Stern Rubber Company’s Quality Assurance Dept. is moving into a newly remodeled space. The company has added a significant amount of equipment to this department in the last few years, and they had outgrown their room.
Once the building addition was completed in January, the trimming and deflashing departments were moved into the new addition to get them near the end of the process. This left room to install some additional manufacturing equipment where the deflashing equipment was located, and left the old trimming room available for Quality Assurance to move into. The space was gutted and remodeled with new windows, insulation, sheetrock, and new climate control equipment. The space is now finished, and QA is moving in!
In the last two years, Stern Rubber has replaced the rheometer, and has added a Creaform EXAscan Laser scanner, a Makerbot 3-D printer for making measurement fixtures, and a Keyence IM-6120 Vision Measurement System, and added a 3rd person to the department, so they were bursting at the seams. The new space leaves room for additional equipment, additional personnel, and even gives them room for storage of initial tooling samples.
This move had to be carefully coordinated, as the equipment all had to be recalibrated as soon as it was moved.
Once QA gets fully moved into their new area, the old QA area is going to be renovated, and is going to become the new Technical office. The Technical Dept. is temporarily located in the old front offices, as their old office was torn out to make room for an injection press that was added a few weeks ago. As soon as they move out of their temporary location, that space will be renovated as well. (Stay tuned for what that will be used for!)
It is an exciting time for Stern Rubber as they have added space for manufacturing, improved the material flow, added new offices and main entrance, and now remodeling some of the old spaces for much needed improvements!