Brad KuvinCamaraderie, Cooperation Epitomize Global Metal Forming Meeting
November 1, 2022Comments
Under the theme, “New Tech. New Skills. New Challenges—Prepare for the next generation of metal forming,” the 20th ICOSPA (International Council of Sheet Metal Presswork Associations) Congress returned to the United Kingdom on October 19-20. Postponed from 2020, the event welcomed delegates from China, France, Germany, Japan, Spain, the United States and the United Kingdom, who met to discuss some of the biggest topics facing their sector, including:
- Innovative technologies transforming metal forming
- How to deliver sustainable performance
- Bridging the skills gap
- Remaining profitable in the face of economic struggles.
Stephen Morley, chairman of ICOSPA member Confederation of British Metalforming (CMB) and in his fourth and final year as president of ICOSPA, stated: “This is one of the biggest industrial events in the calendar and we are looking forward to welcoming more than 100 delegates from across the world to the original birthplace of the industrial revolution. Despite the challenges, Birmingham and the United Kingdom still have a strong and prosperous sheet metal and presswork sector, and there is an appetite to understand the new technologies that are developing and how we can make the most of them.”
Joining Morley as emcee was renowned local historian Professor Carl Chinn, a prolific writer and public speaker who has devoted his life to the study and promotion of the city of Birmingham. In the book, “Birmingham: The Workshop of the World,” co-authored and edited by Chinn, he writes:
“Birmingham has been an important urban centre, not only in British history, but also internationally. Outside observers described Birmingham as ‘the ‘city of a thousand trades’ and ‘the best governed city in the world,’ but Birmingham has also acquired a reputation for intellectual achievement, religious and racial toleration, and an outward-looking culture.”
“Our congress is headlined by some of the world’s leading voices in the sector,” Morley added, “including the man who shaped the creation of Gestamp (Francisco Riberas, executive chairman of Gestamp and who served as the first conference speaker), and the CEO of one of the United Kingdom’s pioneering manufacturers of electric trucks (Ian Hartnett, chairman of Tevva Motors).”
We toured the firm’s 50,000-sq.-m plant in Cannock, 20 miles north of Birmingham, which opened in 2018 and focuses on BIW and electrification applications. Dominating the floorplan here are two prolific hot stamping lines, each equipped with a pair of Loire hydraulic presses fed by blank-handling robots and a walking-beam conveyor to move parts along 16 temperature-controlled heating zones. Also on the floor: an Arisa 2500-ton servo press with a 2.5 by 6.1-m bed, and we spied several Trumpf TruLaser Cell 8030 multi-axis laser-cutting 
machines used to trim hot-stamped BIW parts. We also toured the plant’s production area for fabricating aluminum battery trays, launched in late 2021 and highlighted by friction-stir welding of extrusions, as well as CNC machining, gas-metal-arc welding and clinching operations.
Touring the plant, we spied several high-speed presses,
mostly Bruderer models, and the newest press to hit the floor: a Yamada NXT
80-ton press equipped with a double link-motion mechanism. As explained by our
tour guide, this allows for slide-motion deceleration near bottom dead center,
which minimizes vibration inside the die during cutting and forming operations.
Francisco Riberas, executive chairman of Gestamp Automocion,
who discussed major challenges and opportunities in the automotive sector. This includes, as we learned on the Gestamp
plant tour, a focus on hot stamping. Riberas noted that the company is
developing a high-speed hot stamping process that will operate at the same
speed as cold stamping, and that eliminates the laser cutting operation.
Ian Harnett, chairman of Tevva Electrical Trucks, provided a presentation titled, “Moving the world towards a better way of transporting everything for everybody.” Tevva, a new electric-truck manufacturer based in Tilbury, England, has developed a battery electric vehicle (BEV) as well as a BEV with a hydrogen-fuel-cell range extender. 
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