Budnick Converting ^®

Customer Need

A large supplier that designs and manufactures major structural components for the aerospace industry called on Budnick to help them with very complex masking applications. When we first visited the account, there was a team of eight employees masking small and large sections of metal airplane parts. The sections that were to be masked varied in size and had to be masked off very precisely due to their exposure during shot peening process. Employees were becoming exceedingly frustrated with this application because of the tedious nature of cutting the shapes of the masking area and the amount of time it took to complete the job. On top of that, since the tape was with utility knives, the workers were susceptible to cuts, as many had bandages on several fingers.

The Budnick Solution

With the customer only producing eight parts a day, we proposed supplying them with a “kit” of die-cuts. Meaning, we would provide them with a sheet of the various sizes they needed to mask off on a sheet that they could peel off and stick to the part.

Enhanced Production

After trialing a couple of different presentations, we found a kit that met all of the customer’s needs.With the new die cuts, the customer was able to more than double their production, and it allowed for five workers to move to another area in the plant. It’s probably safe to say they’re also buying fewer bandages as well.