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Stephen English of Heil (left) and Jeff Kramer of Harco stand in front of a ready-to-ship Heil unit.
Jeff Kramer of Harco and Stephen English of Heil (bending down) examine a hydraulic tube installation on a production unit.
Example of tubes stocked by Harco on Heil production line.
Traci Kramer (right) and Josh Hairell of Harco use a Wauseon end forming machine to produce tube flaring and other tube end forms.
Traci Kramer (left) and Josh Hairell of Harco use a Romer CimCore laser tube inspection system to inspect tube geometry.
Heil Environmental Industries, Ltd. (Chattanooga, TN) and Heil Parts Central (Fort Payne, AL) have been valued customers of – and partners with – Harco Metal Products, Inc. (Tempe, AZ) for over 15 years. Approximately seven years ago, Heil closed the Arizona facility that Harco Arizona was serving and consolidated their operations in Fort Payne. Rather than accepting this as a customer loss due to circumstances beyond control, Harco saw an entirely different business opportunity.
Management felt there were two choices: allow this trusted customer to disappear, or take a much bolder approach. Investing in what was fundamentally a leap of faith, Harco Metal Products boldly established an additional facility in Alabama to locally service the Heil operation, with no firm commitment that the business would be theirs, but believing that their high levels of service and quality could not be ignored. The decision paid off.
Harco now fabricates more than half of the steel hydraulic lines for Heil’s production facility. Partly due to the close proximity of the plants, they provide additional services no other tube supplier offers, such as a vendor managed inventory (VMI) program, JIT delivery, design assistance, short-turn lead times on parts not regularly managed, and constant availability and accessibility that ensures no line shut down due to tube shortages. Harco also supplies the world-wide parts distribution center of Heil Parts Central with all hydraulic tube assemblies, and has begun building a substantial and growing new customer base in the Southwest.
Recognizing the importance of a healthy supply chain in maintaining its status as a builder of refuse collection bodies with the lowest Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) in the market, Heil created a Sourcing and Supplier Development department in 2007 with the mandate to ensure the company aligns itself with the best suppliers in the industry. To fulfill this mission, the department first took stock of its current suppliers, establishing and periodically reviewing key supplier metrics such as Plant PPM, OTD, Warranty, Finances, and Warranty PPM.
Through this process, Heil was able to chart suppliers and prioritize resources to begin supply chain development a few suppliers at a time. After a supplier was identified, a comprehensive audit of that supplier’s quality system and manufacturing practices was performed. The goal was to assist suppliers by assessing the overall effectiveness of their quality systems and determining how well these systems would continue to meet Heil’s specific needs.
After performing this quality system and manufacturing best-practice audit, Heil provided a detailed analysis of findings to each supplier and created an action list detailing areas in need of improvement. In the spirit of true partnership, a Supplier Development engineer was assigned to guide and help each supplier through this comprehensive and intensive supply chain improvement process.
While some suppliers might have viewed this evaluation request as potentially intrusive and rejected the process, Harco welcomed the opportunity to tap a vast knowledge base not typically accessible to a smaller-sized company. They recognized the opportunity to further develop an already strong relationship with their largest customer while expanding and refining processes that, ultimately, would provide a high return on investment for both parties.
The first task was to identify how Harco products affected the safety, customer satisfaction, and environmental impact of Heil’s end product. This pointed directly to the flare end form of tubes supplied to Heil, along with the fit of those tubes within Heil’s production process. Harco fabricates fluid conducting lines that carry hydraulic fluid throughout the systems within Heil units. Any leaks or failures within that system during the unit’s operation could produce safety hazards, as well as negative environmental impacts. Overall system performance can also be negatively impacted by connection leaks.
Together, both companies evaluated all of the current Harco processes that contributed to a quality end connection and fit. While several procedures were already in place to address these issues, they determined that improvements could be made to further assure the non-occurrence of failures.
Harco invested heavily in new equipment with greater technological capabilities and in employee training to immediately upgrade all internal processes and procedures. Tube preparation was improved through a more stringent method of evaluating cut quality and tube end preparation. Investments were made in new chamfering machines that produced a higher quality finished end for flaring.
