Case Study: Energy Industry Cost Savings

The oil and gas industry in the Americas is growing again after two years of decline, generating new opportunities to apply Engineering Kompetenz for customers in this industry.

The Walter team was tasked with finding an alternative approach for a rough milling application for an Oklahoma customer. They were looking for a better tool and rough milling process for fracking pump block production since this was the highest cost operation in their facility.

The competitor tool was a 10 inch (254 mm) diameter long edge end mill that created high machining stresses and significant maintenance costs from the wear on the machines.

The Walter team decided to investigate a lower radial pressure approach using their 4 inch (102 mm) diameter F2330 high feed mill and discovered they were able to run much faster, as spindle load reduced from 98% to 33%. By doing this and providing new feed and speed parameters, they reduced the cycle time from 223 minutes to 165 minutes. The result was far better than any solution offered by several competitors in the open testing. The time savings, combined with the tool and insert cost reductions, provide $1.7 million per year total cost savings for the customer at this facility. This new process has now been adopted by other facilities of this customer for an additional $1.3 million in savings. The Engineering Kompetenz shown by this team with their first time successful solution has generated further opportunities with this customer.