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From
garage to
globe
How in-house development, electrification, and acquisitions are widening Sun Hydraulics’ offering in fluid power
In a garage in Sarasota, Sun Hydraulics( Sun) began in 1970, when founder Bob Koski grew dissatisfied with the performance of existing cartridge valve technology. This passion drove him to design his own product, including his own novel lapping process to make nearly perfect spherical seats. More than five decades on, the Florida-based company is a division of Helios Technologies and a leading designer and manufacturer of highperformance screw-in hydraulic cartridge valves, manifolds, sensors, and electronics.
With solutions that control force, speed, and motion as integral components in fluid power systems, the division still works to the same rule today: if a process doesn’ t reach the required standard – build it in-house.“ What differentiates our products is quality and performance,” opens Steve Meislahn, Managing Director( Americas), who joins us to discuss electrification within the industry, acquisitions, and the importance of internal development at Sun.
Elaborating on the company’ s competitive advantages, Steve explains that such high quality and performance comes down to the manufacturing processes it developed in-house.“ We run our own heat treat department because suppliers struggle to meet the tolerances we require.” This led to the firm insourcing every process after rough turning, including grinding, honing, and hardboring.“ Another factor is our large number of SKUs. The majority are mid to low volume and finding suppliers to run these parts economically is difficult, as our tolerances are generally measured in millionths of an inch.” These heat treat recipes and finishing processes have been developed and refined for 56 years and are a critical part of Sun’ s intellectual property, strengthening the manufacturer’ s performance, reliability, and durability.
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