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Punch Presses: Is Automation the Answer?
What
are you doing to compete with foreign policies that include
lower pay rates, supportive governments and abundant, willing
workers? Many say North America should automate its metal
working equipment as the Europeans have done years ago.
"Automation
needs to be the mainstay of everybody's production," said
Jeff Fisher, punching product manager for Finn-Power. "With
healthcare costs going up for employees and global competition,
automation can reduce costs. We are now seeing more and more
issues in dealing with countries, such as China, in having
to order a higher quantity of parts than you can use and
shipping delays. Some of our customers are using automation
to make parts cheaper here than overseas. Automation is starting
to bring that back, it's the solution to competing globally."
The
ever-important punch press has increasingly been adopted
into full manufacturing cells including automation to increase
production time and decrease setup time.
"One has to determine the application, level
of production and amount of time the turret punch press is
in use, but generally speaking, automation can provide greater
productivity, reduce operational costs, increase profits
and quality," explained
Bob Kolcz, director, marketing and corporate communications at Finn-Power.
The
larger question is how best sheet metal fabricators can compete in the volatile
and highly competitive world market we face today, he noted. To compete in
this environment, sheet metal fabricators must assemble
the most productive equipment and trained and motivated workforce - a
challenge considering the fact that a dramatically fewer
number of young people are entering the metalworking industry - while
making timely business decisions in order to create a winning team.
"Updating
inefficient machines and manufacturing methods, avoiding bottlenecks in
production, instituting diligent preventative maintenance
programs and providing proper operator training can all spell
the difference between profit and loss," he
continued. "New equipment technology has been the lifeline to growth for
sheet metal fabricators. Equipment and tooling manufacturers continue to
make tremendous strides in developing new machines and tooling that are
not only more accurate and cost efficient, but also capable of eliminating
secondary operations while performing functions thought to be impossible
just a few years ago."
Finn-Power's initial offering to automation
was the Express, a Flexible Manufacturing Unit (FMU), which
allows full-size sheets to be automatically loaded onto the
table of a turret punch press, punched, formed and unloaded.
The Finn-Power Express FMU is available with either a 33-ton
hydraulic turret punch press with a 50 x 100-inch table;
or with a 22-ton servo-electric turret punch press also featuring
a 50 x 100-inch table. Finn-Power's new C-series 33-ton
hydraulic turret punch press is designed for maximum productivity. The
C5 features nibbling speeds up to 1,100 hpm and punching speeds of 420
hpm on one-inch centers. This turret punch press also features indexable
upforming, easy loading and unloading, and a "Catch & Carry" work chute.
The
E-series 22-ton servo-electric turret punch press is a 6-axes precision
fabricating system featuring a servomotor-driven punch mechanism which
is both flexible and amazingly accurate. In the E5 both the position
and speed of the punch and die are programmable like CNC axes, which
allows punching, nibbling, cutting, forming, marking, bending, and
tapping in just a single set up. The E5 features nibbling
speeds of up to 480 hpm and punching speeds of 320 hpm on
one-inch centers.
The Finn-Power Express is easy to operate:
sheets are placed onto a loading table equipped with four
separation magnets, floating table top, and double sheet
detector. A pneumatic suction cup manipulator lifts one sheet
from the stack, checks for double sheets, then transfers
it onto the table of the turret press. After the punching
process, an unloading gripper seizes the edge of the punched
sheet and a pneumatic transfer mechanism moves it onto a
roll support table above the vertically-moved unloading table.
The roll support table is moved, allowing the punched sheet
to be lowered to the loading table.
The Shear Genius Flexible
Manufacturing Cell (FMC) is designed to provide one machine
capable of transforming a full-sized sheet into finished
parts. The heart of the Finn-Power Shear Genius FMC concept
is the integrated turret punch press/right angle shear combination
which allows punching, nibbling, forming, shearing and loading/unloading
in the same operation, using the same clamps for increased
accuracy. On average, Shear Genius reduces total manufacturing
time by 60 percent and saves one blank sheet out of every
10.
The use of linear drive technology is the
latest trend in sheet metal fabrication automation. The Finn-Power
Shear Brilliance combines the linear drive technology with
the integrated shearing concept introduced in the 1980s.
Faster punching speed alone is not the total answer to productivity.
Finn-Power found the greatest potential area for productivity
improvements in total manufacturing time to be in the area
of axes movements. Depending upon the program, axes movements in typical
fabrication systems account for 50 percent of total processing time
from loading the sheet to stacking the finished part. The
Shear Brilliance eliminates dwell times between these operations.
Finn-Power's
Night Train is a flexible manufacturing system that is designed
for productivity, efficiency and unmanned operation. The
Night Train incorporates the successful applications of the
integrated punch/shear or punch/laser cells and the Finn-Power
Automatic Material Management Systems to provide a total
solution for unmanned operation in sheet metal fabrication
shops.
As the Material Management System of the Night
Train holds all needed blank sheets, punched and sheared
parts are automatically stacked on pallets and transferred
to the System via the Night Train wagon.
"The biggest thing is to find out what your labor costs are," explained Fisher. "Most
people think they don't run enough
parts for automation to pay for automation but that's not true anymore.
With today's software systems, punching parts is basically a snap now."
This article
appeared in the October 2004 issue of FAB Canada
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710
Remington Road 
Volume
14 Issue 2 -
December 2004