The Black Forest engineering company "Arnold Automatisierungstechnik GmbH" produces automatic and semi-automatic mounting space and material feeds for the automotive supply industry and relies on MISUMI for the procurement of all necessary standard and custom made parts.

“Arnold” supplies only German companies. Customers` wishes have top priority. The company is primarily concerned with special products. “Most of our machines are used for the assembly of limited unit numbers” the Man aging Director states.

“Arnold” designs and manufactures inter alia equipment for material feeds. The company orders built-in drawer slides, gas springs, axle bolts, anchor and joint stock drawer slides and many other parts from MISUMI. “Arnold” also relies on MISUMI in case of locating pins, thrust bolts,mounting bolts, as well as linear technology and steel shafts. MISUMI manufactures and supplies more than 550 steel shaft types for various industrial applications.

The surface-hardened shafts, for example, are available in lengths from 10 to 1500 mm, with a diameter of 3 up to 50 millimeters in various precision and tolerance classes. With a range of options related to dimensions and shape, the steel shafts can be configurated optimal and can be ordered in suitable dimensions.

"Arnold" components are often only needed in small numbers and small quantities. Before designing each machine, one has to consider the phase of construction planning. “As soon as the planning is accomplished, we can decide which completed parts can be bought” the Managing Director states. “Arnold” obtains mainly device parts such as thrust bolts, centering bolts, bearing shafts, linear guides or end stops at MISUMI. The Managing Directors says that the company needs only very rarely more than one piece of each purchased part”. Therefore he appreciates especially that MISUMI delivers from one piece within Germany with no surcharge for small quantities.

The MISUMI-service is very important for "Arnold's" De-signers: In an online configurator one can choose between application-oriented product options such as diameter, standard or precision design, material, coating, tolerance class or thread detail. In addition to a 2D drawing of each component, the configurator also offers a 3D preview of all the selected parameters as a movable model. If changes are entered, the configurator automatically updates view, unit prices and the corresponding delivery times. Already at this point, the user may request a quote. If he configures several components at once, the total costs and the delivery date for the complete order will be displayed immediately for the overall order. Then, the user can submit his final order to the Web Ordering System (WOS) of MISUMI.

"Arnold" contacted MISUMI out of a necessity. "Back then our supplier of linear guides could not deliver a required rail guide on time: In contrast MISUMI was able to provide us within the required time with a suitable guide. The quality was also very convincing. Since then, we rely exclusively on MISUMI”, the Managing Director says and highlights that the product spectrum of MISUMI is not easy to reach. "While in the past we had to search in ten separate catalogs, today we can use just one. This saves us a lot of time and costs. The search and ordering process is very easy. For all products CAD models exist in all popular formats for immediate download. In this way and before ordering the CAD data can be integrated in simulations of the future environment and examined with respect to functionality and dimensional accuracy. This simplifies the designing process" says the Managing Director, who also appreciates the human side of collaboration with MISUMI.