Product category:
Bar feeders, loaders and parts catchers
News Release from: IEMCA Division, Igmi SpA | Subject: IEMCA PRA 40 bar feeder
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial
Team on 15 February 2001
No more trouble with bar feeders
With the IEMCA PRA 40, enough material can be loaded on Tornos Bechler multi-spindle automatics at Har Technologies to allow 24h of continuous and unattended operation.
With the IEMCA PRA 40, enough material can be loaded on Tornos Bechler multi-spindle automatics at Har Technologies to allow 24h of continuous and unattended operation without stopping for bar loading User requirements, ever more fierce competition and shorter delivery times are some of the factors causing entrepreneurs to reflect over the production decisions to make in order to stay competitive in an increasingly more complex and articulate market
This article was originally published on Manufacturingtalk on 10 Oct 2008 at 8.00am (UK)
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All this happens all over the world, including the United States.
An example of this evolution in progress in US engineering corporations is Har Technologies.
At Har Technologies the saying goes that parts are made by a process and not by machines.
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Master 880 MP E-volution Offering flexibility, this barfeeder allows easy, rapid changes from one bar diameter to another without any adjustments needing to be made by the operator.
Following this logic, this American company's engineers have thoroughly analysed the production process searching for possible improvements.
This self-critical attitude led them, for example, to modify the phase of loading the material to process by using automatic bar feeders.
This choice has meant that, at present, about 160 lathes work without stopping, with an increase in production, of each single machine by 30%.
"Our company ships approximately 1.8 million finished parts each week;, most of the parts are auto air-bag components.
This level of volume would have been impossible without magazine-type bar feeders" says Jeffrey Lampert, president and owner.
Previously, Har Technologies ran machines without bar feeders by manually loading bars into the machines.
As the machines operated at about the same pace they required reloading with bars simultaneously.
This situation meant that the operators could not keep up with the manual reloading of bars causing machines to be idle and non-productive.
The weight of heavy bar stock compounded this problem because loading became a two-man job.
The choice for bar feeders fell on two products made by Iemca; an Italian company specialized in this sector for several years, whose distributor in the United States is Hydromat Inc, of St.
Louis, Mo.
In particular, Har installed the PRA 40 and Boss 542.
Operators load sufficient bar stock for a entire shift.
For example, with the IEMCA PRA 40, enough material can be loaded to allow 24 hours of continuous and unattended operation of Tornos Bechler multi-spindles without bar loading.
This way, the operator can now control more machines than in the past.
In fact, Har Technologies now has one operator tending three machines along with an incentive for operators who can handle more than three.
The lathes, mostly Hardige Conquest 42s, Okuma, Howas, Tornos Becheler and Miyano, are grouped together according to the material they run so that feeder loading is easier and more efficient.
The bar stock is color coded from the material bay, so that employees know which block of machines receives which specific color of bar stock, with sizes ranging from 5.8mm to 51mm'' diameter.
According to Mr.Lampert, automatic bar loading is suited to production batches from a minimum of 1000 pieces.
Bar feeders as the IEMCA BOSS, with a bar-change time of only 25s for a 3.7m bar, are even more advantageous for components with short cycle times.
Automatic bar loading is just one of the phases of the technological modernization plan for the production process at Har Technologies.
Mr.Lampert sees automation as a continuous process that involves analyzing every stage of manufacturing for any possible improvements.
Mr.Lampert advises manufacturers to think in terms of how much they can get out of a machine and not to be satisfied just because the machine is paid for.
"Har Technologies," explained the president, "has in recent years spent $25m dollars on new equipment and plans to spend even more.
The result, over the last six years, has been agrowth in production of 30%.".
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