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Product tooling is very expensive, and where a product is high volume it is normal for
a foundry to develop their own tool as this entitles them to sell their castings to many
different manufacturers without tooling ownership issues. At Melett, generally we apply
tooling references to our own tools to allow control and traceability of our castings.
Over the years, many competitors have copied Melett casting marks (as well as the OE)
in an attempt to pass off the products as genuine Melett parts or genuine OE, or to say
they are produced at the same factory.
To help speed up our development process, we have sourced foundries that have
existing tooling and after a thorough approval process, we often accept the foundries
existing casting to save tooling costs so we can offer you more competitive pricing.
So, what are the differences?
Where the same tooling is used, a foundry will produce castings to the customers’
specification. This can include completely different material specifications, different
post casting processes (such as heat treatments or surface treatments) and different
pass or fail criteria. For example, all Melett bearing housings have 100% high pressure
oil/water gallery testing which is an extra cost, but some manufacturers prefer not to
pay for this. We also have strict dimensional controls on turbine wheel castings to
ensure the balance quality of the end product, which is also an extra cost to Melett as
the foundry has a higher scrap rate.
Another difference is the tolerance levels requested on the design drawings. High
tolerances on drawings mean more parts do not meet strict machining criteria (known
as a reduced ‘yield’). This means that for every 100 pieces produced, a low quality
manufacturer may have as many as 30 out of tolerance parts (70% yield). This is very
expensive as these 30 castings will be scrapped and add to the overall cost of the
remaining 70 pieces. To reduce out of tolerance failures, some manufacturers will ask
their customers for tolerances on drawings to be opened up or demand a price increase
to cover the scrap. Pressure from the market for lower prices often result in some parts
suppliers accepting tolerance changes. Melett does not allow a manufacturer to deviate
from critical tolerances set on the drawings supplied.
The Melett advantage
At Melett, we take a different approach to manufacturing by selecting the best
manufacturers, and have the advantage of owning and controlling our own
manufacturing facility, which means our parts are produced with a very high yield
without the need to reduce quality.
As you can appreciate, capable machine tools and good quality control processes come
at a cost – so even with a higher yield, our parts are still not the cheapest to produce.
However, we have made significant improvements to reduce costs over the past 12
months through adopting Lean processes and will continue to improve year on year –
reducing the price gap between trusted quality and the lowest cost parts.
Next time you compare a Melett product and a lower cost alternative, which looks to
have the same casting marks, do not assume it has come from the same manufacturing
facility. It is important to consider more than the visual appearance and ask the
question – how do they make this product so cheap?
It is not uncommon for repairers to compare products visually and assume that if the casting marks are the same,
then the products are from the same manufacturer. This is not necessarily the case and should not be relied upon as
a realistic comparison when considering quality and costs.
Why is a visual comparison
of products unreliable?