Product category:
CNC turning centres, mill/turning, multi-tasking centres, horizontal and VTLs.
News Release from: Colchester-Harrison | Subject: Tornado T6MS mill-turn centre
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial
Team on 26 February 2008
CNC mill-turn centre cuts product lead
times
A hydraulic systems producer is using a 5-axis mill-turn centre, with sub-spindle, to achieve continual improvements in productivity, surface finish and aid reduction of overall product lead times.
Hydraulic System Products (HSP) in Wakeield, UK,has had installed a 5-axis Colchester-Harrison Tornado T6MS mill-turn centre with main and sub-spindle 600 Centre of Shepshed near Loughborough, UK, which supplied the machine, said that it is enabling the hydraulics company to achieve continual improvements in productivity, quality of surface finish and aid reduction of overall product lead times
This article was originally published on Manufacturingtalk on 5 Jul 2001 at 8.00am (UK)
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600 Centre told manufacturingtalk.com that in one application, overall machining times are now a quarter of what they were before.
It is contribution to HSP's maintaining an enviable export record that sees 75% of production committed to 15 countries.
HSP produces a broad range of standard valves for applications that include test equipment and components for fluid power systems.
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The valves use a wide variety of shaft-type components that vary from 17mm to 45mm diameter and are up to 150mm long.
At HSP, its shafts output is sourced from three Tornado T6MS mill-turn centres, each fitted with auto bar-feed systems that enable the machines to run unmanned and lights out.
Managing director of HSP, Gerald Gosnay, said "The Colchester-Harrison machines have not only transformed our traditional methods of producing turned parts, but they also effectively represent a watershed in the way we approach the complete manufacturing operation".
He said that components can be produced more cost-efficiently if manual intervention can be minimised or eliminated altogether.
He exampled the direct labour content inherent with second-operation machining and the effects of inter-operation handling with extended lead times.
Gosnay gave the example of the T6MS with its 12 station driven tool turret and said it had: "Transformed one job from a three-operation sequence of turning, the milling of flats and drilling into a more progressive one-hit, single set-up task.
As a result we have reduced our machining time to a quarter of what it was before".
HSP's introduction to Tornado turn-milling six years ago was spurred by the combination of a growing international order book.
It has three agents in North America alone, and the recognition that traditional single-spindle cam autos had to be replaced.
The company was looking for more effective and efficient turning capacity to enable the 16-employee operation to remain a world player and truly capitalise on its ISO accreditation.
Commonality of Fanuc 18i control technology with operators and tooling is also a major plus, he said, on machines such as these capable of 5-axis machining using automatic part transfer to the second operation sub-spindle to complete the part in a single cycle.
600 Centre said that HSP utilises to the full the capabilities of the 52mm bar capacity T6MS, which has a 15kW main spindle with 5.5kW, A-axis travelling sub-spindle.
A 12-station, all-driven 3.7kW, mill-turn turret services both spindles.
With a swing over the bed of 440mm, a maximum turning diameter of 200mm by 450mm turning length, the machine's sub-spindle has a spindle bore of 55mm and fully synchronised drive with the main spindle to provide 'on-the-fly' part exchange which is carried out at 30m/min.
There is a choice of main spindle speeds of 4,000 or 6,000 rev/min and the sub-spindle speed is 6,000 rev/min.
Both main-spindle C-axis and the sub-spindle B-axis are fully programmable to 0.001 deg increments.
Through the Fanuc control, polygon turning can be performed as well as rigid tapping via the all-driven tool turret.
Positional accuracy is +/-0.005mm and repeatability within 0.002mm.
* Bar feeder - Colchester's own-brand MBF 1000T bar feed system accompany each Tornado at HSP, and these are key to the successful exploitation of 'lights-out' production routines.
They are capable of auto feeding bars between 6mm and 54mm diameter by 1100mm long and, for T6MS operation, 20 bars of 25mm diameter or 12 bars of 40mm diameter can be accommodated.
These all-electric, fully integrated bar feed systems feature work scheduling software direct from the Fanuc machine control, with automatic bar length measurement and calculation of the number of components that can be produced from each bar.
Within the machine shop the Tornados are set and loaded with bar at 15.30h, then left to run unmanned overnight to produce batches of around 2,000 components.
These parts are then ready for the operators when they arrive in the morning.
HSP's product design, development and test expertise is in high demand by valve users worldwide and, said Gosnay: "We leave no stone unturned to provide customers with the levels of service they demand." But he also readily admits that it is also what happens on the shopfloor that equally dictates whether an order is won or lost.
Gosnay concluded: "'Round-the-clock', one-hit machining - much of it unmanned - to maximise all available productivity opportunities is the only way that UK companies will compete nowadays.
I'm never going to be satisfied with our operation until we're doing as much of that as we possibly can.".
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