Here at UEA we strive to be innovative in our custom designed solutions for our customers rotary needs. In order to create those innovative designs, we use a wide variety of technologies during various stages of the manufacturing process.
Several parts are created in house on our high quality CNC machines. Those machines allow UEA to create higher volumes of similar parts in a consistent and timely matter.
UEA also uses several different forms of additive manufacturing in house for the lower volume parts we create. Additive manufacturing allows UEA to create highly detailed and complex parts without the long lead time of traditional manufacturing styles. Often, we have prototype parts in hand the same day or next day to verify the form, fit, and function of the new designs before investing money into custom tooling needs.
After the parts are machined UEA has relied on our skilled employees to assemble the custom solutions for our customers. Both the CNC and additive machines are used to create custom assembly fixtures and manufacturing aids to build a consistent quality product. We also have several quality check fixtures created to verify key features after the assembly process.
But what does the future of manufacturing look like for UEA? With today’s supply chain and employee market we are always looking at vertical integration. For us this means investing in new additive technologies to create parts normally injection molded outside of UEA and by obtaining custom tooling and materials to machine more parts in house on our CNC machines. During the assembly process we have started implementing robotic work cells. These robots allow an operator to load parts and let the machine do the repetitive task previously done by hand. This allows for a more consistent quality product and reduces the chance of repetitive motion injuries. It also gives skilled UEA employees more time to perform other assembly tasks or possibly run multiple machines at the same time, increasing our production efficiency.
One thing is for sure, UEA is always looking for new and innovative ways to design and manufacture our custom rotary solutions to meet our customer’s needs.
