Keeping Up With Demand: Rotary Die Press

Assisting our customers in getting their products to market faster continues to be a top priority at PGC. While supply chain and material delays continue to cause disruptions, it is vital to proactively search for solutions that cut down on production lead times where any additional time saved can be crucial to meeting a customer’s deadline.  In knowing this, we at PGC understand that we must invest in opportunities that increase efficiency while maintaining the highest level of quality.

Advancements in machine technology are enabling manufacturers to streamline production, reduce costs and deliver high quality products to meet their customer’s demand.  Recently, PGC purchased a Delta ModTech Crusader®, a rotary die press, to meet the needs of growing customer part volumes.

“The main benefit centers around difficult laminations and large volumes. If something is hard to laminate, the rotary is usually the best way to do it, as long as all materials needed for the application are available in roll form.” shares Tristan Boyd, Manufacturing Engineering Supervisor at PGC. He continues, “We are able to put raw material in and get completed parts out. With this process there is no cutting, sheeting, or taping the material and no need for our team to spend precious time picking slugs or material webbing. All the necessary steps involved in the manufacturing process are completed on the rotary.”  Having the ability to manufacture parts with this level of technology simplifies scheduling, reduces WIP, increases labor efficiencies and provides an opportunity for a high quality and lower piece price to our customers.  PGC has worked with current customers to move active part programs that previously used a multiple process stage approach to the Delta ModTech Crusader® and have been able to cut labor costs by 50% alone.

As the labor market continues to be challenging and filling positions can be difficult, having the ability to free up additional staff to work in other areas of manufacturing and boost production with the same or, sometimes less, manufacturing staff can be a game changer for an organization like ours.  For example, by transferring one part program to the Delta ModTech Crusader®, we were able to increase the production of parts per hour by 212% without sacrificing the high-quality standards that we are so proud of. This change allowed us to take out much of the laborious work done by individual staff members and automate it. The increase in output with the same level of staff has been what has allowed us to maintain our flexibility and nimble nature through a very challenging time within this industry.

For more specific information on PGC's use of the Delta ModTech Crusader®, check out our case study.