Railroad-Equipment OEM Says "I Think I Can"

For many years, PTMW Inc., Topeka, KS, focused on assembling signal and communication houses to the railroad industry, purchasing sheetmetal parts from job shops. But around the turn of the century, company president and owner Patti Jon Goff set out to vertically integrate her company, with a commitment to build the company’s foundation on “supplying quality parts, timely deliveries, innovative processes and strong customer relationships,” she says.

A 200-ft.-long Night Train material-management system serves as the centerpiece of the automated sheetmetal processing line at PTMW. The line also features (right to left) a laser-punch combination machine, a Shear Genius integrated punch/shear machine and a servo-electric automated bender.

Goff’s parents founded PTMW in the mid 1980s as an assembly plant to produce other company’s products for the railroad industry. In 1987, one of her major customers encouraged her to begin building signal houses—those little metal buildings located near crossings.

FMS Triggers Overnight Makeover

Fast forward to 2000, when Goff opened the next chapter in PTMW’s history.

“I knew that we had an opportunity to take a giant step into the world of manufacturing,” Goff explains. “I didn’t want to do it half . I wanted to have the best automated equipment available.”

After comparing machines and systems, PTMW selected the Finn-Power (now Prima Power) Night Train flexible manufacturing system (FMS). Installed in March 2000 in a 15,000-sq.-ft. building (the firm operated out of several buildings at the time, totaling 100,000 sq. ft. of manufacturing space), the FMS features automated raw sheet storage, sheet loading, integrated punching/shearing, unloading and inline automated bending. Overnight PTMW transitioned from being an assembler of component parts to having a worldclass sheetmetal FMS.

“The equipment helped us gain our independence and has set the path for determining our own destiny,” says Goff. “The technology in that Night Train changed our world of manufacturing.”

New Facility Welcomes New Automated Line

With its acquisition of a full lineup of sheetmetal-fabrication equipment, PTMW has been able to not only insource fabrication of signal and communication houses for the railroad industry (shown), but also expand into subcontract fabrication work for customers in other industries, including the power industry.

As the company continued to grow, Goff added more buildings and fabrication equipment. In August 2010, she moved the entire operation into a nearby 827,000 sq. ft. building that, in 2012, became home to a new Prima Power FMS. It includes a Shear Genius SGe8; a model LPe8 laser/punch combination machine; an EBe6Express Bender; and a Night Train model NT8.

The centerpiece of the PTMW automated sheet-processing line is the Night Train material-management system—an inventory and material transporting center. The 200-ft.-long Night Train supplies raw material as well as removes and stores work in process.

With the Shear Genius right-angle shear concept, the objective is to provide a machine capable of transforming a full-size sheet into finished parts. These parts can be moved to the final production stages for immediate integration into the final assembly.

The heart of the servo-electric machine is a servo-electric 30-ton punching machine rated to a maximum stroke rate of 1000 hits/min. It also boasts a 250-RPM index speed and a sheet positioning speed to150 m/min. The servo- electric actuation system makes shear movement fast and fully controlled. Workpiece capacity is 5-mm aluminum, 4-mm mild steel and 3-mm stainless steel. Automatic loading has been integrated, as has automated part removal and sorting. On average, compared with a standalone turret punch press, the SGe reduces total manufacturing time by 60 percent and saves one blank sheet out of every 10.

The SGe also eliminates wasteful skeletons and costly secondary operations such as deburring. It allows the automated process to begin with a full-sized sheet of material and end with a finished part after automated loading, punching, forming, shearing and unloading—all in one operation.

“We incorporated the Shear Brilliance punch/shear combination we had purchased for our previous system into this new FMS, for added punching capacity,” explains Sean Ryan, vice president of production. “The new SGe is faster than the older hydraulic models…we don’t have to worry about the hydraulics warming up. We have consistency from the time we start the machine until the time we shut it down. We punch aluminum, galvanneal and some stainless steel. We also incorporated an inkjet printer on the machine that helps us identify parts and track back material.”