FEATURE ON PRESSES AND COIL HANDLING

Press line equipped with robots

Martinrea has set a clear goal for itself: to be the world’s best auto-parts supplier.

To achieve its objective, the company and employer of roughly 15,000 people decided to equip its first large-scale press line in Mexico (at its facility in Silao) with a blank loader and multiple Crossbar Robot 4.0 units from Schuler, thereby gaining the ability to provide its customers with maximum flexibility.
The blank loader is suitable for outer skin parts. Here, the new optical line scanner from Schuler detects the precise position of the blanks before they are loaded into the first press. A Crossbar Robot then corrects the position as needed.
The Crossbar Robots 4.0 are the centrepiece of Martinrea’s press line in Silao. They transport parts directly from one press station to the next, and can accurately position the components for any die. Especially where multi-part components are produced, this flexibility delivers an important advantage.
Since the Crossbar Robot is hung on a track, it can cover distances of up to 12 m between press stations. Distances this large are mainly found on older lines, where space was provided for an unloading or turning station. This configuration means that the new Crossbar Robot can replace loading feeders, unloading feeders and part orientation stations in the gap between presses.
The Crossbar Robot is based on a six-axis industrial robot that was expanded by Schuler to include two additional axes: one for the hand of the robot arm and one for the horizontal drive. This enhancement significantly increases the robot’s range of motion, flexibility and output.
For further information www.schulergroup.com

RSD presses forward with £750,000 contract haul

Investment in a new machine from Worcester Presses is helping a Cannock automotive supplier win over £750,000 of new contracts.

RSD Pressings, which supplies components for seats, sub-frames, cross car beams, bumpers and bodies, has installed a new GTX300 Chin Fong progression press and can now take on much bigger parts for tier-one customers and major car manufacturers.
Nearly £350,000 has been spent on the machine and a Tomac TLN4 coil line, with more than £100,000 of funding secured from Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire Grants 4 Growth, and the European Regional Development Fund. Three new jobs have already been created as a result of the investment and a further eight will be recruited over the course of the next 12 months once production starts on the projects already secured.
“The components we manufacture at our new facility in Cannock end up in millions of cars all over the world, including Aston Martin, BMW, Jaguar Land Rover, Nissan and Volvo,” explains operations director Daniel Burton.
“Worcester Presses came in, looked at our requirements and then developed a turnkey solution that involved the GTX 300, the latest HMI touch screen control and new Tomac TLN4 coil line which will increase our progression and coil feeding capabilities,” he adds. “This machine has doubled our bed size and already led to several new orders that we wouldn’t have been able to take on previously. There is still lots of capacity on it too, which means we are looking for even more new work.”
For further information www.worcesterpresses.co.uk

Combined services for North America

Staufen and Schuler are now offering their combined services in North America. The international specialists work as a single team to provide consulting services and process optimisation for press shops across the USA and Canada.

Process improvement experts from Staufen, together with their counterparts from Schuler, analyse all press shop processes in order to maximise added value. Based on a so-called ‘Quick Check’, untapped potential is identified and leveraged. Then, Staufen consultants and Schuler experts work together to improve the whole value stream of the press shop. Focus topics are process optimisations (such as OEE improvements), die-change optimisation and the implementation of TPM, as well as set-up time and output and logistics optimisations.
With this co-operation, Staufen and Schuler have already analysed many press shops at different customers all over the world. They discovered that the equipment utilisation rate was less than 50% in some cases. The main reasons were wrong or poorly dimensioned tooling, long change-over times, poor system set-ups or bad material feeding.
Based on the specific customer’s results, an individual action plan was developed and its implementation started. Thus, KPIs like OEE, productivity and efficiency were improved significantly.
For further information www.schulergroup.com

£2m sales boost for Pressmark

A Warwickshire-based metal-forming specialist is celebrating a major transformation in fortunes not long after a management buy-in (MBI) was completed.

Pressmark Pressings, which provides high-volume components for automotive manufacturers was bought by management team Alan Gardner, John Nollett and Les Wilkins after they spotted an opportunity to turn around one of the sector’s most under-recognised businesses.
Backed by their own cash injection and funding from ABN AMRO and Cambridge and Counties Bank, the three entrepreneurs have used their knowledge and contacts to put in place a number of new processes that have seen the business secure more than £2m of additional contracts to supply pressed parts and sub-assemblies which will be used in new models for Honda and Nissan.
On its current site in Carylon Road, the firm has 26 large-bed presses, ranging from 150 to 1200 tonnes that allow for the production of different size products in both standard metals and exotic alloys. Moreover, the company has created over 25 full time jobs since the MBI.
Chairman Les Wilkins says: “There’s a strong belief between the management team that we can expand by undertaking project management of multi operation/stage work. One recent example is how we worked with a Japanese manufacturer of complex electromechanical components that was investigating production in the UK. It was a tentative enquiry at first, but we have given them advice and guidance during the feasibility study and, subsequently, provided quotes for tooling as well as production and assembly of components. It is the nature of the work that the lead times are quite long, but if you win it, you should retain it for the life of the model.”
For further information www.pressmark.co.uk

Safe clamping of heavy dies

At the MACH exhibition in Birmingham, UK earlier this month, Roemheld introduced a range of wedge clamping elements with patented safety bolts designed to attach a die set to the table and ram of a power press securely, regardless of whether the tool edges are straight or angled.

A positive locking action allows even a heavy upper die to remain in place during maintenance or if the clamping pressure drops. The clamps move automatically, making them easy to operate, while a position control feature verifies closure and release, and reports if no die has been placed or if the edge is incorrectly set.
The system consists of a hydraulic cylinder block and a bolt guided within a housing; the bolt having a contact surface angled at 20°. A projection on the bolt and a corresponding recess along the die edge ensure positive locking if the hydraulic pressure holding the upper die should fail.
Adapter plates for simple attachment to existing dies make the retrofitting process trouble-free. The wedge clamping elements, with single or dual action, exert a force from 25 to 1250 kN. They are available to suit straight and angled die edges, and are designed in a variety of styles, allowing customers to configure clamping arrangements using a range of options. Modular construction permits cost-effective production of the elements, high availability and short delivery times, says Roemheld.
Permanent lubrication gives the clamps virtually maintenance-free operation. Due to their robust design, they are able to withstand high temperatures and soiling, and offer long service life. On request, multi-layer coatings can be applied to the bolts and housings, reducing wear in challenging applications.
For further information www.roemheld.com