Custom Caster Quick Turnaround For Jet Engine Stand Saves Thousands

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By Paul Van Dellen
Outside Sales
Categories:
January 27, 2023

5,000 Lb. Capacity Spring Loaded Caster for Jet Engine Stand.

A technical services group serving the airline industry was responsible for rebuilding and testing jet engines for a primary carrier. These engines arrive at the company on engine stands and are removed for repair and testing. When the engines are removed from the stands, it offers a small window of opportunity to do any repairs on the stands before the engine is put back on the stands for shipping back to the customer.

These engine stands are heavy, and since they must be moved around to different parts of the facility, they must be easily transportable. In one particular case, a jet engine stand was out of service. The jet engine associated with this stand had been tested and was ready to be sent back to the end user. The OEM equipment manufacturer was already experiencing a 20+ week lead time on casters from China. To prevent millions of dollars worth of downtime due to an engine waiting on the plant floor, the customer needed a solution fast.

The stands carried a multimillion-dollar engine that needed to be transported up to one mile at a time without experiencing any damage. This process required a spring-loaded caster that would carry 5,000 pounds and had to be custom-made to fit into the perimeters of the original casters.

Solution:

After speaking with our customer, Caster Concepts was able to pinpoint primary needs and custom design a spring-loaded caster to meet every specification required. Best of all, the caster was out the door in just four weeks — a far cry from the 20-plus weeks they would have experienced by having a caster shipped from overseas.

Because of an in-house engineering department and prioritized production, Caster Concepts can manufacture a one-off caster in a condensed time frame. The time crunch on custom caster turnaround can put a lot of stress on other manufacturers ( especially when they are getting casters from overseas, where lead times can be upwards of 6 months), but with Caster Concepts’ in-house manufacturing capabilities, we accept the challenge and always strive not only to meet our customers’ needs but far exceed them.

Result:

This caster was engineered and put into production in 1 week. The manufacturing process took three weeks, which meant delivery to the customer in 4 weeks instead of the 20-week lead time from the original equipment manufacturer.

This was huge. The cost for a jet to be out of service per day can vary greatly depending on the type of jet, the reason for the out-of-service period, and other factors. But even a rough estimate puts the cost at around $10,000 to $20,000 per day for commercial jets, while a private jet could be significantly higher. Depending on the exact cost, this can equal a cost saving of 160-320,000.