Multiple Tools, Multiple Companies, One Point of Contact, One P.O.

For the UTC, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. From concept to finished product, the UTC provides a single source for a complete range of die/mold/automation/jig and fixture services. As a family of specialists, the UTC works as a single unit – coordinated with the customer through the UTC Lead Company. The result: sophisticated services you need from a single source at a globally competitive price. Looking to lower costs by sourcing related parts or assemblies? With one call, UTC will provide cross-coalition program management and functional build services for its clients.

Your Comprehensive Sourcing Solution

With its comprehensive tooling and support capabilities, extensive application of lean practices, and project management, the UTC is an innovative and valuable cost and time-saving alternative for your next tooling project. Focused on building long-term, collaborative partnerships with customers, UTC offers a simple sourcing solution for large multi-discipline programs allowing clients to reduce costs by sourcing multiple, inter-related parts and related tooling to a single provider.

Low Cost Country Sourcing

In partnership with foreign-owned suppliers, UTC simplifies access to low-cost foreign tool sources, relieves clients from having to build and manage offshore relationships, and provides local contacts for engineering and tryout.In partnership with foreign-owned suppliers, UTC simplifies access to low-cost foreign tool sources, relieves clients from having to build and manage offshore relationships, and provides local contacts for engineering and tryout.With the availability of extremely low wages in some foreign countries, the UTC recognizes that under some conditions, it is cheaper to source some aspects of tool production in low cost countries. Working with the customer in assessing cost, risk and lead-time, the UTC will help plan the use of LCC sourcing where it makes sense, and program manage the LCC content. Several UTC companies have extensive LCC experience. In partnership with foreign-owned suppliers, UTC simplifies access to low-cost foreign tool sources, relieves clients from having to build and manage offshore relationships, and provides local contacts for engineering and tryout.

Coalition Efficiencies – Economies of Scale

Delivering only what you need, when you need it, the UTC allows customers to select from among its services á la carte creating a customized experience for each project. The result: highly competitive bids for even the most complex projects. Need to reduce costs from engineering changes? The UTC provides early product evaluations and process simulation. Early product strategizing can help plan for the uncertainties of future demand. Collaboration within the UTC allows for the sharing of resources to eliminate bottlenecks and pooling of efforts to reduce overhead. Regular meetings are held throughout the coalition membership to disseminate individual knowledge and share best practices in critical areas, such as: engineering, scheduling, quoting, and tryout.

Extensive Application of Lean Principles

Upon its formation in 2003, every UTC company was contracted for lean assessment under the guidance of the State of Michigan. Competitive benchmarking, value-stream mapping and other lean principles were applied with the assistance of the Michigan Manufacturing Technology Center (MMTC) [link]. Several consultants were used to identify cost reduction opportunities. Design and cost-saving quality control opportunities include:

  • Cross-coalition program management
  • Continuous improvement of your tooling standards
  • Inter- and intra-firm employment of lean practices
  • Efficiencies of scale
  • Synchronous manufacturing
  • Digital technologies for product and process design
  • Functional build
  • Central CNC programming with highly efficient cutting time
  • Reduced tryout time

The UTC offers product planning input to help the customer make the best tooling decision for minimizing lifecycle costs that include tool construction, maintenance and production costs.

Collective Wisdom Kaizen

The Collective Wisdom Kaizen is another way in which you can benefit from the breadth of knowledge found in the UTC. Hundreds of years of expertise in tool design and production systems experience can be used as a sleuth to eliminate waste in your shop. In some instances, the UTC will provide this service at no cost to demonstrate the benefit of establishing a long-term partnership with the UTC. The UTC Kaizen – at your company - is accomplished with the collective-wisdom from the UTC. The UTC assembles a team of tooling experts to tour your production facility and compile a list of cost reduction opportunities for you. An opportunity matrix with estimated cost, benefit and recommended implementation is provided. Typical issues will involve tool design standards, automation and tooling maintenance. If requested, the UTC Kaizen can follow up in 6 to 12 months to assess progress. Returns have been realized in the order of 8 to 1!