Laser profiler brings truck clients more choice

A laser profiler is helping a truck tipper mody fabricator to offer customers more choice, better products and faster development times - while improving manufacturing and saving material.

Since it was founded 35 years ago, Thompsons (UK) has grown steadily to become the UK's leading manufacturer of truck tipper bodies, with a 50% share of the construction market.

It also makes a wide range of other specialist bodies for vehicles that include refuse disposal trucks and brick carriers.

From building two or three tippers a week it now makes anything up to 35 a week, and prides itself on being able to provide a premium bespoke product.

Now an LVD Axel laser is helping it to offer its customers more choice, better products and faster development times - while improving manufacturing processes and saving material.

Every tipper body is potentially different, and this depends on the customer's preferences and requirements, as well as the chassis it will be mounted on - a body for a Scania will be different from one for a DAF, for example.

"Everything is bespoke," says Thompsons' sales director, Scott Burton.

"Each customer has their own ideas and additions they would like".

"We come up with a design to suit them".

"The laser is an integral part of us trying to enhance our product, make it even more superior to our competitors and help us to continue to grow our market share." Thompsons' general works manager Bernard Mullaney explains the thinking behind this".

""We aim to keep our steel as raw material for as long as possible, and only convert it into a product when we have a sale for it and the truck is here".

"Before we had our own laser we normally had to order batches of 50 or 100 parts from the profiler, so if we wanted to change the design we would have to scrap all the stock we had had cut".

"With the laser we can do a prototype part, and if we do not like it we only scrap one part and then make another one".

"That is where it is changing things; we have brought the control over that process back inside the factory." Before they looked at the market, Mullaney and Thompsons' managing director, Alan Burton drew up an outline specification for what they wanted, based on the material sizes and thicknesses they planned to cut".

""The size, power and configuration tends to be driven by what you want to cut".

"We worked out that we wanted to be able to cut 3.0 x 1.5m sheet".

"In practice, we only use sheet up to 2.5 by 1.25m, but it made sense to go for the next size up just in case".

"When it came to material thickness we started off by looking at 25mm, but when we looked at the percentage of 25mm sheet we used and the extra cost of going to a 6kW laser we decided to stick to 20mm sheet and a 4kW laser," says Mullaney.

Mullaney and Burton then went out and spoke to all the major manufacturers, spoke to some of their customers and looked at the machines in action.

On the basis of this research the clear choice was the LVD machine.

Not only did it have the required performance, rugged construction and ease of use, it also looked the part".

""The LVD Axel was a true 4kW machine, and we'd seen that 4kW machine actually cutting 20mm plate in Belgium".

"We had originally been thinking of a fixed table machine, but when we saw it running we realised that a shuttle table would allow us to get the more out of it".

"The whole machine is very compact anyway and the shuttle table doesn't actually add a great deal to the space it needs," says Mullaney".

""But the performance of the machine wasn't the only criterion".

"If we buy a new machine we want to make a selling point of it and show it to customers".

"A lot of machines look as if they have just been bolted together, but the LVD Axel struck us as the type of machine we would like to show off to people." But once you have invested in the technology it is no longer a case of what you have to cut on the laser, but rather what you could cut on the laser".

""When we ordered the laser we probably weren't using enough laser cut parts to justify buying our own machine," says Mullaney".

""But we have had the machine since February now, and it is running more than 50h a week".

"In the past, if we did not see the need to laser cut a part we would not - so we would settle for a rectangular part we could cut on the guillotine".

"Now we are starting from the point of thinking how we would like to do the job and asking if a rectangle is the best solution".

"Maybe it is better if we can incorporate curved profiles or a radius on the corners".

"If it improves the product there is no point not doing it".

"The machine is there and we want to utilise it to the full, and we want to make the product unique to us - and better." To give an example, Thompsons used to use some 25mm flame-cut profiles.

The laser can cut this thickness, but it is at the top of its range and produces a much better cut on 20mm material.

By redesigning the parts, Thompsons was able to make them all from 20mm which saved weight without compromising the specification.

Of course, they could have done this before they had the laser, but when the work was being subcontracted out there was no driver to do so.

Scrap savings have been important too - especially on micro-alloyed abrasion resistant steels".

""The material we buy is 6.7m long by 2.4m wide, and I do not know anybody who builds a tipper body that's 6.7m long".

"So we always ended up with large off-cuts".

"Because it is abrasion-resistant you can not machine it or drill it, so we ended up scrapping it".

"It only takes three or four of these chunks and you are throwing away a complete plate of expensive, high-quality material," says Mullaney".

""Now we are using the laser to cut tailgate profiles out of it".

"So we are not only using material that we would previously have thrown away, we are also improving the durability of the product." The impact the LVD laser has made is all about competitive advantage, says Scott Burton".

""It has made us much more innovative, and helps to keep our products unique".

"We can make an individual item, for an individual vehicle, and to an individual's taste".

"We can tailor it to exactly what the customer wants - and it can't easily be copied by our competitors." The LVD Strippit Group designs, manufactures and distributes a comprehensive range of sheet metal/plate working equipment, including laser cutting systems, turret punch presses, press brakes, guillotines and automated flexible manufacturing systems - all supported by its CADMAN PC-based, Windows compatible programming system for punching, laser cutting and bending.

The Group's UK subsidiary, LVD, has its headquarters, showroom and service centre in Banbury, Oxfordshire.

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