Progressive Stamping In-Die Tapping of a Hot Water Heater for a Household Appliance Application

Our team at Decimal Engineering, Inc. offers full service tool design, building, maintenance, and manufacturing of parts while also utilizing cutting edge technologies such as in-die tapping, a more efficient alternative to secondary tapping.

A Mexican manufacturer of home hot water heaters lacked the ability to perform multiple operations on single pieces during production and requested our assistance. The part was to be made of AKDQ Steel with 2b material finish, sized at ¼” x 3/8″, with tolerances of +/− 0.005″. Since they required rapid production, Kanban-based logistics were implemented to shorten delivery lead times.

Our team had recently began using in-die tapping as an alternative to costly and time consuming secondary operations. In-die tapping allows metal stampers to tap a part within a single station, saving die space and tooling costs. Using a Hutchinson tapping head in a Federated punch press, we performed in-die tapping via a 1032 tap with a ¼” head. In order to achieve maximum tap level, we had to work around the short stroke of the press. This enabled our team to combine simultaneous operations together and thus reduce production times.

Our ISO 9001:2008 compliant process ensured consistent production quality, while also inspecting each part using thread gauge measurements. With full automation, we were able to maintain just-in-time production requirements over a period of 4 weeks. Our customer was pleased with the work and requested 100,000 of these units annually, delivered on schedule to Mexico for final assembly.

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Hot Water Heater Project Highlights

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