Page 26 - Metallforming Magazine December 2020

FABRICATION
Automotive Blanking Without Stamping Dies
Via Laser
Coil-fed laser blanking offers a time- and cost-saving alternative, while serving trends toward increased model variants and shorter launch times.
BY JAY FINN
If one thing is certain, it’s the fact that you can depend upon uncertainty. After reaching peak global sales of nearly 80 million vehicles in 2018, automotive sales are expected to total less than 60 million in 2020. This decrease, in tandem with various product-launch delays, re-empha- sizes the importance of flexible manufacturing strategies that can scale production up or down, or shift operations on a dime. And, when considering the tooling investment, when production decreases, cost per part increases or simply is a burden until production resumes at its normal rate.
Given this, imagine producing a vehicle without stamping dies, and with the resultant ability to shift production within an afternoon and without tooling impacting the cost per part. While 2020 may be an anomaly, we should have learned by now that although we rely on many known factors in pre- dicting our economy, there always will be unknowns. Unprece- dented events or not, many compelling trends in the auto industry point to the need for new and flexible manufacturing processes. Some of these trends include the following:
Jay Finn is chief technical officer for LaserCoil Technologies LLC, Napoleon, OH; 419/592-0050, www.lasercoil.com.
• Growth of model variants. BOA Merrill Lynch predicts that despite a decline in new-vehicle sales, new launches between model years 2021 and 2024 are expected to skyrocket to an average of 63/yr. from an average of 40/yr. during the previous two decades.
• Shorter launch times. According to a TEM Journal study from 2019, typical vehicle development from concept design to start of series now runs about 25 months, from a prior average of 48.
• Frequent production shifts. Manufacturers must be able to easily scale or shift production based upon changing consumer demand, which can be influenced by anything from gas prices to branding preferences to pandemics.
Flexible Laser Blanking to the Rescue
These trends all beg for increasingly agile manufacturing methodologies. But, if the final evaluation for a purchase decision is based upon gaining return on investment within 12 months, only short-term competitive advantages can be achieved through tweaking current processes. This means that the most cost-effective and efficient solutions may be overlooked. One area where companies can look: new tech- nologies for producing body-panel blanks for forming. Here, laser blanking can play a major role, not only in providing flexibility in manufacturing operations, but also in cost sav- ings for automakers willing to have a little foresight.
As production volumes fluctuate and niche models enter the market, laser blanking offers both flexibility and speed. With no dedicated tooling, material can be ordered and the programming accomplished in less than a day, sometimes only in a couple of hours. With laser cutting, the program can be modified via simple 2D CAD software. Changes that
24 MetalForming/December 2020
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