Tag: cassestudy-automobile

The customer was an electrical switch manufacturer with a problem during assembly of their product. Solder spatter during the connector assembly process had increased costs to an unacceptable level. The spattered solder rendered defective the expensive electronic chips, (supplied as a connector for an air conditioning unit to the automotive industry), leading to a high rejection rates and a substantial increase in costs.

The customer had a significant problem that was costing them dearly. Advanex was able to solve the problem through creative use of their advanced technology. We offered:

• An innovative approach
• Advanced processes
• An inexpensive, easy solution

The customer approached Advanex with the need to develop a connector that would not be damaged from solder spattering during assembly. They needed an easy way of protecting the expensive device from damage.

The creativity of Advanex engineers and with proven technology made it possible to find an ideal solution. To prevent solder spattering during assembly, they found that it would be useful to integrate a cover into the product. The cover should not hinder the soldering process, and removal once the component is installed needed to be simple with no risk of damage to the rest of the device.

To do this, the cover needed to be secure but insubstantial enough to allow easy removal. The main factor was the material thickness of the joint portion.

An ideal thickness could not be calculated but the engineer was able to achieve optimal performance through his best judgement.

To manufacture the product, Advanex used our double insert molding technology. The approach to solving this problem has been and object lesson to Advanex staff that demonstrates the importance of creativity in finding a solution.

Advanex is proud to have developed a product that is still vital to this customer 15 years later.

With only one month until a model change, the customer could not find an acceptable solution to their problem – which was that his engineer was having great difficulty designing a spring with sufficient load for a glove box lid and pressure was building as the deadline approached. An Advanex representative brought the engineer and the product to the Koriyama Prototype Center to help solve the problem.

For this difficult problem, Advanex was able to meet the customer’s deadline through:

• Rapid prototyping and testing at the Koriyama Prototype Center
• Excellent support and communication
• Knowledge and advanced methodology

The customer’s problem was that if the spring load was too high, the glove box lid would not open; too low, and vibrations from the car would cause the lid to open. The engineer tested many spring variations but could not find an optimal solution.

With the deadline quickly approaching, the engineer made a drawing of a spring and sent it to the Koriyama Prototype Center. Based on this drawing, and with the advantages of numerical control machines and specialists, samples were prepared in increments of 1 newton around the engineer’s calculated optimal load.

The customer’s engineer then visited this facility and was presented with the spring samples, whereby he fitted them to the glove box and lid assembly. Choosing the best spring, the engineer returned to the customer’s site and proved that the spring passed the durability tests.

However, during assembly, the engineer discovered a possible risk of injury due to the sharp end of the spring. The engineer redesigned the spring to remove this risk and sent the drawings back to Advanex. The spring was redesigned, further improved and finally, after several trials, the ideal spring was supplied within the customer’s one month deadline.

Automobile manufacturers had an urgent need to reduce the cost of procured parts.

Customers are heavy electric manufacturers based in the Tohoku region. The trigger is cost reduction. Customers were asked to make estimates when they were forced to review parts procurement. The designated product is a two-use leaf spring of similar shape to the right and left used for the radiator motor of an automobile. It was the request after feeling the limit in the cost management ability of the competing spring manufacturer who had requested the manufacture of the similar product until then.

• Prototype processing technology
• Conceptual and technological capabilities
• In-house made forming machine

Advanex decided to adopt processing by forming machines against the processing by competitors’ press machines until then. In terms of the two advantages of the forming machine:

① to save material costs by reducing waste of material ingestion;
② to allow compression of mold costs by being able to accommodate type 1 and similarly shaped items on the left and right side through part change;
the presentation presented that the unit cost and the cost of gold can be drastically reduced, and the mutual estimation by the materials and parts was winned.

However, the forming process was the first time for the customer, and he felt anxiety. This paper explains the outline of forming by showing moving pictures and photographs with a technician in charge of sales. The company itself draws a manga picture to explain the mechanism of material cost compression, etc., and wins the reliability of the customer engineer of the theorist skin. After that, the factory smoothly shifted to the prototype stage, and at the timing of the process audit in which fine dimension adjustment was completed and the dies were completed, the quality manager of the customer visited the Kashiwazaki Plant and made final adjustments with the quality engineer of Advanex, leading to mass production. The first customer to look at a forming machine at a factory, surprised at the facilities and management system. Advanex is becoming more trustworthy, and other products are being developed.