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Justifying the
Investment in Press Brake Productivity
by David Bishop
Business Development Manager
Wila USA
One
of the countless benefits that my career in the metal
fabrication industry has afforded me is having the
opportunity to work for some brilliant people. One of these
individuals was exceptional at finding ways to challenge his
managers to open their minds to greater possibilities and
getting them to look beyond the day to day norms. He
continually reminded us that “we should be the ones to make
everything that we do obsolete.”
When you apply this line of
thinking to sheet metal fabrication, it is fair to say that we
still have a lot of room for improvement. In no place is this
more evident than in the press brake area. However, while there
always seems to be a better, faster, and more efficient way to
do things, we all have budgets to live within. So, how do you
really know when the benefits of an investment in a new press
brake, tooling, control, software, and or accessories will pay
off?
One way to know is to calculate
how much additional production time any so called improvement
will add to your press brake. Let’s look at one example.
In the above illustration, on
the left we see an example of a sheet metal shop with a total of
$4 million dollars per year in combined upstream and downstream
resources. However, the capacity of this company is limited to a
total of $2 million per year due to the fact that the press
brakes are down for an average of 50% of the time due to set-up.
If this company were to maintain a gross profit margin of 35% on
annual sales of $2 million, their gross profit would be
$700,000.00.
On the right, we see that by
investing in new technology that would reduce the down time on
the press brakes by 80%, we can regain 40% of the company’s
capacity and raise it to a total of 90% or $3.6 million per
year. If this sheet metal shop were to maintain the same gross
profit margin of 35%, on sales of $3.6 million, its gross profit
would be $1,260,000.00. This would represent an improvement of
$560,000.00.
Of course, this is only one way
to measure the value of new press brake technology. Other
factors that should be considered include:
How much…
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…time can be eliminated from
the time the material arrives at your facility
until the time it is
shipped to the customer as a finished product, i.e., work in
process?
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…floor space can be
eliminated that is currently used to store work in
process?
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…scrap can be eliminated?
-
…secondary part handling can
be eliminated?
Will it…
-
…allow you to produce higher
quality products?
-
…allow you to attract a
wider range of customers, industries, etc?
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…allow you to process a
wider range of products for your existing customers?
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…allow you to get better
machine and/or tooling utilization, i.e., use less to do
more?
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…allow you to postpone an
investment in more equipment which will require more machine
operators, more floor space, added utility costs, etc?
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…improve downstream
processes such as in the assembly area?
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…lower your cost per part?
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…allow you to use less
experienced press brake operators?
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…allow you to use smaller,
more efficient press brakes?
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…reduce the wear and tear on
new or existing press brakes?
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…allow you to build to order
or produce products in smaller lot sizes?
Are your…
How will…
One thing is for certain, handing customers a
price increase of any significance is rarely an option. Instead,
most fabricators currently have only two avenues available to
them to increase their earnings. They can lower their cost per
part, increase their output and generate more invoices at the
end of the day, or do both. Whatever your goals, the technology
is readily available to help you to meet them.
For more information, please contact:
Wila
USA
9135 Guilford Road
Columbia, MD 21046
Tel: 888-696-9452
Fax: 301-490-3991
www.wilausa.com
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710
Remington Road 
Volume
15 Issue 1 -
July 2005