Saturday, March 17, 2007
Hamond Industries Ltd Announces New Tooling Program
Hamond Industries, a leading manufacturer of small, custom metal parts, is pleased to announce a new tooling program, suitable for lower volume parts and customers.
Under the new tooling program, only the unique tooling components for each job will be built. Those components which are fairly standard will instead be tooled using Hamond standard components.
The program is suitable for low to medium volume jobs, up to, perhaps, 500,000 parts per year. Beyond that volume, scheduling and wear issues mean that we will offer this option and will continue to tool jobs in the classical way, that is, a complete set of components for each job.
From the customer's perspective, the tooling cost will be less, and the time to build the tooling also less, because we only build those components unique to your job. However, the part price will be slightly higher, because it pays for wear, tear and repair on the shared tools.
How much can this program save? It's hard to estimate. The nature of custom work is that each job is different. But if a customer is willing to work with us, perhaps modifying their drawing to use standard materials, standard material widths, standard hole sizes, etc, so that standard components can be used throughout the job, somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 of the standard tooling charge (and some lead time) may be shaved off.
Under the new tooling program, only the unique tooling components for each job will be built. Those components which are fairly standard will instead be tooled using Hamond standard components.
The program is suitable for low to medium volume jobs, up to, perhaps, 500,000 parts per year. Beyond that volume, scheduling and wear issues mean that we will offer this option and will continue to tool jobs in the classical way, that is, a complete set of components for each job.
From the customer's perspective, the tooling cost will be less, and the time to build the tooling also less, because we only build those components unique to your job. However, the part price will be slightly higher, because it pays for wear, tear and repair on the shared tools.
How much can this program save? It's hard to estimate. The nature of custom work is that each job is different. But if a customer is willing to work with us, perhaps modifying their drawing to use standard materials, standard material widths, standard hole sizes, etc, so that standard components can be used throughout the job, somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 of the standard tooling charge (and some lead time) may be shaved off.
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Hamond Lead Times for March, 2007 and beyond
January and February were a busy time. Many customers delayed their work out of December and advanced work out of March and into the January & February timeframe. We're not sure why this happened, not sure why it happened all at the same time, but it did, and to some extent it created a logjam on our machines and on the downstream processes (heat treat and plate). During this time, our lead times grew to be uncharacteristically long.
This logjam is now out of our plant (some of the work remains to be heat treated and plated, but that's proceeding well) and so our lead times are back down to normal.
Raw material prices remain high. Zinc & copper, while they have dropped a bit from the peak 3 months ago, still remain at relatively high levels compared to even 6 months ago. If you haven't ordered parts in 6 months, you may be surprised to learn what has happened to raw material prices.
You can see charts a few articles down the page.
Nickel (a major ingredient in most Stainless Steel) is high and climing and shows no sign of stopping. So if you need stainless parts, they're going to be expensive for the next while.
This logjam is now out of our plant (some of the work remains to be heat treated and plated, but that's proceeding well) and so our lead times are back down to normal.
Raw material prices remain high. Zinc & copper, while they have dropped a bit from the peak 3 months ago, still remain at relatively high levels compared to even 6 months ago. If you haven't ordered parts in 6 months, you may be surprised to learn what has happened to raw material prices.
You can see charts a few articles down the page.
Nickel (a major ingredient in most Stainless Steel) is high and climing and shows no sign of stopping. So if you need stainless parts, they're going to be expensive for the next while.
This BLOG brought to you by
Hamond Industries Ltd - the Slide Forming Specialists
