Underground Hero

In 2012, the indestructible superhero, Hulk, 他以简单的口头禅“Smash”赢得了漫威电影迷的喜爱. Six years later, 三个年轻的企业家推出了一个绿巨人，它的任务略有修改:忍受粉碎. 他们为油气行业提供的Hulk交叉耦合电缆保护器是一种退火球墨铸威尼斯注册送38元，用于安全夹紧和保护昂贵的电潜泵(ESP)电缆和长达45米的毛细管,000 lbs. 在井筒深处的管箍处的冲击力. 自2018年以来，该夹具已售出42.5万个，可以肯定地说，它们取得了巨大成功.

But in 2019, Oil & 工具解决方案(OTS)产品总监Chandler England, together with his co-founders—childhood friend, Matt Smart, 工程师Mark robinson意识到ESP市场的巨大空白，并决定抓住这个机会. Their original Hulk product is a 7-in. clamp produced at a foundry in China, 虽然它代表了在确保油井长电缆和管道安全方面的突破性创新, narrower lines were grossly underserved; with no successful 5-in. device in the market, 现场工作人员或多或少只能靠自己操纵不可靠的解决方案. 对小直径夹子的需求几乎是绝望的. 

带领一组工程师进入技术上困难的领域, 罗宾逊被迫在竞争对手抢在他们之前迅速开发出一种解决方案——一种既窄又长的设备，以保护宝贵的电缆. On the other hand, 老板们同意他们的冒险，设计一个全新的夹，更薄的壁和更严格的公差提供了一个独特的机会，重新思考他们所做的一切制造绿巨人. 

当时仍处于新冠疫情之前，当OTS退后考虑新的选择时，关税已经生效, including U.S. production. A resident of Charlotte, North Carolina, England turned to an acquaintance at Charlotte Pipe, who referred him to Waupaca Foundry, both AFS Corporate Members. For the next 12 months, which included the pandemic, a new band of trailblazers—comprising OTS, the Waupaca team, and a machining partner Waupaca selected—designed, refined, tested, and perfected the Hulk Slimcast 5-in. clamp, which OTS took to market in the fall of 2020. They’ve since installed at 20 wells and sold 6,000 units this October alone, 钳子在西德克萨斯州开辟了一个全新的竞争环境. 

“作为商人，我们逐渐成熟起来，开始明白在美国制造产品的优势.S. 并利用越来越好的技术和机器人技术。. “We can manage cash flow better, because we’re not having to ship things across the world and then they sit on the water; we could eliminate this whole speculative build-up of inventory. 在你真正开始销售产品之前，有很长的时间间隔. So we thought, ‘How do we get around that?’ 

“Plus, we are Americans, 我们个人认为，如果我们能在美国国内解决问题, 这是我们的偏好，因为我们面向的是这个市场,” he added. “And we want to be good stewards to the planet, 也就是说不用把产品运到地球另一端. If you can shorten your supply chain, 然后在你销售的市场上生产产品, that’s huge ...  我们希望盈利，我们希望经营一家好的企业，我们希望以正确的方式做事 ... 只是因为每个人都说在印度、中国和其他国家制造更便宜，因为劳动力更便宜, well, is that really true?”
It wasn’t, when all costs were evaluated, 包括不那么金钱但同样有效的语言代价, culture, 在开始新产品开发时，物流障碍充满了限制和复杂性.

“We knew that by going into these tighter wellbores,” England said, “我们希望与一家美国公司合作，这样如果出现问题, 我们可以共同努力，更快地解决这些问题，减少不确定性.”

Many Solutions, One Casting

这次合作产生了许多OTS没有预料到的有利结果, and it started with their choice of metalcaster. 

“We immediately formed a great relationship,” said Mike Behring, Waupaca director of off highway and industrial sales, recalling the first meeting. “我最初告诉他们，有太多客户带着最初的设计来找我们，只想关注成本. I said, ‘Let’s not go through this as a cost exercise alone; let’s go through this as a partnering exercise, and through that, 我们将开发具有成本竞争力的最佳设计和铸造和机加工友好的铸件 ... 最后，他们看到我们作为一个团队合作能够完成所有的目标.”

When England first met with Waupaca, he said three things stood out that won his trust: (1) they clearly excelled in metallurgy and educated the manufacturer on the best alloy to employ for the application—ASTM 536 grade 60-40-18 ferritic ductile iron; (2) when Waupaca engineers inspected the existing Hulk clamp, they didn’t trash-talk the Chinese workmanship—they praised what was good but identified where it could be improved; (3) the Waupaca team didn’t hoard all the work—instead, 他们为这个项目做了正确的选择，并引入了一个优秀的机械车间, 这家公司最终成为了沃帕卡的一级供应商，现在是沃帕卡的Slimcast客户.    

Machining was, in fact, 这是最终使多个Slimcast sku能够从单个铸造中派生出来的关键, as opposed to producing multiple castings, each with separate tooling. 

“如果你仔细想想，我们是夹在不同的电缆上，”英格兰说. “Some cables are thicker than others, some are wider. 所以我们需要在这个铸件中留下一些额外的金属，然后把它加工成不同的水平，这样它就可以与不同的电缆sku结合起来. 这样我们就可以降低成本——我们可以用一个铸件把它加工成六个不同的sku. And that is a big deal.”

这一成就得益于沃帕卡的一个启示:大, 在新的铸件上，可以完全消除原绿巨人夹具的高成本砂芯. Instead, 模具工程师在模具中添加了几个具有战略意义的草稿, 这不仅消除了冗余，而且最终最大化了夹具的加工时间. 

How? 第一代Hulk使用芯和加工来钻和攻丝孔，这些孔是铰链销和锁存摆动螺栓所需的，操作员使用这些螺栓在现场组装和固定管道和电缆周围的夹具. 贝林解释说，单靠机械加工就能解决Slimcast上的销钉孔, but as long as machining was required for that, 为什么不利用机械加工来同时处理几种不同的夹具呢?这是一个聪明的闪避，避免了为六个单独的铸件制造工具的成本要高得多. 

让这些多次迭代恰到好处地完成需要几周时间, 英格兰的敏捷团队跑到南威斯康辛地区，只要机器车间叫他们，他们就亲自测试样品. 

“It was a lot of back and forth,” said England. “我们基本上只是上了飞机，和机加工团队一起开了车间. We brought up all our customers’ cables, the capillary tubes; we shipped up a pull test bench—we have to be able to grip this cable, so we had this mechanism to yank cables. 我们用管子和其他压机来压碎它，看看它有多结实, because everything is thinner now. So we’d spend three or four days together, they’d say ‘Here are the revisions we’re going to make,’ and we’d say, ‘See you in a couple weeks and we’ll retest it.’” 

Versatile in the extreme, 完美的Slimcast系列夹具储备在OTS的丹佛工厂, 机加工车间控制铸件的各种机加工版本的实现. OTS的客户订单有时必须在短短六个小时内送达, 因此，与铸造的交货时间相比，自动化加工带来的快速转换已经得到了回报. 

“我们不知道哪个SKU会在任何时候最受欢迎,” said England, “because one month, one cable may be super popular, and then the next quarter, another cable may be popular. 如果我们在国际上做这件事，这是不可能的——我们将不得不更加投机地投资于足够的库存, not knowing what’s going to be in demand. 但当电缆市场发生变化时，或者像哈里伯顿这样的大公司决定换一份新合同时，他们会告诉我们, ‘Oh, by the way, run this cable,’ we can adjust quickly enough.”

Value in the Pipeline

Before a drop of molten ductile iron hit the mold, Waupaca had ensured the strength, wear, soundness, 尺寸要求都符合客户的规格要求. 
Using Magma simulations, Behring said, 铸造厂可以自信地薄壁和改变零件的几何形状, 以及优化口袋尺寸的外壳夹.

“我们还专注于铸件长度，并坚持我们可以接受的指定长度, OTS, 在机械车间确保我们能够优化模具中的空腔数量, which is another direct contributor to reducing cost.”

The foundry’s metals expertise proved critical, too. 

“The yield strength of this material, 在产品的使用寿命期间，哪一种能承受其所处的腐蚀环境, 以及球墨铸铁比钢成本更低, 是什么使这个特定的等级最适合这个应用程序, Behring said.

“机械、铁素体性能确实可以与低合金钢相媲美. 当钻杆进入井内并多次与井口防喷器发生碰撞时，石油工具解决方案需要一种能够承受高冲击力的材料. 为了做到这一点，你需要这种级别的球墨铸铁，伸长率为18%. 如果你的前轮胎碰到路边，这就相当于你车上的一个较低的控制臂, it’s going to push that material. But at 18%, it will come back to its original form. 

“Once the coupling is entering the wellhead protector, 较小直径的Slimcast设计撞上混凝土保护层，它必须具有抗冲击性能和伸长率，才能在不断裂的情况下恢复原状.” 

要达到伸长率要求，需要进行全面退火, Behring added, 并且具有分解铸件微观结构中的碳化物的附加效果，这些碳化物会干扰金属的预期属性. 
With a year of hard knocks under its belt, Hulk Slimcast预计使用寿命为三年或四个安装周期, whichever comes first, according to England. OTS通过提供翻新服务为客户增加价值，从而进一步延长每个夹具的工作寿命. 

Challenge Yourself

Slimcast作为一款完全由美国制造的石油和天然气铸件的成功亮相，并不一定是OTS决定最终回归(以及重新设计)原厂的催化剂, wider Hulk product, but it certainly has reinforced the idea. 在过去三年半的时间里，该公司的中国选角合作伙伴一直运转良好, but it was never the end game, said England. On the other hand, 他现在还不急着把公司迁回美国，因为随着Slimcast的销售增长，目前有很多机会可以利用. 

与此同时，这些天他坚持自己的信条:挑战自我. By rejecting hearsay and doing their own homework, 英格兰和他的OTS老板发现他们可以更好地制造他们的发明, 通过与高素质的国内合作伙伴合作，更强大，成本更低.  

“We challenged ourselves, and what we try to challenge others now is, look under the hood, get some pricing, talk to experts in your market,” he said. “也许某些产品在这里没有意义, but challenge yourself and go through the process.”   CS

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