Taegutec drives down costs at Albion Automotive

Albion Automotive manufactures driveline systems such as axles, crankshafts and transmission components.

In a competitive business, the company seeks to make continual improvements in process and cost structure, highlighting a need to reduce manufacturing costs throughout its production facility.

Taegutec, in a review of certain manufacturing processes, provided Albion with some positive results.

As a supplier to automotive OEMs such as Volvo, Caterpillar and Leyland Trucks, Albion produces over 12,000 axle sets per annum and in excess of 120,000 gears per annum.

Working with Taegutec for over four years through regional distributor ABT Tools, Albion has continually driven down costs with Taegutec products.

Predominantly machining steel and cast iron, Taegutec has introduced initiatives that have contributed to increased productivity, reduced downtime and improved efficiency throughout the plant.

One particular example of cost improvements was noted on an Endomatic twin-spindled milling machine, which is milling an external part of an axle (half shaft) from forged EN19T steel with up to a 10mm depth of cut.

As the parts are manufactured from forgings, the skin on the parts had created considerable flank wear with the original milling inserts.

However, the introduction of Taegutec's TT7030 grade immediately reduced the wear.

The previous insert was running at a feed rate of 0.4mm per revolution and a running speed of 200rpm, with a table feed of 126mm and 125mm width of cut.

Using the 200mm diameter face mill with 14 inserts, each with eight sides, the previous insert was machining 20 parts per edge.

Operating at identical parameters, the change to the Taegutec TT7030 grade now machines 650 parts before needing an insert index.

Taegutec has now reduced the insert edge cost by 93 per cent.

Again on the milling front, Albion was experiencing difficulties machining flats on turned parts on its Kingsbury turning centre.

The driven tooling unit on the turning centre was experiencing vibration that gave poor surface finishes.

Head of tooling services at Albion, Billy Stevenson, said: 'We were doing some face milling with a 50mm diameter cutter on a driven tooling unit.

'Making 3mm to 4mm deep cuts, we were experiencing vibration that reduced tool life, gave poor surface finishes and caused machine down time.

'We knew that the machine had ample rigidity and the problem was in the cutting tools.

'The introduction of Taegutec's TT7030 inserts immediately reduced vibration, improved surface finish and improved tool life.

As a company registered to TS:16949 standards, Albion's product quality is commendable and Taegutec has contributed to this with its tooling initiatives.

The cost-reduction programme at Albion is currently seeing trials being conducted with CBN inserts for the hard turning of gears, where Taegutec is competing against its own products.

Machining a Sun Gear that is 62HRc on a Hardinge Cobra turning centre, the current TB650 grade insert is producing 10 to 12 parts before edge chipping.

Each component requires 10 passes with a cycle time of 1 minute, 20 seconds per part.

The trial conducted by Taegutec UK's Danny Hendry is still ongoing.

Despite the trial still being in progress, the introduction of a wiper insert T18WZ-LN in the same TB650 grade now produces between 30 and 50 parts prior to failure.

With both inserts running at the same parameters of 444rpm and feed rate of 0.15 per rev, the benefit on this occasion lies in the extended tool life.

Increasing the number of parts per insert now sees each cutting edge working for 48 minutes as opposed to the previous time of 14 minutes 40 seconds per edge.

The trial continues and Taegutec aims to further improve upon these test results.

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