A major organisation encountered severe supply chain difficulties; this was due to poor service provision through their existing supplier of their critical actuator cylinder.
An investigation identified that the lack of knowledge exhibited by the original supplier had caused them to incorrectly machine the surface coating and create dimensional defect through their poor practices.
The repair was required because the component had been in the possession of the previous supplier for 25 working days prior to their realising submission to the customer. The customer had scheduled the build of an assembly, for which these components were critical, in order to facilitate their next project worth hundreds of thousands of pounds.
In order that the customer met this deadline the timescale for potential reclamation of the components would be 5 days. This would also mitigate costs for their existing project, which was subject to penalty costs.
SOLUTION
The “fix” necessitated an electroplating process owing to the critical adhesion requirements to the substrate (being far superior due to atomic adhesion (rather than the poor adhesion afforded through mechanical means such as HVOF processes).
The component was shipped to our facility for investigation and we were asked to potentially reclaim through our expert machining, grinding and electroplating service provision.
WE UNDERTOOK:
Dimensional inspection and report
Chemical stripping of the existing surface treatment
Machining and Grinding of the area requiring reclaim (bore diameter of the actuator cylinder)
Expert “masking” (in order to ensure the remainder of the workpiece was not impacted through our processing) and correct chemical preparation of the area in order to facilitate Electroplating utilising Nickel and Hard Chrome Plating (HCP)
Component was then degreased in preparation for the final grinding operation
Final Grinding and dressing of the Hard Chrome deposit was then undertaken to drawing dimensions and requisite surface finish
Final Inspection was undertaken and reports prepared
Customer visited our facility and witnessed the work undertaken and was delighted with the quality of the work and also the delivery performance achieved
The component was processed in 5 days owing to our commitment to the project and also the realisation of the impact on our customer should they be unable to honour their future project. Without our expert services significant penalty costs would have been incurred and no delay to the customer’s next project were experienced.
Published: 18-02-2021
