Background
This mid-west based company is a 1st tier supplier of valve train components to the American Automotive Manufacturing Industry. The part being cleaned is a roller rocker assembly designed for 2.1 and 2.4 liter diesel engines. The assemblies are made up of the following parts: rocker arms, plunger bodies, valves, valve guides, roller tappets, shims and a few other smaller components. This is a brand new project for this company so a cleaning system was not yet in place.
Problem
These parts are covered in cutting oils and small chips and need to be cleaned to a precise cleanliness specification prior to being moved to the clean room for assembly. Due to the tight tolerances of the assembly machines (costing $1.7-1.8 million), the cleaning system had to meet these critical conditions: 1) wash and remove all oils, chips and debris from various sized parts (some with blind holes), 2) rinse parts with a rust inhibitor without leaving excess film, 3) have fixtured baskets for cleaning the roller arms which could not tumble and standard baskets for washing all other parts, 4) wash and dry the parts in a total cycle time of under 20 minutes to keep up with production, and 5) occupy a small footprint.
 Solution/System
A Cyclojet 1 was chosen over many other machines for several reasons; 1) the PLC runs parts through a wash, ultrasonic wash, rinse, and dry sequence to produce exceptionally clean parts, 2) the patented autolatch rotor system guaranteed the customer would never "lose" parts and risk jamming the machine due to operator negligence; 3) the Cyclojet 1 was fixtured to except various customized baskets, 4) 12 minute cycle times were achieved, and 5) the machine had a very compact footprint.
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