A large medical device manufacturer was facing long cycle times – 8 minutes per cycle! Creating the precision T20 hexalobe torx medical bone screw is no small task, and the customer’s previous end mill from a competitor was not up for the job. The customer had to purchase 4,174 end mills annually, as each tool could only produce 100 parts. They were paying a whopping $125/hour tool change burden rate, totaling $169,963 in cycle time cost. The customer was eager to find a solution to their high cycle time changes, and to find it quickly!

At GWS, we pride ourselves on offering custom solutions as our standard approach. For this customer, the perfect cutting tool solution was one of our standard products. In order to create this complex medical bone screw, while meeting the customer’s goal of reduced cycle time, we recommended our Series 2150 4 flute solid carbide micro end mill with FX7 coating. With this new end mill, the customer was able to produce 1,600 parts per end mill. Not only was the tool life increased significantly, but we were able to greatly improve the customer’s main goal: reducing the cycle time. We reduced the overall part cycle by 6 minutes to just 2 minutes per cycle, a 60% decrease! The customer was so impressed with the GWS Series 2150 micro end mill, they were eager to see what our Application Specialist could help them out with next!

Interested in finding out more information about our standard and custom tools? Consider contacting the experts who make Custom Come Standard, and let us find the perfect cutting tool for you. Just send us an email at sales@gwstoolgroup.com to get started!