New managing director at Amada UK

Amada Co Ltd of Japan has appointed Paul Mansfield to the position of managing director and COO at Amada UK Ltd. With almost 25 years of service at the company, Mansfield is well known to staff and customers throughout Europe and brings extensive knowledge and management experience to the role. The new position will run concurrently with his existing role as COO of Amada Maquinaria Ibérica in Spain. Mansfield succeeds Steve Basford, who remains with the company as a special advisor, focussing on customer relations. Amada UK continues its 50th anniversary celebrations this year with a two-week exhibition starting on 27 June.

For further information
www.amada.eu

Decade of sustainability at Seco Tools

To ensure its contribution to reducing climate change and negative environmental impact, Seco Tools launched its Green Investment Fund (GIF) in 2012. Since then, the GIF has supported investment in a diversity of sustainable projects that have reduced the environmental impact of the company’s operations. In 2022, SEK10m has been dedicated to funding long-term company goals, specifically reducing Seco’s climate impact by more than 50% and reaching 90% circularity by 2030. Projects include solar energy installations around the globe, heat recovery and reusability, and waste circularity initiatives.

For further information www.secotools.com

SafanDarley extends product range

SafanDarley has added the E-Brake C 200T Ultra with Tool Mate to its press-brake product range. With the addition of Tool Mate, SafanDarley has a diverse and complete range of press brakes from conventional and semi-automatic to fully automatic bending cells. Tool Mate is an external automatic tool changer and is said to offer great time savings when producing small batches.

The servo-electric E-Brake C with 200T pressing force and bending length of 4300 mm features a C-frame to enable automatic tool changing. SafanDarley’s Tool Mate is very intuitive and does not require extensive training, says the company. Execution of the tool changes is via the SafanDarley E-Control. The correct tool settings can be loaded and used directly on the machine from AutoPOL offline software (or other independent offline bending simulation software).

With the high-precision changer, tools are placed exactly in the correct position. Thanks to the intelligent software, only necessary changes are made and tools from the previous tool set-up are reused, resulting in considerably shorter changeover times.

The tool storage magazine has a capacity of 32, 52 or 60 m of tools, while the rotation station allows the upper tools to be rotated 180°, eliminating the need for a double tool set. According to SafanDarley, Tool Mate is unique in that it is suitable for the E-Brake C 200T and for the H-Brake series up to 320T, thus making it also suitable for the heavier machine segment.

For further information
www.safandarley.com

£400,000 investment is platform for growth

A major £400,000 investment in a new ERP system is set to help an engineering services and supplies specialist capitalise on growth across its business. James Lister & Sons, which is nearing its 150th birthday in 2024, has completed an 18-month project that has seen it embed the K8 Kerridge Commercial System in its fluid power, consumable supplies and tube manipulation divisions.

The new technology will allow it to bring together the wide variety of processes it undertakes across its headquarters in Smethwick and six branches in the West Midlands and South Wales, giving the company real-time information, transparency and improved order tracking, as well as enhanced merchant, trade counter and production planning operations.

Peter Davies, chief executive at Lister, says: “This has been a massive transformation project for our business, completed throughout the pandemic and in time for us to make the most of the bounce back we’re now seeing. The K8 Kerridge Commercial System will offer a host of operational and efficiency improvements due to improved planning capabilities and we now have a fully supported, disaster recovery safe system in place, giving our 5000-strong customer base complete peace of mind.”

The biggest growth area following the easing of lockdown has been Lister’s tube manipulation business, which is able to bend tube in sizes ranging from 4 up to 75 mm, in metals such as steel, copper and aluminium. The company has witnessed a 30% increase in orders over the past 12 months, delivering a 7.5% rise on pre-pandemic levels.

Investment in a Unison Breeze tube-bending machine has also paid dividends, providing the company with ‘left and right hand’ capacity to make components that cannot be produced via traditional bending.

For further information
www.lister.co.uk

FANUC hits 5 million CNC units

Robotics and automation specialist FANUC is celebrating after reaching the milestone of producing its five millionth CNC. The achievement comes as FANUC ramps up its presence in Europe. A €130m investment in 2022 will see the company strengthen its technical support, training and service offering to European customers, while a new €20m technical centre in Germany is expected to go live in 2023.

Alongside robots and machine tools, CNCs are at the heart of FANUC’s portfolio. The company has a production capacity of 36,500 CNCs per month and its latest FS 30i/31i/32iB Plus and FS0i-F Plus series offer state-of-the-art CNC and servo technologies, as well as numerous AI-based functions to make technological processes more efficient.

For further information
www.fanuc.eu