Aluminum Impacts - Difficult to Manufacture

Metal Impact views the aluminum impact, difficult to manufacture product category, as its niche market. Product requirements in this category require much closer tolerances for size, concentricity, straightness, surface finish, and strength. These products usually require specialized processes utilizing multiple steps in the extrusion process to consistently maintain the product requirements. Tolerances for size can be as close as +/- 0.001”, straightness requirements of 0.0005” over a 1” length, and surface finishes of 8 microns. Often times, the capabilities of a manufacturer to meet product requirements comes down to owning specialized equipment, using the right lubrication, or the industry experience and technical capabilities of the staff. An example of this type of product that Metal Impact currently manufacturers is a component for the automotive industry. This component has a size tolerance of +/- 0.001” over a 16” length, a 16 micron finish, and a straightness tolerance of 0.008” maximum total indicator reading over the length of the part.

Due to the complexity of the manufacturing process, tooling costs are generally higher for these products and these products generally are single sourced based on the large amount of technical requirements. Generally, competition for these products is limited to the in-house capabilities of the company. It is not unusual for customers to award contracts to manufacturers based on price and find out later that the manufacturer lacks the in-house capabilities to produce the product.

Metal Impact has extensive in-house capabilities to support our customers requirements.