Monaghan Tooling rushes custom ventilator tooling project

Dayton, Ohio-based Monaghan Tooling Group has responded to a request for a burnishing tool to produce a very fine microfinish on a flat surface of a ventilator component.

New England’s Butler Bros., a Monaghan distributor, had a customer that needed custom tooling to produce 2,500 ventilator components a week by mid-April. The team turned the project around, from purchase order to signed approval print for custom tooling, in about five hours. While that breakneck pace is not the norm, Monaghan and its Elliott Tool Technologies partners were committed to help speed the production of critical ventilators to COVID-19 patients nationwide.

After review of the application, MTG engineers determined that a custom-designed, flat-face, multiroller burnishing tool would produce the desired surface finish without secondary processes like grinding, honing, and polishing and the inherent time required for these additional setups. Burnishing also increases the surface hardness through the cold-working process and compressive forces.

MTG transferred all pertinent data to the ETT engineering and design team, which started designing the custom tooling. After receiving the customer’s signed approval on the drawing, it submitted the design to ETT, and work began immediately. The product shipped nearly a week ahead of schedule.