Shaping the Tank Industry

How AlumiTank Scaled to 8,000 Custom Part Numbers with Advanced Plate Bending

Shop Shapes Tank Industry with Advanced Plate Rolling Technology

Story overview

We manufacture standard and custom aluminum fuel tanks, mounting systems, and accessories, all proudly built in the USA. Whether it’s a direct replacement or a one-off custom job, we offer solutions that fit. Every product is built to meet FMCSA standards and quality tested before leaving our shop.

Website

https://www.alumitank.com/

Location

United States

Industry

Automotive

Related products

MCA

The Challenge

To meet rising OEM demand and maintain fast turnaround times, AlumiTank had to overcome the limits of manual bending. Rolling aluminum demands high precision due to spring-back variations. Managing over 8,000 part numbers—from standard cylindrical tanks to complex D-shaped, rectangular, and trapezoidal geometries—required eliminating tedious manual setups, high scrap rates, and reliance on operator guesswork.

The Solution

AlumiTank deployed a fleet of three Davi MCA 4-roll plate rolls equipped with the advanced iRoll eXtreme CNC controller:

High-Volume & Heavy Bending: A Davi MCA 2517 (rolled over 500,000 tanks) and an MCA 3022 handle heavy-capacity aluminum plates up to 0.250 in. (6.35 mm) [1/4 in.] thick and 118 in. (3,000 mm) [10 ft] wide.
Complex Shape Automation: A Davi MCA 2518/S16 automates non-cylindrical, multi-radius profiles (D-shape, rectangular, trapezoidal) with absolute clamping precision.
Instant Recall & Repeatability: The touchscreen CNC stores up to 9,999 programs, auto-adjusting for material variations to deliver first-part-correct accuracy every time.

The Results

Immediate Productivity Gains

The intuitive touch-screen interface of the iRoll eXtreme allows operators to generate complex programs rapidly. This has dramatically cut programming times and eliminated test-run scrap.

Flawless Process Repeatability

Davi’s combination of rigid mechanical design and self-correcting software ensures that the 8,000th part is as dimensionally perfect as the first, guaranteeing consistent quality across high-volume OEM runs.

Seamless Market Diversification

Armed with advanced multi-radius programming, AlumiTank successfully expanded into new business lines, securing contracts with a major cement truck OEM for pressurized tanks and high-pressure compressed-air reservoirs.

For high-mix B2B metal fabricators, managing thousands of unique part numbers while maintaining strict repeatable accuracy is a major production bottleneck. In the custom tank manufacturing sector, this challenge is intensified by the shifting demand between traditional cylindrical vessels and complex, non-cylindrical shapes.

Based in Harvard, Illinois, AlumiTank is a premier aluminum fabrication specialist producing both pressurized and non-pressurized tanks. Serving demanding sectors—including heavy-duty Class 8 truck OEMs, railroads, mining, and military applications—the company manages an active catalog of over 8,000 custom part numbers, a figure that grows weekly. Turning these highly customized designs around with speed and structural integrity requires plate rolling technology that eliminates manual guesswork, minimizes setup times, and ensures extreme dimensional accuracy.

Over Half a Million Tanks and Counting
The durability and reliability of Davi technology are best demonstrated by AlumiTank's first Davi MCA 2517 plate roll. Working in a demanding industrial environment, this single machine reliably rolled over 500,000 tanks before receiving its recent control system upgrade—providing an exceptional return on investment and proving the extreme longevity of Davi's design and mechanical components.