Lathe parts catcher maintains turned parts flow

A Hydrafeed parts catcher has solved the problem of handling soft, machined aluminium main drill bodies and leaded bronze bearing modules from CNC turning centres.

The production problem at Air Bearings' Poole, UK, factory was how to automatically catch and handle machined parts in soft materials without marking them.

The answer was to use a Hydrafeed Rota Rack parts catcher on one of its two Mazak 250MS turning centres.

To meet the need for increased productivity the company had had installed four Mazak turning centres during the last two years to add to its 10 Mazak's already on Poole site, and which all use Hydrafeed barfeeding equipment.

The turning centre installations increased the company's ability to manufacture parts in 'one-hit'.

The resulting increase in productivity caused a bottleneck in producing high value components coming off the machine.

Manufacturing manager at Air Bearings, Gary Waldron, explained: "We have one operator running two Mazak 250MS machines and the operator has to manually remove each component from the part catcher before the next part falls in the bin and hits the previous part".

He continued: "Aesthetics and surface finish are critical to our parts and any marks could lead to re-working or scrap.

The aluminium main drill bodies and leaded bronze bearing modules are soft materials, which makes marking easier than on most materials.

We have searched the marketplace for over a year and not found a suitable solution until now".

The problem to find a part catcher that would take the completed parts from the turning centre's sub-spindle onto a short conveyor.

An operator to be present at all times as the conveyor system was incapable of storing any quantity of parts for any period of time.

Waldron said: "The previous situation meant that an operator had to physically start the cycle for each part despite the capability of the machines to run batches.

This is where the bottleneck occurred and the Rota Rack has eliminated this and is already paying dividends".

* Unmanned operation - the parts have an average cycle time of 6 min and the company that works a two shift system has considerable downtime for over 5h/day between shifts as well as additional downtime at break times and at any other time an operator cannot be present.

Hydrafeed told manufacturingtalk that the introduction of the first Rota Rack installed in the UK had been a revelation to Air Bearings.

Waldron said: "Since installing the Rota Rack in March we have been able to run the turning centre unmanned.

We can now store parts on the Rota Rack with the confidence that they will not be damaged".

He continued: "The Rota Rack is lined with a soft plastics that guarantees the parts will not be marked and this is essential to our production.

In the few weeks since installation we have witnessed a massive change.

The initial installation and bedding-in period of any machine isn't a period where benefits are generally realised.

However, in this situation the Rota Rack has made an immediate impact on our business and we have doubled our production almost instantly".

* Parts description - the aluminium parts machined at Air Bearings are from 50 to 75mm diameter and 12mm long.

The bronze parts are 20 to 25mm diameter with a length of 25mm.

They are machined in continuous batches of 300 to 500, which the Rota Rack comfortably accommodates.

Waldron said: "We are apprehensive of letting too many parts collect in the Rota Rack as even the slightest component contact could cause damage, but despite this apprehension we can produce and store over 100 bronze parts and 15 aluminium parts without intervention in the Rota Rack".

He added: "With an average 6 min manufacturing cycle time the Rota Rack comfortably covers any periods where the machine is unmanned".

Apparently the machine operator spent his working day moving from one machine to the next continually starting the cycle with any time in between cycles being spent inspecting parts and setting the machines.

Waldron added that the operator now has more time available for carrying out other shop floor tasks.

Waldron said: "Looking to the future the Rota Rack has made a significant impact on our business and we will now look at implementing the system on another two or three Mazak turning centres in the future.

This could potentially enable our operator to run more than two machines".

He concluded: "Regardless of machine capabilities we had a bottleneck caused by the human element - this is no longer the case and our turning centre no longer has to take a break with the staff".

* About Air Bearings - As a subsidiary of global electronics giant Hitachi, Air Bearings manufactures high speed drilling spindles for its parent company in Japan.

The spindles work at between 80,000 to 350,000 rev/min in specialised drilling machines for PCB manufacture.

The spindles are high value adding components that demand remarkable accuracy and impeccable surface finishes.

The company that has won three Queens Awards for Industry (one for innovation and two for export) in the last ten years.

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