But for some of our customers, engineering is not so much a concern as the ability to produce a large volume of high-quality extrusions, in a wide variety of shapes, handle complex bills of materials, stock inventory, and provide JIT fulfillment services. Such is the case with the RV awning components we make for the Dometic Group.
We began working with Dometic about 12 years ago as one of three extrusion suppliers sharing roughly equal amounts of extrusion work. While the extrusions were not complex, Dometic set high standards for quality and performance. Typical lead times of less than two weeks for quick turnaround, high volume orders of standard shapes.
Extruding 750 different shapes
The extruded components include awning arms, roller tubes, rails and assemblies. A total of about 750 different shapes are included. In addition to extruding the profiles at our Kalamazoo, Michigan plant, we provide cut-to-length for components ranging from eight to 24 feet. We CNC machine and punch some of the shapes and, through our partner resources, powder coat about 70 percent of the components. Delivery involves a Kanban or Just-in-Time scheduling program to meet the rapid turnaround requirements.
Supporting same day shipping
Dometic’s awning program requires that if their dealer’s customer orders an awning product for their RV by noon, Dometic will ship it the same day. Since the awnings are made to order, it’s important to have parts ready for quick assembly. Dometic maintains its own inventory with Hydro providing support with stock held at our plant and at our powder coat partner’s facility. This allows us to ship immediately for emergency or quick needs.
With Dometic expanding into Europe and Australia, Hydro is benefiting from higher levels of orders in the winter due to the opposite seasons in Australia. The European expansion will offer our Hydro operations in Europe the opportunity to work on this exciting program.
High volume, quick response key success factors
Dometic reports they are more than satisfied with Hydro as a supplier because of our willingness to work through issues at the local level, providing them with a quick response. Our ability to handle the mundane and commonplace, and to do it well, is important to them. But the biggest key to this long-term relationship is our ability to meet high volume, fast turnaround production.
Today, Dometic purchases more than 10 million pounds of aluminum extruded components per year. Hydro produces about five to six million pounds of that total. Approximately 95 percent of the extrusions we make for Dometic are produced from standard 6063 alloy sourced from our casthouse operations. Dometic recognizes the strategic importance of having a supplier able to source alloy in-house, especially a supplier who produces metal which contains more than 70 percent recycled metal.
Dometic is known as the supplier of high quality products with a high degree innovation to the RV- and marine industries. For more information on Dometic RV products, go to: http://www.dometic.com/enus/Americas/USA/RV-Products/
