地下的英雄

In 2012, 不可摧毁的超级英雄, 绿巨人, endeared himself to Marvel movie fans with his simple mantra: Smash. 六年后, a trio of young entrepreneurs introduced a 绿巨人 with a slightly modified mission: Endure Smash. 他们为油气行业提供的绿巨人交叉耦合电缆保护器是一种退火球墨铸可靠的彩票平台网址大全，用于安全夹紧和保护昂贵的电潜泵(ESP)电缆和长达45米的毛细管,000磅. of pounding force at the tube collar deep inside a 好吧bore. With 425,000 clamps sold since 2018, it’s safe to say they’ve been a smash success.

但在2019年，石油 & Tool Solutions (OTS) Director of Product Chandler England, 和他的合伙创始人——儿时的朋友一起, 麦特聪明, 工程师Mark robinson意识到ESP市场的巨大空白，并决定抓住这个机会. 他们最初的绿巨人产品是7英寸的. 在中国一家铸造厂生产的夹子, and while it represented breakthrough 创新 for securing long cables and pipes in 好吧s, narrower lines were grossly underserved; with no successful 5-in. 市场上的设备, field workers were more or less left to jerry rigging their own unreliable solutions. The need for a small-diameter clamp was almost desperate. 

Leading a team of engineers into technically arduous territory, 罗宾逊被迫在竞争对手抢在他们之前迅速开发出一种解决方案——一种既窄又长的设备，以保护宝贵的电缆. 另一方面, 老板们同意他们的冒险，设计一个全新的夹，更薄的壁和更严格的公差提供了一个独特的机会，重新思考他们所做的一切制造绿巨人. 

当时仍处于新冠疫情之前，当OTS退后考虑新的选择时，关税已经生效, 包括你.S. 生产. 夏洛特的居民, 北卡罗莱纳, 英格兰向夏洛特派普的一个熟人求助, 是谁推荐他来可靠的彩票平台网址大全的, 均为AFS企业会员. 接下来的12个月, 包括流感大流行, 一支新的开拓者队伍——包括OTS, 沃帕卡队, 和加工合作伙伴沃帕卡选择设计, 精制, 测试, 完善了绿巨人5英寸瘦身. OTS于2020年秋季将其推向市场. 他们已经安装了20口井，售出了6口,仅今年10月就有1000台, and the clamp has opened up a whole new playing field in West Texas. 

“作为商人，我们逐渐成熟起来，开始明白在美国制造产品的优势.S. and utilizing the technologies and robotics that have gotten better and better,英格兰说。. “我们可以更好地管理现金流, because we’re not having to ship things across the world and then they sit on the water; we could eliminate this whole speculative build-up of inventory. And there’s a huge time gap before you are actually selling product. 所以我们就想，‘我们该如何解决这个问题?’ 

“加, 我们是美国人, and we personally feel that if we can get things done stateside, that would be our preference because we’re selling to this market,他补充道. “我们想成为地球的好管家, which means not shipping product halfway around the world. 如果你能缩短你的供应链, and manufacture things in the market you’re selling to, 这是巨大的 ...  我们希望盈利，我们希望经营一家好的企业，我们希望以正确的方式做事 ... 只是因为每个人都说在印度、中国和其他国家制造更便宜，因为劳动力更便宜, 好吧, 这是真的吗??”
这不是, 当所有成本被评估时, including the less-monetary but equally potent price of language, 文化, 在开始新产品开发时，物流障碍充满了限制和复杂性.

“通过进入这些更紧的井眼，我们知道了这一点,英格兰说, “we wanted to work with an American company so that if there are issues, we can work together to resolve them quicker and with less uncertainty.”

多种解决方案，一种铸造

The collaboration produced numerous favorable outcomes OTS had not expected, 一切都始于他们选择的铸模师. 

“我们立即建立了良好的关系,迈克·贝林说, 沃帕卡非公路和工业销售总监, 回顾第一次会议. “我最初告诉他们，有太多客户带着最初的设计来找我们，只想关注成本. 我说, ‘Let’s not go through this as a cost exercise alone; let’s go through this as a partnering exercise, 通过这些, we will develop a cost competitive optimal design and a foundry- and machining-friendly casting ... In the end, they saw we were able to accomplish all of the goals partnering as a team.”

当英格兰第一次与沃帕卡相遇, he said three things stood out that won his trust: (1) they clearly excelled in metallurgy and educated the manufacturer on the best alloy to employ for the application—ASTM 536 grade 60-40-18 ferritic ductile iron; (2) when Waupaca engineers inspected the existing 绿巨人 clamp, they didn’t trash-talk the Chinese workmanship—they praised what was good but identified where it could be improved; (3) 沃帕卡队 didn’t hoard all the work—instead, they did what was right for the project and introduced an excellent machine shop into the mix, a company that eventually became the tier-1 supplier that is now Waupaca’s customer for Slimcast.    

加工是, 事实上, the lynchpin that ultimately enabled multiple Slimcast SKUs to be derived from a single casting, 而不是生产多个铸件, 每个都有单独的工具. 

“If you think about it, we’re clamping onto different cables,英格兰说。. “有些电缆比其他电缆粗，有些电缆比其他电缆宽. 所以我们需要在这个铸件中留下一些额外的金属，然后把它加工成不同的水平，这样它就可以与不同的电缆sku结合起来. 这样我们就可以降低成本——我们可以用一个铸件把它加工成六个不同的sku. 这是一件大事.”

The achievement was a beneficiary of a Waupaca revelation: The large, 在新的铸件上，可以完全消除原绿巨人夹具的高成本砂芯. 而不是, the tooling engineers added several strategically-located drafts in the mold, which not only removed redundancy but ended up maximizing the machining time for the clamps. 

如何? 第一代绿巨人使用芯和加工来钻和攻丝孔，这些孔是铰链销和锁存摆动螺栓所需的，操作员使用这些螺栓在现场组装和固定管道和电缆周围的夹具. Behring explained that machining alone could take care of the pin holes on Slimcast, 但只要需要机械加工, 为什么不利用机械加工来同时处理几种不同的夹具呢?这是一个聪明的闪避，避免了为六个单独的铸件制造工具的成本要高得多. 

Getting those multiple iterations just right took several weeks, 英格兰的敏捷团队跑到南威斯康辛地区，只要机器车间叫他们，他们就亲自测试样品. 

英格兰说:“我们来来回回说了很多. “We basically just got on airplanes and set up shop alongside the machining team. 我们把客户的所有电缆都带了上来, the capillary tubes; we shipped up a pull test bench—we have to be able to grip this cable, 所以我们有这个装置来拉电缆. We brought up pipe and other presses to kind of crush it and see how strong this thing was, 因为现在所有的东西都变薄了. 所以我们会在一起呆上三四天, they’d say ‘Here are the revisions we’re going to make,’我们会说, 几周后见，我们会重新测试.’” 

万能的极致, the perfected Slimcast family of clamps are stocked at OTS’s Denver plant, and the machine shop controls fulfillment of the various machined versions of the casting. Customer orders at OTS sometimes have to be out the door in as little six hours, 因此，与铸造的交货时间相比，自动化加工带来的快速转换已经得到了回报. 

“We don’t know which SKU is going to be the most popular at any given time,英格兰说。, 因为一个月, 其中一条可能会超级受欢迎, 然后是下一个季度, 另一种有线电视可能会受欢迎. 如果我们在国际上做这件事，这是不可能的——我们将不得不更加投机地投资于足够的库存, 不知道需求是什么. 但当电缆市场发生变化时，或者像哈里伯顿这样的大公司决定换一份新合同时，他们会告诉我们, ‘Oh, 顺便说一下, 运行这条电缆,我们可以很快调整.”

管道中的价值

在一滴球铁熔液击中模具之前, 沃帕卡保证了实力, 穿, 稳健, and sizing requirements would all hit the mark of their customer’s specifications. 
使用Magma模拟, 贝林说, the foundry could confidently thin walls and change geometry of the part, as 好吧 optimize pocket sizes in the housing of the clamp.

“We also focused on casting length and adhered to specified lengths that were acceptable to us, OTS, 在机械车间确保我们能够优化模具中的空腔数量, 降低成本的另一个直接因素是什么.”

铸造厂的金属专业知识也被证明是至关重要的. 

“这种材料的屈服强度, which can withstand the corrosive environment it’s in during the life of the product, as 好吧 as the lower cost of ductile iron versus steel, are what make this particular grade optimal for this application, 贝林说.

“And the mechanical, ferritic properties really allow something comparable to a low alloy steel. 当钻杆进入井内并多次与井口防喷器发生碰撞时，石油工具解决方案需要一种能够承受高冲击力的材料. In order to accomplish that, you need this grade of ductile iron with 18% elongation. This is comparable to a lower control arm on your vehicle—if your front tire hits the curb, 它会推动物质. 但在18%时，它将恢复到原来的形式. 

“一旦联轴器进入井口保护器, 较小直径的Slimcast设计撞上混凝土保护层，它必须具有抗冲击性能和伸长率，才能在不断裂的情况下恢复原状.” 

A full anneal is required to achieve the elongation requirements, 贝林说, 并且具有分解铸件微观结构中的碳化物的附加效果，这些碳化物会干扰金属的预期属性. 
经历了一年的艰难打击, 绿巨人 Slimcast has an estimated lifespan of three years or four installation cycles, 先到者为准, 根据英国. OTS通过提供翻新服务为客户增加价值，从而进一步延长每个夹具的工作寿命. 

挑战你自己

Slimcast作为一款完全由美国制造的石油和天然气铸件的成功亮相，并不一定是OTS决定最终回归(以及重新设计)原厂的催化剂, 宽船体产品, 但它确实强化了这一观点. The company’s Chinese casting partner has worked out 好吧 for the last three-and-a-half years, 但这绝不是游戏的结局, 说英国. 另一方面, 他现在还不急着把公司迁回美国，因为随着Slimcast的销售增长，目前有很多机会可以利用. 

Meanwhile, he stands by his own mantra these days: Challenge yourself. 通过拒绝道听途说，做自己的功课, England and his fellow OTS owners discovered they could manufacture their invention better, stronger and at low cost by working with high-caliber domestic partners.  

“我们挑战自己。, 我们现在试图挑战别人的是, 看看引擎盖下面, 获得一些定价, 与你所在市场的专家交谈,他说. “Maybe certain products are not going to make sense to get done here, 但是要挑战自己，完成这个过程.”   CS

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