Recently, O’Neal Manufacturing Services (OMS) was featured in a news release in The Fabricator, a publication of the Fabricators & Manufacturers Association, for our use of automated deburring to improve productivity, quality, and safety in the workplace.
As laser, plasma, and oxyfuel cutting technologies are used on our shop floor, our “safety-critical” products sometimes require multiple hands on deck. For instance, four or five people used to be required in the grinding area, and the work was often divided amongst eight people over three shifts to complete a job. Our Indianapolis facility was impacted by this “tedious” task, as strenuous workers were put at risk of injury by manually grinding and a pile-up of parts began to overload the team. Located in one of the top U.S. manufacturing states with a low unemployment rate, OMS Indy was not able to hire from a large pool of available workers. How did our Indy facility respond to a small demand of workers amid a high staff turnover?
Daniel Webster, OMS Engineering Manager, conversed with colleagues in Indy to assess the productivity of the grinding process. As the current tactic led to a staff shortage, demand overload, and safety risks, a new course of action was to be made. It was soon decided to transition to automated deburring.
Several deburring machines by ARKU were inspected before our Indy team decided on the EdgeBreaker 4400. This machine allowed our employees to run diagnostics under real production scenarios instead of relying on performance figures to make decisions. The EdgeBreaker 4400 can deburr parts from 0.03 to 3.94 in. thick double-sided, which enables a variety of equipment parts to be produced for customers of different industries.
The EdgeBreaker 4400 quickly resolved an overflow of products as it was installed in October 2018. In record time, the machine operates 1.5 shifts a day, saving the manual labor previously incurring 3 shifts. As a result of this investment, higher output is achieved, the quality of parts improved, and the safety and time of our employees are better delegated.
Full article or visit The Fabricator