INTERNATIONAL NEWS

Lantek delivers major productivity gains

Australian laser subcontractor Online Laser can manufacture twice as much as before with the help of Lantek’s sheet metal CADCAM and ERP software. Based in Bendigo, Victoria, the company has two Bystronic Bystar fibre lasers and previously used a proprietary software system, which is now no longer supported, to manage the machines and the workflow through its factory.

Ben Harris, programming and production manager, says: “We were looking for an end-to-end system to manage our quotations, programming and production. With our old system there was no integration and we had to repeatedly enter the same information.”

Online Laser installed the Lantek system in July 2019 comprising Lantek Expert CADCAM, MES, Integra and WOS. This year it added the Lantek Opentalk connection directly to the laser machines so that validation of the status of the machines and the parts being manufactured is automatic.

“The vast majority of parts come as CAD models in several different formats, and we can import them directly into the Lantek software,” says Harris. “The integrated Lantek Expert can quickly analyse the laser cutting times and – within the Integra software – combine them with subcontract costs such as folding, powder coating or machining to produce an accurate price for the whole job. Previously this could have taken a few days, now it can be done in 1-2 hours and sometimes in minutes.”

Where the material type and thickness are the same, the company nests parts from different customers in the same sheet.

“The inventory system is worth the investment on its own,” states Harris. “We can manage remnants of material to use them up and keep track of stocks so that we don’t suddenly run out of material.”

For further information www.lantek.com

BIEMH invites Mexico

Mexico will be the ‘Invited Country’ at the 32nd edition of the BIEMH international machine
tool exhibition in Bilbao on 3-7 June. Typically, Mexico has a very significant presence at the
event and represents a strategic market for the industry. This position has now been enhanced following the signing of the T-MEC and the near-shoring policy it is implementing, with about 50 Mexican purchasing companies already confirming their participation. Most of them represent the automotive sector, but professionals from the aerospace, appliance, moulding and distribution sectors have also confirmed. For further information www.bit.ly/3TJIj90

Enabling robot compatibility with Foba

Flexxbotics, which delivers work-cell digitalisation for robot-driven manufacturing, can now
offer robot connectivity compatibility for machine tending with all of the Foba laser marking
and engraving products. Flexxbotics includes communication with Foba’s integrated camera
system for vision-based inspection, providing closed-loop feedback to the robot for
autonomous process control. With Flexxbotics robot-driven operation of Foba equipment
customers achieve greater throughput and higher yields.
 
Foba provides precision laser marking systems and laser engraving machines that include
fibre laser markers and UV laser markers, as well as ultra-short pulse laser markers, CO2
laser markers and green laser markers for a diverse range of applications and industries. The
patent-pending FlexxCORE technology in the Flexxbotics solution enables robots to connect
and communicate with the Foba laser marking and engraving equipment including the
integrated camera systems for robotic orchestration of part processing with in-line
inspection. Flexxbotics compatibility includes the Foba MarkUS control, as well as Foba’s
digital I/Os, PROFINET, Profibus/TCP/IP and EtherCAT.

 
The solution co-ordinates robot actions with Foba’s three-stage marking process, which
includes part inspection prior to marking, automatic mark alignment and subsequent
validation of the marking. Flexxbotics utilises either the intelligent mark positioning (IMP) or
point and shoot (P&S) capabilities in the Foba equipment for precise alignment of the laser
marker on the customer’s product, along with vision-assisted workflows for accuracy if
touch-up is needed.
 
Combining Foba with Flexxbotics is particularly valuable in industries with strict regulatory
compliance requirements that dictate the highest levels of repeatable precision, such as
medical devices and surgical products along with aerospace, defence and space,” explains
Tyler Bouchard, co-founder and CEO of Flexxbotics. “With Flexxbotics and Foba together,
customers can optimise cycle time, expand capacity and increase profit per part.”
For further information www.flexxbotics.com

Swiss Steel Group drives green steel

Swiss Steel Group has placed an order with SMS group for the delivery of Viridis Carbon software for the company’s Steeltecproduction plantin Emmenbrucke, Switzerland. This milestone marks a major step forward in enhancing Swiss Steel Group’s sustainability initiatives. In a first phase, the melt shop, rolling mill and bright bar plant will use the software.Viridis Carbon softwareenables near real-time tracking of a plant’s emissions. It uses a methodology based on robust computational models, which can compute and report the amount of CO2 equivalent.

For further information www.sms-group.com

Good year for German machine tool exports

In 2023, the German machine tool industry sold machines including parts and accessories to the value of €9.5bn abroad, some 9% more than in 2022. “It means we’ve defended our title as world champion ahead of China and Japan,” says Dr Markus Heering, executive director of the VDW (German Machine Tool Builders’ Association). Within the triad of Europe, America and Asia, exports to America grew the fastest, increasing by 18%. The US purchased machines to the value of €1.4 billion, while Mexico also performed strongly. Indeed, exports to Mexico rose by 28%.

For further information www.vdw.de