Hydraulic and mechanical presses
New life for old press line
A
P&T helped indoor climate company Fläkt Woods to increase at one site. This increases the press line’s flexibility.
efficiency in its old press line by 25% using new automation and a The discussions about giving the press line new life began in earnest in
new control system. This allowed it to scale back from three shifts to September 2005 and, during the winter, detailed solutions were developed.
two shifts and access badly-needed extra capacity. By March 2006, an agreement was reached. Fläkt Woods started building
The Fläkt Woods production plant in Aneby produces sheet metal parts up a production buffer to manage the deliveries during the installation
for ventilation systems and has several lines with AP&T presses, some of period and AP&T started building the line. The technology was installed
which are almost thirty years old. in three weeks during the summer, when Fläkt Woods normally has lower
“One of our key press lines for manufacturing ventilation couplings production pressure.
simply had a reliability level that was too low to be able to serve the other The week after installation, the press line was ready for production and,
three units in the group,” says Niklas Grundström, site manager at Fläkt even now, production is still being optimized.
Woods in Aneby (Sweden). “The new control system is an efficient analysis tool and now we are
“Our customers expect fast deliveries, and at the same time, we have to going after one tenth of a second difference in the press cycles. One tenth of
minimize the amount of finished parts kept in inventory - the demand for a second turns into seconds, hours and, ultimately, weeks in a year. There
which varies widely over the course of the year,” says Niklas. is a lot to collect,” confirms Niklas Grundström.
It quickly became apparent that a high level of reliability and a certain “By investing in this conversion, we see a potential increase in efficiency
amount of extra capacity were needed to handle the variations. The of 25%, depending on the part being manufactured. When we can get
production capacity in the old line was always on the border of what the rid of the night shift, we will have a 30% increase in available capacity,”
plant could handle and a costly three-shift production run was necessary. concludes Niklas Grundström.
“Building a completely new plant was never discussed for cost reasons,
but something had to be done,” explains Niklas.
The old press line was equipped with a coil line with separate control,
a modular press for clipping and a hydraulic press to form the part. Each
component in the line had its own operator’s panel, which wasn’t ideal for
the operator. Feeding the parts in and out of the press was handled by two
older generation CD robots from AP&T – a loader and an unloader.
It was here that AP&T’s Roger Waltersson saw the potential for breathing
new life into the old press line.
“It looked unnecessarily complicated to have two different CD robots for
these operations. I thought about what could be achieved with our new
SpeedFeeder and then the discussions began,” says Roger.
There was nothing wrong with the presses and the coil line. It was more
the way they were being used – even updating the line with more efficient
automation would not be enough. The old control systems prevented the
press line’s availability from being what it ought to be.
AP&T’s solution was to integrate the hydraulic press, modular press
and coil line into the same control system and to run them from the same
operator’s panel. The coil line received an entirely new electrical system
including a servo motor, while the mechanics were left untouched.
“One control system for the entire press line involves simplicity for the
Two operations in one. Feed-in and pick-up
operator, but also improved options for running the plant and winning
of parts was handled by two CD robots. These
tenths of a second from each press cycle,” says Roger Waltersson. were replaced by a new AP&T SpeedFeeder
AP&T also replaced the loader and the unloader with a single
which handles both operations at the same time
SpeedFeeder, which ejects the parts out of the tool whilst simultaneously
inserting a new press blank - two operations in the same movement.
Another challenge for increasing capacity was to minimize the time to
CONTACT:
replace the tool – an operation that is done on average three times per
AP&T AB, Sweden
day. AP&T gave the press a tool change system that makes changing the
Tel:+46 325 66 18 00 • Fax: +46 325 66 18 88
tool simpler and faster for the operator, as all the tool recipes are collected
E-mail: info@apt.se • Website: www.apt.se
28 March/April 2007 International Sheet Metal Review
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