The document summarizes how Western Products switched from dedicated fixtures for machining hydraulic manifolds to Kurt ClusterTowers with quick change jaws. This reduced the number of required machining centers from two to one, improved productivity through reduced setup times and increased versatility. The quick change jaws allow easy switching between manifold types with accuracy of 0.001 inches, improving consistency and reducing scrap. Western Products is now able to machine twice as many manifolds per week on a single machining center as before.

1. FROM TWO MACHINES TO
ONE BY CHANGING FROM
DEDICATED FIXTURES
WORKHOLDING
TODAY
Kurt ClusterTowers With Quick Change Jaws Provide Major Productivity
Improvements For Western Products Hydraulic Manifolds.

2. Brian Thoreson, machine
shop supervisor (right)
of Western Products and
Michael Dulmes, Kurt sales
representative (left) are
shown holding manifold
blocks finish machined in
the company’s Kurt Cluster
Tower system with quick
change jaws.
Keys to Success Western now runs its milling operations with new Kurt Towers at
New Kurt ClusterTowers® With Quick Change Jaws Provide top machine speed -- 15,000 rpm and 350 in/min and part-to-
Major Productivity Improvements For Western Products part repeatability of 0.0005 inch. According to Mr. Thoreson,
Hydraulic Manifolds. The Change From Dedicated Fixtures concentricity from one operation to the second operation is
Reduced Machining Center Usage From Two Machines To greatly improved. Scrap, while never a huge concern before, is
Just One. reduced by half with the new setup.
For over 60 years, Western® has been an industry-
Milwaukee, Wisconsin: Minimizing setups, keeping leading manufacturer of CONTRACTOR GRADE® plows.
the spindle turning and multitasking with one CNC machining Western offers snow equipment for heavy-duty and standard-
center instead of two machines are keys to success when making duty commercial snow plowing, institutional, extended-use
precision parts. For Western Products, its new hydraulic Kurt homeowner and municipal snow removal operations.
ClusterTowers with quick change jaws did all this and more when Over a dozen different Western model snowplows are
it replaced a 15-year-old dedicated fixture setup in its machining offered, all of which are powered with hydraulic systems. Both
operations. MIDWEIGHT™ and HEAVYWEIGHT™ models employ robust
The quick change jaws in the Kurt Cluster-
Tower setup add versatility to the work-
holding not possible with the previous
dedicated fixtures. The quick change jaws
are reversed in the tower to handle first
and second series of machining operations.
Machined features from the first operation
locate the manifold blocks for second ma-
chining operations. The jaws interchange
easily with 0.001 inch accuracy and hold
rigidly, making possible concentricity on
the machined manifolds.

3. hydraulic systems that raise, lower and convinced us otherwise. He really
position the plows for fast and accurate helped us develop a much more
snow removal. Western Plows is the efficient workholding process.”
only plow manufacturer that designs
and produces their own hydraulic Standard Six Inch Kurt Hydraulic
systems, giving it a huge competitive ClusterTowers With Customized
advantage. The hydraulically powered Quick-Change Jaw Sets Provide
transform wings on these plows will The Solution
move up to 30 percent more snow Locating the parts
than conventional plows, operated by accurately and clamping with
a primary and a secondary manifold enough rigidity were concerns
that regulates the hydraulic pressure. Western had early in the discussion
To handle the constantly changing stages. Much of that centered
pressures efficiently with no leaks over on the ability of Kurt’s standard
many cycles, the manifolds have to products being up to the task with
be precision machined with very tight enough precision holding power.
tolerances. Western Products used two twin
pallet Mori-Seiki NH-400 high
Different Manifold Configurations, The twin pallet Mori-Seiki NH 400 allows for load/ precision machining centers with
Varying Part Runs And Number Of unload operations of one tower setup while the its dedicated fixture setup. While
Skews Mandate A More Flexible second is in the cut. The jaws mount quickly into the Western Products was satisfied with
Workholding Process Kurt ClusterTower and hold rigidly, making possible the machining centers performance,
“The growth of our Snowplow product concentricity on machined manifold surfaces. they questioned the growing
line required that we improve our amount of setup time as the
manufacturing processes,” reported corrosion resistant material for high-pressure manifold mix grew.
Mr. Thoreson, machine shop supervisor. applications. The machining operations for Kurt engineers presented
“For the past 15 years, we used dedicated these manifolds include face milling, drilling, drawings of a new ClusterTower
hydraulic tombstones equipped with tapping, thread milling and hydraulic porting. setup using custom jaws. On
swing clamps to hold the manifolds for “As our snow plow business grew, paper, the proposal Mr. Dulmes
machining in specific fixtures. Different we were increasing the number of machining and Kurt engineers made seemed
manifold sizes required a different fixture. setups and adding too much manifold ideal. Kurt’s professional approach,
As our product line grew, the number of work-in-process,” stated Mr. Thoreson. “We and its many years experience
different manifolds grew and the quantity decided to see if there was a more efficient solving hundreds of challenging
requirements for each model varied. workholding process available to improve high density workholding setups,
Western Products’ manifolds are quality while allowing us to continue using our were enough to convince Western
5-3/4 by 3-3/8 inch and 7.6 x 5.6 x 2.8 inch existing machining centers. We were unsure that it would give them the rigid
with differing ports and other features. that a standard workholding setup would work workholding they required and a
The manifolds are precision machined for our particular application. Michael Dulmes, more efficient setup process.
out of 6061 aluminum, a heavy duty, our Kurt Workholding sales representative,
Western Plows are ruggedly built
with reliable hydraulic controls.
Users operate these plows in the
coldest weather conditions and
praise their performance and de-
pendability. The company designs
and manufactures the hydraulic
components that include precision
machined manifolds that regulate
the plows operation.

4. One set of custom jaws the Kurt engineers proposed handles the first series
of machining operations on the extruded workpiece blanks. When complete,
the parts are reversed on another special set of jaws for a second series of
machining operations. Several of the machined part features from the first
series of operations are used to correctly position the workpieces for the
second series of machining operations.
“With the new setup, we’re clamping at 3000 to 3100 PSI which
is more than adequate pressure to hold the parts rigidly for the tightest
tolerances and no part vibration,” reports Mr. Thoreson.” Originally, we were
concerned that a standard tower setup like this would not be rigid enough
to get top speed and accuracy, but we quickly found those never became
issues.”
With a maximum spindle speed of 15,000 rpm (depending on
operation), Western Products was able to operate the machines near
top speed with low vibration, good acceleration and without rotary drive
backlash. One of the reasons for the rigidity is that Kurt ClusterTowers are
precision machined from 80,000 psi ductile iron. This robust design gives the
clamping modules the extra rigidity needed to achieve workpiece immobility
while dampening any cutter induced vibration.
New Manifolds And Design Changes Handled Better With New Kurt
ClusterTowers
Western Products derived many additional benefits with the new
Kurt workholding setup besides having fewer and faster setups. Now, when
a new manifold design is needed or an engineering change is made to
an existing manifold, all that is needed is a new set of jaws costing a few
hundred dollars. With the old setup, an entire dedicated fixture was required
costing thousands of dollars. The turnaround time to get new jaws from Kurt
is just days compared to several weeks to make a new dedicated fixture.
While time for loading and unloading parts in the new setup versus
the old is about the same, the big difference is improved productivity, part
accuracy and now the new towers with the changeable jaws stay on the
worktable. Before, the entire setup had to be removed and replaced from
the worktable to change manifold models. That took 30 minutes and use
of a hoist. “Now, to change setups, we just unsnap the jaws, adjust the vise
opening for the new part by hand, and we’re ready to pressurize and run new
parts,” reports Mr. Thoreson. “Also, the old dedicated setup required milling
holding slots into each workpiece. We don’t have to mill those slots with the
new tower setup. Also, we machine two different manifolds at the same time
on the same machine. We do this on two, eight-hour shifts, something we
weren’t able to do before. We machine approximately 480 manifolds most
weeks, 240 of each size. Even with these quantities, we are able to eliminate
the use of a second machine freeing it up for other work.”
“We run this new setup as aggressively as possible with highest
feed rates because the Kurt ClusterTowers can take it,” reports Mr. Thoreson.
“We don’t have to worry about vibration or chatter because the ductile iron
vise bodies dampen any tendency to vibrate when aggressive operations are
called for. Besides being much faster than the previous setup, the machine
operator’s time is better utilized allowing for other tasks,” reports Thoreson.
GET A FREE PRODUCTIVITY
REVIEW AND PROPOSAL
TODAY. EMAIL US AT
SteveKane@kurt.com
Old setup (top) compared to the new setup
(bottom). Moving the old heavy fixtures on and
off the machining center worktable (left) was KURT® Manufacturing
required when additional manifold sizes required
9445 East River Road NW - Minneapolis, MN 55433
machining. Now, the new Kurt ClusterTowers
stay on the machine worktable requiring only a Phone: 763-574-8309 | 1-877-226-7823
simple change of jaws for the additional mani- Fax: 763-574-8313 | 1-877-226-7828
fold sizes. www.kurtworkholding.com