Case Studies

Manufacturing

Case Studies:

Multi-Terj 4012 Cleans and Brightens Brass and Copper, Optimizing Processes While Eliminating Variability

OPPORTUNITY:

The customer is an ammunition manufacturer that produces brass and copper casings. After these casings are formed and heat treated, they are cleaned in a part-on-part tumbling operation. Historically, this tumbling process utilized three different products from a competitor for heat treat scale removal and brightening. These three products were in powdered form, requiring manual feed, and because the products were not properly built for this application, they were often used in excess, resulting in increased variability and cost.

THE DUBOIS SOLUTION:

DuBois partnered with the customer to meet a number of process improvement goals. First, the team looked to fully automate the casing, descaling, and brightening processes. Second, to simplify operations, stocking, and purchasing, a need for a single product to replace the three products previously employed was crucial. Third, the technical team began to develop casing-specific wash procedures to eliminate variability and minimize overuse of product.
The customer sent a sampling of casings to the DuBois laboratory for benchtop testing. In these trials, the laboratory identified Multi-Terj 4012 as an ideal product for their application. Multi-Terj 4012 is a multi-metal safe acid cleaner for immersion and tumbling applications. It is specifically built to clean and brighten copper and brass at low temperatures (ideally 135°F / 57.2°C for tumbling operations) for added safety.

Multi-Terj 4012’s liquid form allowed the DuBois technical team to develop 10 custom PLC wash programs for the customer. The wash program automatically adds water, feeds the chemical at 1 oz/gal (7.5 g/L), tumbles, rinses, and drains at intervals specific to each casing type.

RESULTS AND BENEFITS:

Following the implementation of the Multi-Terj 4012 and custom PLC program, the customer documented several key benefits that were crucial to their success. Simplifying the process to utilize only one chemical also made ordering and managing inventory much easier, and the programmed product additions gave them a true fixed cost per batch. By eliminating variability, they reported improved product quality and consistency between runs, resulting in a 20% reduction in chemical cost and nearly a 50% reduction in cycle time. Not only was did this process drastically improve quality and optimize the process, but by limiting manual chemical handling, it was also found to be a significant improvement to worker safety.