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PTMW Rides the Finn-Power Night Train® FMS to High Precision Productivity
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Patti jon
Christensen
President
PTMW, Inc.
Topeka, KS.
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PTMW is a contract manufacturer of sheet metal components and also offers complete design, manufacturing, and shipping of signal house enclosures for the rail and telecommunications industries.
For many years, the company purchased its sheet metal parts from job shops and assembled and shipped the signal houses from its company headquarters in Topeka, KS. But the company’s
president Patti jon Christensen wanted to vertically integrate her company and had a strong commitment to build the company on quality parts, timely deliveries, innovative processes, and strong
customer relationships. Now the challenge was deciding on how best to achieve vertical integration.
“I knew that PTMW had an opportunity to take a giant step into the world of manufacturing,” Christensen explains. “I didn’t want to do it half & half. I wanted to have the best equipment that
was available.”
After comparing machines and systems, PTMW selected the Finn-Power Night Train® FMS. The Flexible Manufacturing System was installed in March, 2000, and consists
of automated raw sheet storage, sheet loading, integrated punching/shearing, unloading, and in-line automated bending.
According to Tim Gardner, PTMW’s director of manufacturing, the in-line Express Bender is an important part of the FMS. “There is a lot of equipment that can punch holes,” says Gardner.
“Most stand alone turret punch presses have to bring a conventional shear to the table, and many of our parts are 8 feet in length…so you are looking at a two-man conventional press brake
operation. With the Night Train, Shear Genius, and Express in-line bender we can build our parts virtually in an unmanned environment.”
The company also purchased a Finn-Power press brake. And just like that, PTMW went from being an assembler of component parts to having a world-class sheet metal flexible manufacturing system.
And what has the Finn-Power Night Train® FMS meant to PTMW? “It gained us our independence and has set the path for determining our own destiny,” says Christensen. “The
technology that Finn-Power has in the Night Train® changed the world of manufacturing.”
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710 Remington Road