Source: Taylor Jones, 785-532-0644, tjones@amisuccess.com
Website: http://www.amisuccess.com
News release prepared by: Lea Studer, 785-532-7044, lstuder@amisuccess.com

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

VALVE-UABLE ADDITION: ELLSWORTH COMPANY ADDS TO PRODUCT LINE WITH HELP OF ADVANCED MANUFACTURING INSTITUTE

MANHATTAN -- An Ellsworth company is offering new actuators for industry use, thanks to the assistance of Kansas State University's Advanced Manufacturing Institute.

Cashco, Ellsworth, manufactures an expansive line of rotary and linear control valves and regulators, and came to the institute for assistance in the development of its Model C27 and C53 Actuators for Cashco industrial control valves.

"Cashco wanted to develop a compact actuator for its industrial control valve product line," said Taylor Jones, chief engineer at the Advanced Manufacturing Institute, also known as AMI. "The new compact actuator we developed can be used on nearly all the industrial control valves Cashco offers, which helps eliminate the need for an actuator design for each individual control valve."

Jones said engineers at the Advanced Manufacturing Institute were able to decrease the size of the actuator package, which reduced its weight and made the product easier to use.

"The smaller size is also more cost effective than existing Cashco actuator designs," he said. "Our work included specification development, conceptual design, detailed design, product testing support and defining design strategy for sizing compact actuators and valves. We also determined the number of compact actuators needed for the control valve product lines."

The Cashco C27 compact actuator is in production and is being offered on the 2296 pneumatic control valve.

"We also assisted Cashco with their C53 compact actuator and it's in the process of transitioning to production," Jones said.

"AMI was able to help us ramp up the design phase quickly," said Clint Rogers, general manager, value division at Cashco. "We provided the design criteria and day-to-day guidance of what was acceptable. AMI moved the project along quickly with detailed analysis and drawings. The ability to have the flexibility of additional staff on large projects like this has proven to be extremely useful."

More information on Cashco is available at http://www.cashcosolutions.com.

The Advanced Manufacturing Institute is a part of K-State's College of Engineering and a Kansas Technology Enterprise Corporation Center of Excellence that provides business and engineering services. Find out more about the institute at http://www.amisuccess.com.