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| June 2008 |
| Roller Shade Springs. An industrial user contacted HyTech regarding a broken roller spring used on a piece of equipment. The OEM is not available for replacement parts, so the customer forwarded a spring to HyTech for quotation.
Roller Shade Springs are cylindrical torsion springs made with many coils. The most common application is window shades, but similar springs are used in garage doors, and industrial equipment. They work well in any application requiring a large angular deflection with a long, shaft over which the spring can be installed.
The spring is made of .088" diameter wire, and has 239 coils. The working deflection of the spring is over 20 revolutions! An eyelet on each end allows the spring to engage it's mating assembly with no portion of it exceeding the outside coil diameter. One end of the coil is tapered down, so the eyelet can be fastened to the shaft it works on. The other end is left at the full OD.
HyTech "reverse engineered" the sample spring, selecting chrome silicon spring wire for longer life than the original material. The customer purchased 10 springs some for spares.
The customer has been so pleased with the performance of the first spring that they again contacted HyTech for another size of roller shade spring that failed. We again reproduced the existing spring, and shipped sooner than the customer expected.
Roller Shade type springs require a spring winder that can feed long lengths of wire, a capacity not all equipment can meet. HyTech is capable of designing roller shade springs from scratch, or matching your sample. |
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| December 2006 |
| CNC Vertical Machining Center added. This new VMC with 32" Z axis travel and full 4-th axis capability, is a newer version of the machine purchased just a year ago. Ultra modern Siemens control allows for interfacing with the state-of-the-art CAD system for rapid prototyping straight from your CAD files. It will speed up your turnaround time by running directly from your PRO-E and Auto CAD files. |
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| November 2006 |
| ISO/TS-16949:2002 certification. HyTech received the new TS16949 certification. After an extensive training and auditing process, our company received the certification, which will allow HyTech to remain as a supplier to Tier 1 manufacturers. This process-oriented system will definitely benefit HyTech's customers. |
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| March 2006 |
| Fine wire coiler. This new, state-of-the-art work-center will increase our capability and capacity to supply fine wire diameter coils, sheaths, stylets, and other wire forms manufactured from wire 0.05 mm (0.002) to 0.2mm (0.008). This process is primarily used for medical, dental and electronic components. |
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| February 2006 |
| Electrochemical (ECG) cut-off machine added. HyTech now offers burr free cutting of fine tubing, utilizing modern, fully programmable CNC Electrochemical grinding process. Used frequently in medical and aerospace industries, delicate, stainless steel tubing can now be cut to very close tolerances (+/- 0.002") without burr. We have the ability to radius the cut edges - both ID and OD, at the same time. |
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| January 2006 |
| Coordinating Measuring Machine. HyTech's CMM has been retrofitted with Guadra-Check 5000 software and new readers and encoders. Utilizing Renishaw touch probe system and offering accuracy to 0.0002", this state-of-the-art machine allows HyTech to check the tolerances on particularly large parts. Any part that can fit on 60"x 24" x 24" table can now be verified against customer's specifications. |
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| September 2005 |
| Fine Wire Collar Evaluation Underway. HyTech Spring and Machine has a fine wire coiler on loan for trial and evaluation. This work center will allow HyTech Spring and Machine to meet demanding tolerances on miniature components with wire diameters from 0.05mm (.002") to 0.2mm (.008") for the electronic and medical industries. |
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| September 2005 |
| Ultrasound Cleaning Line Added. HyTech Spring and Machine has added an ultrasonic cleaning line. This will allow us to insure cleanliness of critical medical, automotive and electronic components in house. |
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| July 2005 |
| Expanded Forming Capabilities. HyTech Spring and Machine has expanded capabilities with a large wire diameter multi-axis-forming machine. The addition of this machine will allow HyTech Spring and Machine to produce extension, torsion and double-torsion springs and wire-forms in wire diameters up to 6mm. With the success of the first machine, HyTech again expanded capabilities with a second large wire diameter multi-axis-forming machine. We have acquired a second large wire diameter multi-axis forming machine to meet customer demand for extension, torsion and double torsion springs and wire-forms with wire diameter up to 6mm. |
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| May 2005 |
Medical Device Industry Turns to HyTech. Due to the company's expertise in spring manufacturing and its experience in medical devices, HyTech Spring and Machine has signed two new contracts for producing high-precision medical instruments. HyTech has been awarded a contract with a medical device manufacturer to produce components for biopsy devices.
HyTech has entered into research and development with a leading medical device manufacturer for a new urological device. |
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| February 2005 |
| New Fadel Machine Center Added. HyTech recently add a Fadel Machine Center with 32" Z and full 4th axis capabilities to our machine shop. It allows for interfacing with state of the art CAD systems for rapid proto-typing straight from your CAD files. We are currently using this system to give quicker turnaround time running directly from customers PRO-E and Auto CAD files to list just a few. |
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| January 2005 |
| HyTech Springs in New Jeep. HyTech Spring and Machine has been awarded a contract to produce components that will be used in assemblies for the new Jeep Commander by a Tier 1 automotive supplier. |
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| June 2004 |
| Wireless networking. This month we implemented a wireless network. Now, the network can be accessed from anywhere in the factory. PC based controllers, PDAs, and laptops can now communicate directly with our ERP and document management systems. |
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| October 2004 |
| Installation of T-1. HyTech's need for high bandwidth internet connectivity was satisfied this month with the installation of a T-1 line. After analyzing the TCO and ROI, we determined that the T-1 pays for itself in time savings and value added services. A Cisco router and firewall provides the secure connectivity we require. We are very excited about the potentials this installation has. |
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| June 2003 |
| Shipping and receiving officially moves to new warehouse. Thanks to our loyal customer base and the hard work of our team here at HyTech, business continues to grow even in the rough economic times of the past two years. To keep up with demand, shipping and receiving was relocated to our new warehouse and room is being made in the former warehouse for expansion of production. |
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| May 2003 |
| Installation of the Pervasive database engine. To take full advantage of the new version of GainSeeker, we installed Pervasive 2000i, the database engine used by Hertzler for small to medium-size organizations. We noticed immediate improvement in response time and the elimination of intermittent database errors. |
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| March 2003 |
| Beta testing of Hertzler Software's Gainseeker V7.3. HyTech Spring and Machine was chosen to be a beta test site for version 7.3 of GainSeeker, the software used for SPC and DMS. The new version includes additional functionality for data collection, configuration, and statistical analysis. |
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| July 2002 |
| Material Certs stored electronically. Moving away from paper based processes in a goal at HyTech Spring and Machine. This month, we implemented a custom database application, developed by IS, that scans and stores Material Certs. The certs can be retrieved based on wire size, lot control number, or date of receipt. This greatly reduces the number of steps and forms used previously to track material for Quality Control purposes. |
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| May 2002 |
| HyTech featured in Convergence. Hertzler Systems Inc.'s newsletter on quality, Convergence, published an article featuring HyTech Spring and Machine as their case study. Click here to read the article. |
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| April 2002 |
| Predator System installed. HyTech Spring and Machine's machine shop is now using Predator Software tto automate the programming of CNC machines. This dramatically increases the complexity of machine parts HyTech can manufacture and dramatically decreases the amount of time it takes to program the machines. The software resides on a server in the machine shop office. The server is on the LAN and communicates with the CNC machines. Designers and engineers save their code on this machine. The machinist calls the program from their control panel to run a job or saves the program they've created or modified to the server. Predator Software supports DNC and manages multiple machines at the same time. |
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| January 2002 |
| Microscopic
analysis at HyTech. A new microscopic analysis workstation allows us at HyTech Spring and Machine to increase our commitment to quality manufacturing and customer service. Spring makers, machinists, and engineers access the workstation to detect damage, surface anomalies, wire quality and provide close up inspection of precision springs. Images are viewable in real time on a large screen TV. Also, the video images can be captured to PC format. These images can be shared by printing, email, or web site. |
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| December 2001 |
| Microsoft
awards HyTech. After a few months of careful auditing and documentation, Microsoft awarded HyTech Spring and Machine an Acknowledgment Of Compliance. This certifies that HyTech is fully compliant with software copyright laws. |
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| September 2001 |
| New
warehouse online. HyTech Spring and Machine's new warehouse is online. A fiber optic cable connects two Cisco gigabit switches. Up to an additional 24 workstations in the warehouse can be connected to HyTech's local area network. |
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| June 2001 |
| Implementation
of Hertzler Systems' Gainseeker SPC software. Thanks to the new quality control system, many quality control operations have been automated. Automating these necessary and crucial tasks allow the operators and quality control officers to respond immediately to quality issues. Load cells are interfaced to personal computers connected to a local area network. Operators check spring loads and with a push of a button, the result is entered into a database. Operators, supervisors, and quality managers instantly monitor and analyze the database. Furthermore, many trigger events are programmed into the system, alerting operators and quality managers in real time. As we continue to roll out the implementation, we except to dramatically decrease rejects, narrow control limits, and increase production levels. Thus, we will decrease production costs while elevating the quality of our springs and customer service.
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