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A Safety ADVANTAGE To Quality Parts
That’s because safety and quality are built into the aerial equipment manufactured by Elliott Equipment Company. Every part used in building the work platforms and cranes goes through stringent quality checks before going to assembly and into a customer’s product. Elliott’s well-supported customers are leaders in industries including construction, signage, departments of transportation, utilities, municipalities and mining. Whether servicing a Fortune 500 or a small, family owned business, expectations for Elliott equipment are the same. Built-in safety is always number one. Customization with a wide variety of safety and convenience design options is number two. A very close number three is durability and overall equipment value. From One Idea Dick Elliott, an electrician by trade, grew tired of climbing up and down electric poles in the early 1950’s and put his engineering talent to work. He designed an aerial work platform, the first Hi-Reach product of Elliott Equipment Company. During the fifty years since that first design, Elliott has continually increased its product offerings and added new industries to its list of customers served. Today’s company of 110 people builds aerial platforms and cranes, concrete pumping booms, jib winches, diggers, outriggers, and a wide variety of special equipment. The product mix continues to grow with this year’s addition of hydraulic cranes specifically designed for the concrete dumper industry. Manufacturing Changes As the markets Elliott served expanded, manufacturing processes needed to change. Elliott moved to a “modular” manufacturing system to allow more mass production of parts. Jim Umshler, plant manager, explains, “Basically, we’ve added more fabrication equipment to allow us to redesign and take some of the hours out of each unit. Our customers want the best they can get for the least amount of money. We understand that." In addition to the modular approach, Elliott has instituted Material Resource Planning (MRP) to help them reduce inventory and control their manufacturing costs. While these steps are being taken, the primary focus for the manufacture of parts remains on quality to meet Elliott’s guarantee of equipment safety. The ADVANTAGE An ADVANTAGE Precision Plasma Table replaced an older table in a modular cell to produce parts from mild steel and high tensile materials ranging from 3/8" to 1" thick. Umshler chose the ADVANTAGE with high definition plasma for two key reasons. First, to improve the quality of the parts; and second, to eliminate down-stream processes. “My old machine had too much kerf,” Umshler explains. “You had to have a real big radius on one end of the hole to get to where the bolt would draw through.” Other plasma machines were considered before Elliott chose the 6' x 12' ADVANTAGE. Deciding Factors The Hypertherm® Plasma System was a key element in the decision. Elliott chose the HD 4070 HyDefinition, one of three plasma options available on the ADVANTAGE, to give them the versatility of cutting up to 1" while maintaining cut quality. “I almost could not believe the straightness of the cut on 1" steel,” says Umshler. “Most of our parts have holes in them and I didn’t want to burn the parts and then move them to punching. This ADVANTAGE allows me to do that.” Another advantage to Elliott’s choice is the easy-to-use control. Operator training was quickly accomplished on the familiar Windows®-based CNC that provides a real time cut path display. SigmaNEST™ software, which was already in place for other Elliott equipment, efficiently nests parts to eliminate scrap and increase production efficiency. Although most programming is done in the office, the Parametric Shape Library, Shape Repeat and Nester features allows the flexibility of easily programming parts at the control. Built to Last When Umshler began looking at plasma tables, he restricted his search to machines with Hypertherm® systems, and companies that have proven the staying power of their equipment. There is a lot of older Elliott equipment still in use today. Umshler points out that as their larger customers buy new, replacement equipment, the older models are sold into service at smaller companies. “We build a better piece of equipment with quality, flexibility and durability. There are a lot of used Elliott’s out there.” And Umshler wanted a plasma table from a company that shares Elliott’s belief in quality and durability. “I picked Whitney because of their reputation,” Umsher says. “Whitney stands behind its equipment.” (Used with permission from Whitney Metal Fabrication News, March 2003) Home | All Applications | ADVANTAGE-II | ADVANTAGE Applications |
