Component assembly is an important step for many manufacturing projects, and is often the last step taken to turn manufactured parts into a finished product. This assembly then either goes on to be sold to end-users, or is included into a much larger assembly.
Getting the perfect powdered metal (PM) part starts with, and is often contingent on the design and manufacture of quality tooling. Sterling Sintered designs all of our tools in-house, and has done so since 1955. That experience has taught us well what works and what doesn’t when it comes to tooling design. We do subcontract some tool manufacturing to our approved tooling houses when demand exceeds our internal capacity.
Lean Manufacturing Practices
Lean manufacturing is a philosophy that is typically associated with large production companies, like big commercial factories and huge assembly plants. However, Lean manufacturing practices can be successfully and practically applied to small manufacturing shops as well. Regardless of their size, all metal component manufacturers can benefit from some aspect of these practices in their own process.
Just as in any other type of manufacturing project, selecting the right powder metal material for use in production is important. Just like metals in their typical bar and sheets, the different types of powder metal have their own specific properties that lend each one to be useful in different applications.
Like any type of manufacturing, powdered metal manufacturing has to adhere to various standards for quality compliance. There are standards for everything from the making of the powders themselves to quality testing done on the completed parts. While most of the quality standards are set by the ISO, like any other type of manufacturing, there are other regulations in the U.S. as well, some set by the EPA, and others by the Metal Powder Industries Federation (MPIF), which typically offers standards for powder metallurgy technology and manufacturing.
Over recent decades, there has been an increased push for improved sustainability across the manufacturing industry. The result has been the development of new manufacturing techniques, common practices, and equipment that uses energy more efficiently. Powdered metal manufacturers have been around for a long time, but powder metallurgy only recently has been recognized as a green technology and an environmentally conscious manufacturing technique.