Cleaning in Remanufacturing

Q: What if the parts we are trying to clean contain more than aluminum? Does this change our process?

A: It can change your process. What we want to evaluate is the metals, where the most contamination is, and the percentage of each of those metals. We may stick with the aluminum process, or we may do a multi-chemical process. We need to take those individually, and your local KYZEN rep will be happy to discuss them. We may want to run tests in the lab to ensure we have the right combination of chemistry in the machine.

Q: What makes cleaning the burned-on carbon off of aluminum tougher than steel?

A: For steel, we can use higher alkaline chemistry, and if we do that on aluminum, we will add to the material. That’s why we have specific chemistries for specific materials; the way the chemistry reacts to the material can be different. That’s why we want to make sure to specify the material and chemistry combination.

Q: In comparison to the traditional cleaning methods, what is the savings in process time?

A: What we’ve seen in the past is that customers historically spent 30-40 minutes per cycle, but now we see 15-20 minutes of cycle time. Some other things customers have liked about the implementation of this is that bath life historically lasted about 10 days, and now they see 20 days on average for bath life, which is great. The chemistry is going much longer than it used to. The other part, with the bead blasting, we’re historically seeing a reduction of manual labor by about 80%. So, all the time people spend doing that manually now takes 20% of the time they used to.

Q: Do you have any suggestions for machine companies that can help with this application?

A: We work with a lot of great companies in terms of machine manufacturing. We have relationships with most of the industry leaders, and there is not one that works for everybody. It would be good to have a conversation and explain what you’re looking for, and then, we can match you with a couple of machine companies and let them run because that’s their area and expertise. There are a number of them out there that I would be happy to match with.