Aluminum and Steel Fittings

Heavy Truck Success Story

Heavy Truck OEM’s rely on specialized suppliers for AC Tube and Hose assemblies to insure trucks are properly equipped with climate controls in the cab for the truck drivers comfort. These hose assemblies often require a vast array of machined aluminum and steel fittings. Suppliers of AC tube and hose systems have typically relied on precision milling companies to make the various fittings needed to complete their assemblies.

Problem

These fittings are often made from custom “profiled” material to help reduce costs. This material must be bought in large quantities directly from a mill (30K lbs min) and often have lead times of six to eight months. Compounding the problem is the fact that our customer needs a high mix of different profiles often combined with low to medium volumes. This does not work well with using profiled material.

Solution

Montague Manufacturing was able to create a manufacturing process to make these fittings using standard round bar material readily available on the market and with the ability to purchase in smaller lot sizes. In addition, modular fixturing was created to handle five different standard material sizes. This allowed Montague to take advantage of their high-speed CNC milling centers to machine any profile needed in five seconds!

Conclusion

The result for the customer was very short lead times averaging less than two weeks on any profile needed. Our customer has grown their business and continues to deliver on-time because of Montague’s ability to create processes that reduce standard lead times on machined components.