Saving a Pump Shaft
from Failure

The Situation

When a pump goes down, entire operations come to a standstill. That’s what was repeatedly happening for our customer, and their current manufacturing vendor was not interested in helping to solve the problem or reduce the number of seal failures. Plus, they had trouble delivering parts on time. It was time to find a new partner. Enter Unity Precision Manufacturing.  

The Challenge

How could Unity help prevent downtime and lost revenue with a better manufacturing process? 

The Unity Solution

We’re big-picture people at Unity, and we do more than make and deliver parts. We work with our customers to devise a total solution that works.  

Once we won the contract, we dove in. We determined the problem to be three-fold.  

1: Surface Finish 

The parts kept failing in the field because of an incorrect surface finish on the piece. Working closely with the customer, Unity experimented and ran test runs of alternative surface finishes to find what would work best. After diligent and careful testing, Unity and the customer found the right finish and implemented the fix. 

2: Inspection 

We needed to incorporate new inspection processes to ensure zero failure with this newly revised product. At first, it seemed painfully obvious that the piece would require automated rounded equipment to check concentricity, meaning inspecting each piece would need special equipment and cost thousands. The outlook was dismal. And expensive. 

 Unity’s team, however, had a hunch that there was a better way. Working closely with the customer’s engineers, we discovered another way to inspect the part without needing specialty equipment.  

3: Fluctuating Demand 

The demand for these parts varied significantly from month to month. The customer was frustrated that the previous manufacturer couldn’t address this situation, and it was an ongoing problem. 

Unity developed a delivery schedule that facilitated on-time delivery, regardless of the fluctuations in the market. 

This customer is one of several that uses a Kanban system, a ship-to-stock agreement that allows Unity to monitor inventory and deliver pieces directly into the customer’s stock when needed. Unity has always delivered these parts on time and continues to do so today. 

Results

Thinking outside the box to find better ways to address challenges saved money for both the customer and Unity and the piece is now ensured to be successful. We’re proud of this work and our ability to help throughout the entire process.