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

ByBend Smart: faster and more precise

The latest Bystronic ByBend Smart press brake offers high-quality Swiss bending technology and numerous new functions at an affordable price. Bystronic says that the machine is 30% faster than conventional bending, and even 50% faster with the new ‘Efficiency Booster’ option. Furthermore, insert and stroke length expansion extends the insert height for bending tools from 480 to 580 mm. The additional 100 mm boosts the ByBend Smart’s flexibility by as much as 30% because this means that higher tools can be used, which enables users to produce parts with lower bending edges. This feature is particularly useful when bending boxes and drawers.

Another new option is the five-axis back-gauge. Until now, users had the choice between a two-axis and a four-axis back-gauge system. Customers who choose the five-axis system can now also use the ByBend Smart to form complex 3D parts, such as when the bending edges are not just parallel, but also at angles to each other. The basic version of the ByBend Smart comes with a two-axis back-gauge system.

In addition to a wide spectrum of applications, fast bending sequences and short manufacturing cycles frequently play an important role for users. Here, increasing process speeds and shortening set-up times are key. The new ‘Efficiency Booster’ is an optional feature that ensures a fast return of the upper beam, accelerating the bending process by up to 20%. Furthermore, the main drive is only active when the machine is actually in operation. This is the logic of ‘Energy Saver’, which reduces the power consumption of the machine while also boosting productivity and offering the added benefit of minimising noise and waste heat.

For further information
https://bybendsmart.bystronic.com

FourJaw secures £1m investment

FourJaw, which offers a manufacturing data analytics platform that the company says can unlock five-fold increases in shop-floor productivity, has secured a second round of angel investment and Innovate UK funding. Worth £1m, the funding will further accelerate FourJaw’s growth and support high-value-added manufacturers across the country. FourJaw secured the investment with support from many within the UK investor community, notably NorthInvest and SFC Capital, along with a substantial six-figure grant from Innovate UK, to help develop next-level data analytics tools for SME manufacturers.

For further information
www.fourjaw.com