When it Rains…
We’ve had some setbacks over the past couple months that has caused us plenty of manufacturing grief, and Hendricks has keyed in on the personnel side of the situation. But as you read the information below hopefully you will understand that we had little choice but to do these Manufacturing and Inventory Control process updates or the business would not be able to keep up with the needed production.
Our Production Slowed:
We have (2) dedicated CNC machines building our Lowers – a larger one that does all of the initial, heavy-load machining and a smaller one that does all of the down stream “easy work”. In early May, the small CNC decided that it wanted to “retire”. Our production rate dropped over 70% at that point.
And we lost two great employees during the same time period due to the Sales level at the time already slowing down for summer season plus the general Biden economic situation for everyone, so that personnel loss had an impact as well. There were other smaller setbacks along the way due to details like the summer heat, tool and indicator mishaps, and new CNC programs for the fixtures and parts needing numerous adjustments.
The Needed Remedies:
We realized that keeping up with needed production with the equipment condition wasn’t possible. So starting July 1st we decided to re-invent our entire Manufacturing and Inventory Control processes, and broke that down into phases so that we could get production moving again.
Phase 1 – Move everything from the small CNC to the larger machine so that production could resume. This involved redesigning, programming and rebuilding all of the related workholding. The bolt catch pin hole had been an off-line, hand drilled operation since we started making Lowers over six years ago so that detail was incorporated into the new fixtures. This phase was estimated to take no more 2-3 weeks, but actually took much longer.
New Fixtures for Ops 3-4
Bolt Catch Pin Hole Drill
Phase 2 – Make new workholding for the small CNC, and do Op 1-2 there. We invested in Extruded profiles for our raw material which means that the “blank” comes as a 1.5-1.6″ thick piece of aluminum with the outside profile of either the AR15 or a 308 Lower as pictured below. It’s beneficial in that there is no “heavy” machining work needed so the small CNC can now do those first couple of machining Operations, and it requires less machining time on the CNC to complete so that increases the production rate as well.
308 Lower Aluminum Extrusion
Phase 3 – Inventory Mgmnt We’re going to build and stock Lowers in both 6061 and 7075 in the Raw (some popular 6061 in Ano) non-Ambi, 80% which will be only 30 versions of Lowers total versus the 840 versions that we currently offer and thusly, have to build to order in many cases. When a customer orders an Ambi, we convert a non-Ambi from stock. And when someone orders a serialized 7075, we covert an 80% Lower from stock.
With this method, we will reduce lead times down to 0-2 days for Raws, and 1-2 weeks if coatings are needed. Our customers not only benefit from shorter lead times, but we only have to build and stock 30 different versions of Lowers. The various parts inventory on the shelf, and the number of different parts needing to be produced is severely reduced.
Phase 4 – Make new workholding fixtures for Ops 1-2 and 7-8 to have everything updated, and have the setup process dialed in for speed and accuracy, ie. fast setups from one machining Operation to the next.
A Great Outlook:
With projections based on CNC machine Operation timings, we are certain that we will be building more parts faster and better than we were even before the April small CNC retirement.
Best of all, we are back in production on the Lowers utilizing the larger CNC as of August 9th. And our Phase 2 process update will be in effect on Labor Day.
We greatly appreciate all of our customers, and thank you very much for your business and support!
Dan – machinist
