A farmer had a problem. His corn picker breaks down and the original equipment manufacturer no longer covers it for repair parts. Luckily, the farmer attended a tour of Novathane’s facilities and discovered we could reverse-engineer and replicate obsolete parts for legacy machines. He brought in a sample part made of rubber and asked if we could replicate it.
Bringing legacy equipment back to life
Not only did we replicate the part, but we replaced the original rubber part with a tougher, better polyurethane formulation that cost half the price. That was back in 2008. Today, breathing new life into unsupported equipment is a growing part of Novathane’s business. Once people discovered we could do this work, we were inundated with requests for similar jobs from other farmers with equipment sidelined due to a lack of these parts.
Novathane has helped numerous companies in a wide variety of industries keep their legacy equipment working with parts made from custom polyurethane molding. One company sourced 5,000 units a year of a polyurethane part from us after a supplier had increased its price by 100% because it wanted to exit the business. Unsupported equipment applications range from amusement park rides and automotive aftermarket suspensions to steel mill rollers, agricultural tractors, and aviation and marine equipment. We’ve also helped clients working in the jet fuel storage infrastructure and the military.
We work hard to understand your needs
The process to reverse engineer a replacement part is straightforward. The customer brings in the part print (if available) or the actual part to be replicated. We assign an elastomer to it, taking note of whether it is for inside or outside use, the kind of heat and humidity it will face, whether it needs to be tough and abrasion resistant, or will encounter fuels, and so on. We also want to know the common failures for this type of part.
Novathane fully documents all parts and components it reverse-engineers for customers so that, if called for, it can reproduce them quickly. The company is ISO-certified and routinely builds part files that feature a bill of materials that lists all the parts and materials required to build a product. As part of the BOM, it assembles a bill of operations, which lists the raw materials, parts, and sub-assemblies needed to manufacture the product. The part files also include complete quality specifications.
Our cross-functional team delivers
When working with a customer to develop a part for unsupported equipment, Novathane typically assembles a cross-functional team of experts from across the company, including marketing, sales, production, engineering, tooling, and other departments. Our people ask a lot of questions and rely on their team experience, expertise, and what we like to call “tribal knowledge” to develop a solution. This cross-functional team approach is why we can work so quickly and confidently toward customer goals.
Whether you need ten, a thousand, or ten thousand custom polyurethane molding parts, Novathane can often deliver a solution as good as or better than the original. Call us at (419) 877-3306 or contact us.