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Product category: CNC punching and profiling
News Release from: Press and Shear Machinery | Subject: Finn-Power F5 Express CNC punch press
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial Team on 15 December 2004

Turret press change cuts labour costs

Heater manufacturer that has exchanged an old, stand-alone turret punch press for a pressworking cell with an automatic load/unload system and has reduced labour costs.

The leading manufacturer of radiant heaters in the UK, Ambi-Rad in Brierley Hill, West Midlands, has exchanged an old, stand-alone turret punch press for a Finn-Power pressworking cell with automatic load/unload from Press and Shear Machinery It has worked around the clock since its installation in August 2003, unattended for the third shift, allowing the rest of the factory to operate on two shifts instead of three, resulting in reduced labour costs

Additionally, the manufacture of all fabricated components has been brought in-house, whereas previously the production of a significant amount of sheet metalwork was sub-contracted during times of peak demand from August through to winter.

Further financial savings have consequently been made.

Established 25 years ago, Ambi-Rad is a private company employing 210 staff with an annual turnover of GBP 20 million, operating from three manufacturing sites of which Brierley Hill is the largest at 110,000ft2.

Against a background of stagnating sales in the heating and ventilating industry, the company has been bucking the trend recently by increasing production year on year, both domestically and in export markets.

The latter now account for 50 per cent of radiant heater turnover.

The higher level of throughput made it essential for the company to address the shortfall in its capacity to produce flat stock for feeding to the three manual CNC press brakes in the factory.

So manufacturing director, Chris Yates, and his production team at Brierley Hill spent five months evaluating which automated punch press to buy.

A detailed, points-weighted chart was prepared comparing price, technical specification and service.

From a shortlist of four machines, one was rejected as being too small while another used a programming system that was considered too inflexible.

Of the two remaining contenders, the Finn-Power F5 Express was deemed better value as it had a larger capacity turret, was faster and had a more powerful PC with better software for interfacing with Ambi-Rads programming system.

The configuration of the Finn-Power turret was particularly attractive.

As cell leader Dan Phillips explained, "We were for ever changing tools in the 28-station turret of the old press, although the problem would have been solved using the replacement machine offered by the previous supplier, which has 58 stations.

The advantage with the 20-station Finn-Power turret is that it accommodates three multi-tools containing 24, 10 and 10 smaller tools respectively, bringing the total to 61.

The machine can have a total of 10 multi-tools, any of which is available as a retrofit.

"With the exception of a Mate diamond part marker, all our turret tooling is supplied by Wilson, whose multi-tools are so reliable that we did not need to touch them for the first year.

Now when they need replacing, each individual tool/die set is relatively inexpensive, whereas on the other machine, these smaller tools would have been accommodated in full-size turret stations, so each tool would cost much more to replace".

The Finn-Power turret is sufficiently large to accommodate tools for producing 90 per cent of the different sheet metal components that go to make up Ambi-Rads radiant heater range.

Therefore little production time is lost for tool exchange, which the company's programmers try to minimise further by, for example, nibbling a hole if a punch of suitable size is not in the turret.

Extensive use is made of in-cycle upforming of hinges, which is carried out on three long-running jobs, eliminating a second operation.

Another feature of the Finn-Power that the programmers regularly exploit are the three NC sheet clamps, incorporating third clamp move, which may be repositioned automatically during a cycle to allow extra versatility when nesting and to save material.

Aluminised steel, stainless steel, aluminium, Zintec and Aluzinc up to 2mm thick are processed at the Brierley Hill factory, although the majority of products are manufactured from 0.7 to 1.0mm sheet.

There is also a variety of surface finishes such as stucco, ridged, etc, so the number of material permutations is large.

Shift supervisor and machine operator, Rob Harris, commented, "Not only do we have many types of material, but we also used to feed different sheet sizes into our old machine, as the opportunities for nesting were so limited due to the lack of tool capacity.

"We have standardised on 2500 x 1250mm sheet now, so the shop floor is more organised.

There is also an advantage in not having to feed material into the press manually, as although most of the gauges we use are relatively light, repeated handling of 2mm material is rather heavy work." A variety of punch pressworking jobs go through the cell, from 1,000s of ? runners per month to small batches and prototypes.

The runners are produced routinely in medium size batches throughout each month and interleaved with the smaller jobs, which are queued in the CNC system as job cards arrive.

A mix of different components using the same material can be run unattended from a full pallet; and a couple of times a week, pallets are built up from different types of sheet to achieve automated production of short batches from dis-similar materials.

Concluded Yates, "The Finn-Power cell has proved very reliable and the few problems we have experienced have been sorted out quickly by Press and Shear". Request a free brochure from Press and Shear Machinery ...

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