfer. Acro had the toolroom capabilities to do the much-needed maintenance work on the transferred dies. With the prior stamper, the customer ignored many out of tolerance features on the parts. Now with Acro, the necessary tooling maintenance is completed to get the parts within specification. Whenever there is a concern with the part specification, Acro works collaboratively with the customer to understand the needs of the part to proactively resolve any potential issues.
• Cost Efficiency: Acro’s toolroom updated many of the dies to efficiently run with reduced die maintenance. Proactively inspecting and sharpening the tooling before stamping, re-designing and updating tooling, making/maintaining spare parts, and creating maintenance logs to record work performed on each die are all ways that Acro has reduced die repair costs and secondary labor to create cost savings for our customer.

Conclusion

The successful transfer of 80+ metal stamping tooling and dies to Acro was a significant achievement for Acro and our customer. 3 years later the customer is no longer in a critical situation regarding their on-time shipping and experienced a 20% improvement in 2023 alone. The customer recognized Acro for this achievement by giving Acro a suppler reward and continues to transfer Acro dies 3 years later.

See How You Can Save Today With Transferring Your Dies To Acro!

Click the link above, send us an email at info@acrometalstamping.com, or give us a call today!(414)445-8787