When the call came, everyone stayed

Four weeks at a standstill

The call came on 11 September 2001, a day that is remembered because of the events in New York. By then, the customer’s production lines had already been at a standstill for four weeks because the previous supplier was no longer delivering the required springs.

These were not simple, flat leaf springs, but U-springs bent in several dimensions. They press electronic components against heat sinks so that the heat generated is reliably dissipated. Above all, their geometry was demanding: at the rear, the springs first ran straight upwards, then converged at an angle and opened up again at the front far enough to allow them to be fitted.

The solution that same evening

Normally, nobody was left on site at that time of day. That evening, however, the whole crew was still in the toolmaking shop. Everyone stayed.

Suitable strip material was available on site. On a small eccentric press, it was first cut to the stretched length of the spring. To feed the material, the team used a decoiler they had designed themselves and built from several components. It unwound the metal strip from the coil and made it ready for further feeding to the machine.

Christian, who worked at the company for a total of 48 years, built an auxiliary fixture on the toggle presses together with his colleagues. With it, they brought the springs into the required shape. The team kept working until around 10 pm. By the end of the evening, the first finished parts were ready.

At the customer’s the next morning

The next morning, a taxi took the springs to the customer. The immediate bottleneck was resolved and production could start up again.

In the words of Thomas Püls Senior, this effort created a bond that went far beyond this single order. The story shows what reliability means at FJ: when a serious problem arises at a customer’s, existing knowledge, available technology and short decision-making paths are brought together until a workable solution is found.