Product category:
Workholding - miscellaneous clamping systems, components
News Release from: REM Systems | Subject: Erowa MTS Modular Tooling System
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial
Team on 08 November 2002
One hour set times are just a fading
memory
Modular tooling system reduces one hour set-up times to 10 min at a subcontract machine shop specialising in castings for the servo motor industry.
Tiermac Engineering, Ennis, Ireland, is a subcontract machine shop specialising in castings for the servo motor industry With a wide variety of castings, a typical batch size of 150 and 20% of the work involving prototype runs of 5, the 3 new Bridgeport vertical milling centres need multiple fixture changes per day
This article was originally published on Manufacturingtalk on 20 May 2003 at 8.00am (UK)
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This reduced the machine utilisation to about 60% with set times of 1 hour repeated up to 4 times per day - there had to be a way of improving machine efficiency.
Managing Director, Sean Scanlon, decided to visit the Mach 2002 exhibition to find a solution.
The solution was the Erowa MTS Modular Tooling System.
Each machine was fitted with an Erowa MTS base premounted with 8 individual clamping chucks/receivers providing a possible pallet size of 800mm x 400mm.
Existing fixtures were easily adapted to the system by fitting Erowa location spigots to the underside.
New simple pallet plates were made in different sizes - 198mm x 400mm and 400mm x 400mm - with the use of the location spigot to accurately locate them on the Erowa MTS base.
Up to four 198mm pallets can be fitted on the base, side-by-side, and up to two 400mm pallets so reducing the weight of individual pallet/fixtures for easy handling.
Each machine can now be reset in under 10 minutes and pallets are interchangeable between each of the 3 machines.
"You don't realise how long it takes to set up jigs and fixtures with no precise location on the machine" commented Sean, "we now have the flexibility to do very small batches and take jobs we would have rejected before".
He continued "we can even set an indexer with trunion and tailstock in minutes and know it's precise position without clocking-up".
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