Vacuum Assisted Parts Washer Solves Shopfloor Delay

It seems like a simple task: produce clean, dry parts efficiently. However, without the proper equipment in place, this is not an easy mission. Often, manpower is wasted on handwashing parts, or too much manual labor is dedicated to the cleaning process. This shortsightedness can lead to ineffective cleaning and drying, causing bottlenecks that can be avoided by integrating automatic cleaning machines.

Brenk Brothers Inc. in Fridley, Minnesota, was suffering from delays in its cleaning process because of hands-on cleaning and drying that produced ineffective results. But after the implementation of an automated rotary basket cleaning system, the shop has improved its overall part cleanliness, drastically reducing its parts handling and improving the time required to move parts to the next process.

“With the old process, one to three operators were needed to keep up with the production schedule,” says Dan Witt, project manager at Brenk Brothers.

With the precision machine shop’s new MAFAC Palma cleaning system with Vacuum Assist Clean + Dry technology from Jayco Cleaning Technologies, only one operator is needed to load and unload baskets on and off the machine, push a button and then he or she is free to do other necessary tasks on the shop floor.

The system’s vacuum technology is designed especially for hard-to-clean parts like the ones Brenk manufactures, and offers fast and thorough drying, as the vacuum pulls water off the parts’ surfaces.

More Than 100 CNCs

Brenk Brothers’ facility has more than 100,000-square-foot, providing precision machining, turning, grinding and other services to its customers in industries such as aerospace, defense, medical and hi-tech data storage.

The third-generation company’s 145 skilled employees work on a shop floor with 100 CNCs, including high-speed milling machines, turning centers with live tooling and bar feeders, high-precision wire EDM machines, and precision surface grinding and honing equipment. The contract machining facility specializes in close-tolerance machining (less than 0.0005 inch), making parts from 2,000, 6,000 and 7,000 series aluminum, titanium and stainless steels.

Manual Labor Causes Bottleneck

Depending on the type of part and what stage the part is in, machine coolant, NDT fluids, residual plating fluids and other manufacturing debris are present prior to the cleaning process at Brenk Brothers. Therefore, it is critical that thorough and reliable cleaning equipment is implemented at the shop, especially because parts might require more machining operations (multiple times in some cases) after the initial cleaning.

Before the company found the MAFAC cleaning system, it was using a manual aqueous ultrasonic wash and a two-sink water rinse cleaning process followed by manual drying with shop air to blow the water off and out of intricate parts.

This process was ripe with many issues such as inconsistent results, long cycle times requiring operators’ full attention and parts not being completely dry before the next manufacturing step.

“The problem with our old cleaning process was that it was all manual work,” Witt says. “The amount of handling and moving of each part through the cleaning and drying process was long, loud and risky. The risk involved expensive, complex components that required the technician to flip the part in one hand while using an air gun in the other.”

As business continued to grow, these pitfalls were a bottleneck in the overall manufacturing process. Brenk needed a reliable, fast parts cleaning solution with integrated vacuum drying to keep up with the demand.

The cleanliness of parts entering the quality control room was also critical, both in-process and at final inspection. The parts must be thoroughly clean and dry to accurately measure, which is important for achieving the high levels of quality and tight tolerances that its customers require.

Bottleneck, Be Gone!

The Brenk Brothers team was on the hunt for a cleaning system that could provide a repeatable and controlled process, and especially deliver completely dry parts. They also wanted to have the ability to automate the process in the future.

The company reviewed the capabilities of several rotary basket washers. The team visited manufacturers and test-cleaned parts in each system. Upon evaluating the various systems, it ultimately selected the MAFAC for its cleaning process.

“At the time we were researching the MAFAC, it was the only machine that encompassed the most processes we needed to perform the required cleaning,” Witt says.

The now-implemented Palma washer has reduced the cleaning time at Brenk Brothers by more than 50% and has drastically improved part cleanliness and drying.

With the new equipment, the operator loads parts into a basket, slides the basket into the washer and presses the start button. While the parts are being cleaned, the operator has time to conduct other tasks.

Once the cleaning cycle is complete, the basket of clean, dry parts is removed from the system and moved on to the next step in the process.

The initial manual cleaning process the company used took about 25 minutes per part on average. Now, with the new equipment, it is around 10 minutes per cycle. With the machine’s ability to process multiple parts at a time, depending on the sizes, it can further lower the per piece cycle time down to only 30 seconds.

Vacuum Assist

While manufacturing complex parts with small and blind holes like the ones Brenk Brothers produces, it was imperative that the MAFAC parts washer helped the shop’s parts meet challenging cleanliness specifications.

With Jayco’s Vacuum Assist technology, a modulating vacuum during the wash cycle enables the cleaning solution to reach small areas on parts, lifting soils and particulates out via mechanics and chemistry.

Then, during the rinse cycle, the rinsing solution flushes out any remaining cleaning solution and particulates inside the fine crevices. During the drying cycle, the vacuum lowers the evaporation temperature of the remaining rinse solution. The force from the vacuum also pulls water out of hard-to-reach areas on the parts.

Dry as a Bone

Finishing the cleaning process with completely dry parts was another critical goal for Brenk Brothers.

“If all the cleaning functionality of the washer broke, we would still use the machine for drying,” Witt explains. “I can’t say enough about its effectiveness and how much this feature saves time. Not having to worry about leaving any rinse water inside the parts that could potentially cause onset corrosion is a game changer. The consistency from part to part compared to our old drying process is night and day.”