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Hunt-Wilde EDM Investment Saves Costs and
Promotes Market Expansion
Hunt-Wilde Corporation began operations
in Dayton, Ohio, in 1946 by manufacturing
vinyl injection molded parts, the bulk of
which were handlegrips for bicycles. Toward
the end of the century the U.S. bicycle
manufacturing business began to move
offshore, where it is now predominantly
located.
This significant market shift allowed
Hunt-Wilde to gain the capacity to further
diversify its traditional Flexon™
handlegrips to pursue alternative markets
such as lawn and garden equipment, medical
transportation devices and industrial
devices. It even moved into other product
areas such as molded marine parts, foam
grips and profile extrusions that it
previously never would have considered
manufacturing.
Hunt-Wilde Vice President Ken Hunt says
this transition would not have been possible
without investing in Makino EDM and graphite
milling equipment. "We acquired an
EDNC43S with HQSF™ (High-Quality Surface
Finish) technology to burn our dies and
molds, as well as an SNC64 to mill the
graphite electrodes and hard mill cavities.
This allowed us to prepare these molds
internally instead of sending all of that
work out. Makino machinery drove out
operational costs, enhanced our flexibility
to meet diversified customer needs and
allowed us to delve into new markets of
injection-molded products.
"Makino helped us drive out tens of
thousands of dollars of die/mold preparation
costs from our operation, as well as
virtually eliminate $40,000 worth of polish
and bench work annually. Our cycle time
production is now 10 times greater with the
Makino machinery than our previous internal
process. This has allowed us to acquire a
significant amount of work we would not have
gotten previously. A lot of the work
probably would have gone overseas. Instead,
we can be a competitive global force in the
marketplace."
Hunt-Wilde Transition
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Prior to consolidating in Tampa, Florida,
Hunt-Wilde bought an extrusion company in
Miami that made custom profiles during 1974.
The two operations were combined in Florida
in 1979, and an aftermarket foam grip
manufacturer from Arkansas was added to
their 90-person operation in 1995.
Hunt-Wilde is still family owned and
operated, and is succeeding in its second
generation. Ken Hunt handles manufacturing
operations, his brother Doug handles
administrative operations and Jeff Wilde is
in charge of sales operations. Together,
these sons of the two founders are moving
the company into other market segments.
The diversity into new markets and
product uses brought about the need for mass
customization. This required more
engineering and design, research and
development, prototyping and ergonomic study
than the company had previously conducted
when it focused on the standard
finger-ribbed grip. New manufacturing
processes had to be developed to reduce
cycle times, speed time-to-market, increase
quality and drive out operational costs in
order for the company to stay competitive.
Philip Bayldon, engineering supervisor
for Hunt-Wilde, realized that to be
competitive the company needed to develop
its own internal die/mold production
operation. "When I started here, we did
mold repair and mold maintenance on old
manual EDMs. We couldn't keep up with the
work on them, so we started sending all of
our molds out at a cost 10 times greater
than what we now spend in house."
"Because of the quality finish of
the HQSF™, achieving up to a 10-micron
finish, the molds only need a bit of post-EDM
buffing and they are good to go," says
Hunt. "In the past, we would spend
anywhere from a month to eight weeks to
polish out 24 blocks. Now we do it in hours,
and we can provide a much quicker turnaround
time to market for our customers."
Decisions and Performance
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Discovering the SNC64 and the EDNC43S
with HQSF™ technology at a trade show,
Hunt was amazed at the speed provided by
Makino. "Our previous method of
building molds was a long and very tedious
process. At peak operations, we used to
build a simple mold in about six months.
With the Makino EDNC43S and SNC64 working in
tandem to make our electrodes and burn our
mold, we just finished building four complex
and multi-cavity molds in about 12
weeks."
Bayldon and Doug Hunt perform the design
and engineering work at Hunt-Wilde.
According to Bayldon, the company used to
make wooden or aluminum carvings to
demonstrate handlegrip concepts to
customers. Now, it can produce an actual
prototype. "With the Makino advanced
EDM machining, combined with our 3D CAD-CAM
network, it is now much easier to develop an
actual mold and inject a prototype part true
to size, texture and color," says
Bayldon. A major benefit that they see with
the EDNC43S with HQSF™ is flexible
production, something they did not expect
according to Bayldon. "C-axis on the
EDNC43S allows us to burn horizontally and
at 360 degrees, allowing us to eliminate
multiple setups, with angle blocks and sign
plates to achieve the design repetition in
the cavity. That is a huge plus for us. At
peak operations, we used to make six or
eight cavity molds a year, before Makino.
Now we can make 30 cavities in a week, or
200-plus molds a year, an increase of nearly
2,500 percent.
 "Makino machinery also allows us to
perform our mold repair and support work
three times faster than before in our
eight-person die/mold shop. Molds that are
made on Makino machinery are very easy to
reburn and remake, which additionally speeds
up our support to our 20 injection molding
machines ranging from 50 to 750 tons."
In addition, the company has gained
significant savings in time and money from
unattended machining in its die/mold
operation, monitored by a Web-based video
system. According to Hunt, "Unattended
time just didn't exist before. I don't know
how we got along without it now."
Changing Attitudes and the Future
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Makino machinery affected the attitude
and performance of his whole operation, says
Hunt. "Before we got these machines, we
were making handlegrips the same way we did
40 years ago. Acquiring Makino has changed
the perception of the people in the molding
department and the entire operation. Now
that we are practicing 'high-tech'
operations in our tool room, we are taking
that same mental approach in what we are
molding, and the team is much more aware of
the unlimited potential of our new
processes.
| "We won't buy any more
cheap machines. They are not worth
the investment. Makino is proving to
be a sure thing." |
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- Philip Bayldon |
"We used to have such terrible
problems and inefficiencies with the old
molds; we were constantly redoing and
rebuilding them. The time and money we have
saved is unbelievable. We just finished a
new mold for a nine-inch-long grip that
was, up until now, made in an old, detailed
two-cavity mold that we had to have built by
someone else. We had trouble getting
acceptable parts. We now have a four-cavity
mold that is running around the clock twice
as fast as our original process, which is
eight times as fast as the original
production, because of what we could do in
the tool room with Makino."
This has also given Hunt-Wilde the extra
capacity to do extremely profitable contract
work for outside companies that do not have
the Makino machining capabilities, according
to Hunt. "We have invested heavily into
becoming a high-technology operation. Our
investment is not only in quality equipment
like Makino, but also in the extensive
internal cost-control processes we have put
in place to properly maximize this
investment.
"This process allows us to offer our
expertise to others who cannot afford to
make this transition, or who don't have the
volume to make the effort cost-effective. We
are bringing in some income for Hunt-Wilde,
which is reducing the overhead of the whole
operation. And we are staying competitive
and not losing as much business off-shore
for our work as well as others we
support."
According to Bayldon, Hunt-Wilde has
learned something about capital equipment
acquisition. "Every purchase in
technology like Makino that we make allows
us to grow more sophisticated, more accurate
and more complicated. We won't buy any more
cheap machines. They are not worth the
investment. Makino is proving to be a sure
thing."
As to what he has done with his other EDM
machinery, Hunt says, "There is just no
market for the other equipment. And, our
guys prefer not to use them. So we primarily
use them as room dividers. Every mold we
make is now on Makino."
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