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Proposed Title: Shorter Lead-Times and Strong Communication Lead to a Great Partnership
A manufacturing company needed an NSF listed water supply hose that met specific requirements of the medical industry.
Situation
PBI Manufacturing assembles sanitization kits for use in hospitals and medical related facilities. Historically, they purchased completed hose assemblies from one of our competitors. In 2018, they experienced a surge in demand that their current supplier could not meet. With the current manufacturer unable to meet demand along with changes to their in-house assembly capabilities, PBI needed to explore other options. The product required custom labels, vigorous testing and NSF listed hose to meet the strict specifications and requirements of the medical industry.
Opportunity
PBI is located about 45 miles from the Flex-Tech Hose headquarters in San Antonio, TX. Given the proximity of our extrusion plant, we were positioned to be able to cut costs on shipping in exchange for a quality product. They also needed the hose assemblies at high volume for a relatively low cost. The fittings needed to be lead free as well.
Action Taken
We began working with PBI to understand their requirements and to get approval from their customer to be their secondary supplier. Flex-Tech was able to leverage bulk material orders, in-house extrusion, and the proximity of the plant to PBI to keep the costs low. We worked with the engineering and production team at PBI and Diversey (the end user of the sanitization kits) to streamline the specifications. We also created a “jig” to reduce production time and were able to implement blanket orders to make the process more time and cost efficient.
After six months of filling orders we were given the opportunity to bid for the entire project. We were awarded the work as a result of shorter lead-times, excellent communication, great quality and freight savings. Flex-Tech honed down the production process and maintained timely shipments for our water supply house.
In the fall of 2020, the customer’s requirements evolved to include a significantly higher operating temperature which is difficult to achieve with a flexible PVC hose and standard hose barb fittings. The current hose assembly no longer met the requirements. PBI has changed the specifications on a few occasions and Flex-Tech was able to adapt quickly, and we knew this instance would be no different.
After numerous conference calls, testing, and evaluation we developed a heavy-duty high temperature hose with custom interlocking fitting and ferrule system that once crimped is inseparable from the hose. This design keeps the hose from pulling out from the fitting as temperature increases and the flexible PVC material begins to soften. The hose design was added to Flex-Tech’s NSF listed products and the lead free, eco-safe brass fittings proved to meet and exceed the new application requirements.
This new design expanded the application temperature range of the customer’s equipment and provided another layer of safety for the end user. As a result of the product design solution FT was awarded a large blanket order to cover the customer’s demand for the next six to 12 months and the relationship continues to strengthen as a result of our solutions driven approach.
Flex-Tech Hose is a custom manufacturer of Thermoplastic hose and tubing products. The company provides bulk and custom solutions the RV, marine, industrial and specialty hose markets. Contact us for more information.