Expanded sourcing meets time to market and cost targets

Micro Matic beer kep tapper with parts produced by Minnesota Rubber and Plastics.

Minnesota Rubber and Plastics continues to expand its capabilities as a global supplier to a broad range of industries with highly technical products.
           
A case in point is the Minnesota Rubber and Plastics project with a long-time European-based customer, Micro Matic Denmark, a manufacturer and supplier of valves and couplers for the beverage industry.
           
Having successfully supplied similar items for the customer’s U.S. subsidiary for many years, the customer presented MR&P with an opportunity to make new versions that needed to be supplied to them in Europe from MR&P’s new facility in Suzhou, China. This improved the customer’s global supply chain while maintaining their global standards for quality, delivery and cost.
           
The challenges to accomplish this successfully were many. One of the greatest was the global logistics coordination of metal inserts supplied, raw materials procurement and shipment to China from Europe.

Another was the challenge of FDA testing acceptance, high volume quantity requirements and a tight delivery schedule. The overall goal was to replicate the long standing, high quality processes that had been in place with MR&P’s U.S. operations into our operations in Suzhou, China with no loss in product or process integrity.

For over 50 years, Micro Matic has been a world leading supplier of beverage dispensing products, and for nearly that long, Minnesota Rubber and Plastics has been their supplier of components.

Stainless steel overmolded with EPDM rubber—critical tolerances on all surfaces and part dimensions
For over 50 years, Micro Matic has been a world leading supplier of beverage dispensing products, and for nearly that long, Minnesota Rubber and Plastics has been their supplier of components. The heart of these devices is a valve mechanism that regulates pressure, beverage flow and sealing containment.
           
Many tolerances must be tightly controlled to insure consistent operation in all valve actions: sealing when the valve is open being filled with liquid, sealing the under-pressure contents of the container after it has been filled (through transportation and storage to the point of use – while effectively maintaining the integrity of the contents and shielding it from its environment), sealing at the point of use (to both the valve and to the container), re-closing and sealing any residual fluid during the return of the container and then re-sealing again during the steam cleaning and subsequent re-filling steps at the filling station. This whole process can occur several times during a valve’s lifetime.

Multiple locations for manufacture and assembly that ensure quality and price—logistically challenging
Before production rollout occurred, a variety of hurdles had to be met. First, the overmolded valve mechanism had to meet FDA 21CFR177.2600 standards. This ensured that there are no extracts from any of the materials of the part including the elastomer, the seal and the stainless steel material. In addition, the customer required stringent “taste tests” proving that nothing in the seal influenced or changed beverage taste or fragrance.

Once these criteria were met, the project moved to the process stages of how and where the valve mechanism would be manufactured and assembled. These are as follows:

1. The highly specialized rubber compound is formulated in Minnesota Rubber and Plastics Minneapolis engineering laboratories and sent to MR&P’s U.S. mixing center.
2. After milling at MR&P U.S. the material is shipped to MR&P’s Suzhou, China manufacturing plant.
3. A transfer mold is designed and built in MR&P U.S. facilities and shipped to its Suzhou, China Plant. (Future tools will be built in China.)
4. Stainless steel inserts are machined by a customer specified supplier and shipped to the MR&P’s Suzhou, China manufacturing plant.
5. A specialized topical bonding agent is shipped from the U.S. to the MR&P Suzhou plant where it is applied to the stainless steel valve components.
6. At the MR&P Suzhou plant, automated transfer overmolding of the component takes place and a critical bond check is performed on each lot of parts produced.
7. After a 100% automated check for insert presence is completed, parts are packaged and shipped from the MR&P Suzhou plant to Micro Matic Denmark where more components are added to the MR&P parts. All componentry is then shipped to another facility in Eastern Europe for final assembly and packaging.
8. The finished product is then distributed around the globe.

State-of-the-art molding facilities with China-based advantages
MR&P established its own manufacturing in China in 2006. This was a natural extension of the company’s policy to be close to its customers, many of which have now either located manufacturing within China or have strategies to do so.

The customer in this case had previous manufacturing partners in China and welcomed the MR&P/China initiative. When this project developed, MR&P was ready with skilled and trained personnel and new state-of-art manufacturing equipment. These include new vacuum box transfer presses which mold the parts at the MR&P Suzhou facility. These machines are equipped with automated load/unload features.

Project Highlights:

• Once supply sources were in place and the logistics chain readied, the first 30,000 part run was turned around in just 13 days.
• Using this new source of supply setup, labor costs for the part project were reduced 10 to 1 over previously used sources of supply.
• Manufacturing for the project is 24/5 with potential of 24/7 should higher quantities be required.
• MR&P Suzhou now employs approximately 75 workers with an anticipated 100 employees by late 2008.

According to MR&P Vice President of International Operations, Craig Swanberg, “This project is a great example of how MR&P augments both manufacturing and sourcing strategies by being a local source to China based companies and a resource to global customers in support of their order fulfillment strategies. The plant is equipped to run compression and transfer tooling and also horizontal and vertical injection molding. Operations include insert molding and light assembly activities and has available to it all of MR&P’s black rubber and silicone compounds.”

Sales, engineering and production are all closely coordinated with other operations at MR&P so that service at all levels is provided on a uniform basis. This guarantees commonality and utilization of “best practices” at every point of service, including quality and information technology systems.
           
For more information, visit www.mnrubber.com or email
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