Since April 2005, an unprecedented number of new subsea Oil and or Gas development projects have resulted in an influx of orders placed on equipment suppliers. This upswing in the industry created a strain on manufacturing in all sectors of the supply chain. With this increase in orders, however, a problem arose in getting those orders filled: not enough capacity in the industry to support the demand. One company that faced this problem, but knew the solution, is National Coupling Company, Inc. located at a 50,000 square foot facility near Houston, Texas.
National Coupling manufactures and supplies state-of-the-art hydraulic and air couplings for oil, gas, chemical, refinery, construction, power, shipping, steel, coal, aluminum, and pipeline companies. In early 2002, the company had faced a similar problem and implemented several “Lean” initiatives and a multitude of process improvements which allowed them to quadruple production throughput and reduce lead times from 18 weeks to 8 weeks. This process took five months to complete, but gave them a response capability exceeding what the industry demanded. For the next three years, National Coupling had more capacity than the industry demanded; however, this capacity surplus disappeared again when orders began to escalate in April of 2005.
Vice President of Operations, Ken Oberholz recalls, “In September 2005, we were quoting 15 week lead times for welded coupling assemblies. Plans developed in July to increase our capacity were finalized and commitments made to double our throughput capacity. However, through the end of 2005 the demand continued to increase and doubling our capacity, we would soon realize, would not be enough – we needed to quadruple our production capability and fast. In the last half of 2005, our recovery plans included new machine tools, existing machine tool upgrades, process improvements, strategic outsourcing and eliminating waste through various “Lean” efforts.”
These “Lean” efforts resulted in another doubling in total production output and soon allowed The Company to catch up with the industry demand. Now National Coupling achieves incremental improvements in production capability each week which provides continuing improvement of on-time deliveries and lead times.
Concurrent with the manufacturing throughput expansion program, National Coupling took on and completed a number of improved coupling technology development programs in response to new functional performance requirements. According to President and CEO Gary Weathers, these include “couplings with enhanced flow capability and coupling for tubing hanger penetrator applications requiring bi-directional check valves, internal by-pass flow capability, volume compensation capability, extreme High Pressure/High Temperature service (20,000 psi, 350 F) and misalignment compensation capability.”
National Coupling’s continued improvement of technology and products during a time when capacity expansion was critical is a testament to meeting changing demands through “Lean” efforts, process improvements and the Company’s management capabilities.
For more information on National Coupling call 281-499-2583.
For Hydraulic Sales, email Jason Mallory (
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For Air Sales, email Ann Ozment ( ).
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Since April 2005, an unprecedented number of new subsea Oil and or Gas development projects have resulted in an influx of orders placed on equipment suppliers. This upswing in the industry created a strain on manufacturing in all sectors of the supply chain. With this increase in orders, however, a problem arose in getting those orders filled: not enough capacity in the industry to support the demand. One company that faced this problem, but knew the solution, is National Coupling Company, Inc. located at a 50,000 square foot facility near Houston, Texas.
