Oil Manufacturing Case Study
Customer Profile: An Houston-based multinational gate valve manufacturer.
Challenge:
A customer who was manufacturing 2” gate valves for sub-sea oil drilling was experiencing long cycle times. They were using a Generating Head to machine the seat pockets in the gate valves in both steel and then Inconel Inlay. The manufacturer’s goal was to set up a more cost-effective manufacturing process while remaining consistent and reliable. The current cycle time for roughing the seat pockets in Inconel Inlay was 6 hours per seat pocket.
Steiner Solution:
Using Steiner’s KA-Series Autofacer on a Ct50 Horizontal Boring Mill, Steiner’s solution enabled the customer to rough out the steel seat pocket and then Inconel Inlay in one pass. As a result, after the seat pockets were all roughed out, the customer can finish the Inconel Inlay seat pockets with a generating head on the same machine.
Results:
The Steiner Autofacer helped the customer cut the roughing operation from 6 hours per seat pocket to under 5 minutes. With this reduction in cycle time, the customer determined that the company will save roughly $4.5 million on its 2” gate valves in the next three years. After the immense success of this project, the customer decided to implement Steiner tooling in its five worldwide production facilities.