INTERNATIONAL NEWS

Automotive manufacturers rethinkJIT approach

Supply chain disruption and rising material costs are causing the global automotive industry to re-evaluate lean manufacturing principles, reveals a new survey commissioned by ABB Robotics. Shifting from ‘just-in-time’ to ‘just-in-case’ strategies, manufacturers are holding more stock to protect against unplanned disruptions.

Nearly two thirds (62%) of respondents reported ongoing supply chain concerns when asked to select their top three challenges to automotive manufacturing, while 41% cited the impacts of material and component price increases and 31% pointed to growing labour costs and shortages. The survey also revealed how manufacturers were turning to increased stockholding and bulk material purchasing to limit their exposure to disruption elsewhere in the supply chain, while working with a wider network of suppliers to ensure sufficient availability of parts.

“This seismic shift in manufacturing logistics requires smart, effective solutions,” says Joerg Reger, managing director of ABB Robotics Automotive Business Line. “ABB is addressing these challenges directly with more efficient and flexible solutions, such as our range of AMRs, which can greatly improve the speed of delivery of critical parts to the assembly line.”

The survey highlighted how the rising cost of raw materials (62%) had already overtaken energy costs (59%) as the industry’s chief concern. Energy efficiency continues to be important, while an identical number of respondents (17%) felt that tighter cost management was crucial to the industry’s response. After launching in 2022, solutions like ABB PixelPaint are helping to reduce waste and increase efficiency in automotive painting applications, enabling manufacturers to manage costs better while operating more sustainably.

The ABB survey includes close to 600 global industry experts, from vehicle manufacturers, and supplies at all levels of management, engineering and other key professionals.
For further information www.abb.com/robotics

Okuma celebrates 125-year anniversary

Okuma has reason to celebrate: the company is marking its 125th birthday and has countless successes and memorable highlights to look back on. But looking ahead to the future is even more exciting, where even more sustainable and efficient solutions are top of the agenda. Okuma machines are available in the UK from NCMT.

“Okuma has always been a step ahead of trends and developments,” states Norbert Teeuwen, managing director of Okuma Europe GmbH. “The OSP open-architecture CNC is a good example of our innovative drive, as well as the internal and external automation solutions that enable us to respond to individual customer requirements with extreme precision.”

New solutions and further developments that increase customer efficiency will continue to be the main focus at Okuma moving forward.

“For decades now, we’ve been consistently working towards establishing our machines and processes on a sustainable basis, for example by optimising energy consumption or process flows for our customers,” says Teeuwen.

This commitment will become even more important in the future with national and international climate goals. Here, Okuma’s ‘Green Smart Machines’ will continue to support efficient manufacturing with reduced energy consumption.

“We focus on comprehensive solutions,” states Teeuwen.“Our customers can rely on us for a well-thought-out ‘all-in-one’ concept. Quality, precision, sustainability and efficiency are clear customer requirements that we fully meet. Our product development and services focus on individually developed solutions that precisely meet the respective demands.”

Okuma is also working towards CO2 neutrality within its own organisation. Energy savings or renewable energy from the company’s solar panel systems are already being implemented and expanded further.
For further information www.ncmt.co.uk

Citizen Machinery UK extends international reach

Citizen Machinery UK has long-been responsible for the Japanese watch group’s CNC bar-fed lathe sales in Britain and Ireland, while also being a distribution hub for machine sales in France, Spain, Portugal, the Nordic Countries, the Middle East and Africa. Additionally, the company works with subsidiaries in Italy and Germany. Underlining its international standing, the UK subsidiary has spread its wings much further to join forces with a dealer in Australia, Headland Technology, based in Victoria. Also operating also from centres in Sydney, Perth and Brisbane, Headland serves the Australian and New Zealand markets.
For further information www.citizenmachinery.co.uk

ABB robotics supports Renault

ABB is supporting Renault Group by providing state-of-the-art robotics technology to help automate the manufacturer’s electric vehicle production network across several key markets. ABB has delivered the majority of 160 large industrial robotsover the past 24 months, helping tocreate increased capacity at Renault Group’s e-motor assembly lines in Cléon and Douai, France. At the company’s Douai facility, for example, ABB technology will help manufacture Renault’s next-generation of EVs with new advanced body-in-white facilities.
For further information www.abb.com/robotics

Combining power skiving and turning for complex gears

For many gear manufacturers, power skiving is getting very interesting, and not without reason, since the technique is much faster than shaping and more flexible than hobbing and broaching. However, for many years, the technique was considered quite complex. Against this backdrop, Emag says that its new development is a game changer.

Firstly, with the VSC 400 PS, the operator makes only a few data entries, making power skiving very simple. Secondly, the VSC 400 PS can be equipped with up to four power skiving tools and six turning tools. As a result, the user can produce even complex components in a single clamping operation that is fast and controlled.

For example, the machine with its two spindles, which can hold up to two power skiving tools each, can produce up to four different types of external and internal teeth using four tools. A big advantage is that the gear tooth positions match perfectly to each other at the end of cycle, made possible by the single clamping operation and no change-over. The customary step of measuring the first tooth cutting pass (prior to cutting the second) is no longer needed.

Direct drives in the main and milling spindles keep the axes synchronised during the machining processes. Additionally, the rigid B axis allows a large variety of axis crossing angles. This is essentially the setting angle of the tool, which always tilts slightly with respect tothe component. It is this tilt that makes the actual cut possible. A value between 15°and 25° is common, but Emag has also successfully implemented power skiving processes with an angle up to 45°.
For further information www.emag.com