Page 22 - MetalForming September 2019

Dry-Film Lubricant
Leads to AhaMoment
Life just became much easier for press operators and welders at this manufacturer of heavy-truck and trailer parts, thanks to the move to a dry-film lubricant applied to coil stock. The move eliminates oil and weld-spatter cleanup, and, management appreciates the less-than-1-yr. payback.
BY BRAD F. KUVIN, PUBLISHER/EDITORIAL DIRECTOR
Alittle more than 2 yr. ago, the production team at Fleet Engi- neers, a division of Tramec Sloan in Muskegon, MI, had seen enough. Stamping parts for one of its biggest sellers—frames for mud flaps that go on heavy trucks and trailers—created a mess, as oil applied to the incoming coils of hot-rolled pickled-and-oiled (HRPO) steel drenched its stamping dies and led to huge and costly cleanup issues. Further, downstream welding operations on stamped parts (each assembly comprises nine parts, and measures 12 by 32 in.) experienced
excessive weld spatter. Weld quality and appearance suffered, and welders wasted valuable production time clean- ing off weld spatter.
“We had to do something to improve the process and to help our pressroom and weld shop become more produc- tive,” says Mike Thorsby, director of sup- ply chain management at Fleet Engi- neers. “We even had operators stationed at each press using rags to wipe excess oil from the material as it fed into the press. In addition, welders were spend- ing a lot of time cleaning and grinding spatter off of the welds. Further, when
we asked the material supplier to cut back on the oil, parts would rust when we sent them out for e-coating and pow- der coating. It was a vicious cycle.”
Dry-Film Lubricant to the Rescue
The Fleet Engineers division oper- ates out of three manufacturing plants on its sprawling Muskegon campus. Plant one, its 185,000-sq.-ft. metal shop, is where we find the firm’s 16 stamping presses (110- to 600-ton capacities) and weld shop (seven weld cells), where mild and stainless steel, as well as alu- minum stock, enter, and truck/trailer parts exit. The metal shop fabricates and assembles mud flaps and brackets, spare-tire carriers, side skirts and other truck and trailer accessories; Fleet also manufactures roll-up and swing doors.
Thorsby files the mud-flap bracket project under the firm’s catalog of con- tinuous-improvement (CI) projects, “to make our products perform better in
20 MetalForming/September 2019
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Fleet Engineers, a division of Tramec Sloan, stamps and welds these mud-flap brack- ets from 0.059-in.-thick mild steel. Each bracket, 12 by 32 in., comprises nine com- ponents. The switch from heavily oiled HRPO material to a dry-film-lubricated steel has returned significant process improvements in the firm’s metal shop, including less mess in the pressroom and improved weld quality and appearance.