Jeff Hintz, Mark Callan, Lafe Blad, Carl Williams

Thinking outside the box is a fantastic start. But figuring out how to make those ideas come to life is a real-life win for everyone.

It was a tough situation: we had 82 parts that were out of tolerance for a large Bettendorf, IA customer. These had to be reworked quickly so we could keep the customer’s lines going. Some parts were simply too large to run on our flattener, and outside processors were quoting from $135 – $240 per piece to flatten them with lead times that ranged from four to eight weeks. That just wouldn’t work.

Jeff Hintz and Mark Callan came up with the idea to run the parts using the temper mill heavy gauge leveler to flatten the parts. Now that’s thinking outside the box! The two of them shared the idea with Lafe Blad and Carl Williams. Lafe’s knowledge of the machine and Carl’s ability to develop lifting mechanisms and procedures helped them develop a process which allowed us to flatten up to four pieces per hour on the temper mill during non-production hours.

Using this process, the team was able to flatten all parts within one week when the temper mill wasn’t in production. The total savings? A full three weeks and a whopping $16,665! This is proof positive that teamwork really does make the dream work.

Lesson Learned: Thinking outside the box is a fantastic start. But figuring out how to make those ideas come to life is a real-life win for everyone.