Opportunity: Establish a relationship with a new supplier for cylinders
Solution: Due to catastrophic events with past suppliers we have come to a cross roads surrounding our aluminum cylinder availability. The cylinder itself requires an expensive and unique style of casting known as centrifugal casting. This process requires the material to be spun as it is poured into the cast tooling, and requires a continuous spin until the poured material has cooled and set. Due to this need for a specific technology we had to vet out numerous suppliers to find ones that have this technology and the capability to handle some of our cylinders
size and weight. After months of vetting out suppliers we determined the best option to move forward with, a material change from cast aluminum to cast nylon.
NEW MATERIAL:
Changing from cast aluminum to cast nylon you can see immediate benefits:
No oxidation of the cylinder
No issues with wash down
Immediate decrease in weight of cylinder assembly (roughly half the weight)
Reduce effects of needles deflecting and contacting through holes in cylinders
The nylon material is FDA approved
Both materials act similar when machining and when in its application
Changing to nylon gives our customers another option outside of the aluminum
