Page 29 - MetalForming Magazine October 2022 - FABTECH

Along wit
h the new press controls at
GSM came the ability to
empl
oy tonnage
monitoring. “Prior to installing the new controls, we periodically would experi- ence tonnage-related quality issues,” says Brent Ortman, GSM stamping lead and certified machine skills instructor, “especially on thicker work requiring
higher press tonnage. Now, any imperfection in the tool or the process and the press will stop before damaging the tooling or the parts.”
More Prog. Dies Necessitates More Die Protection
Most work moving through the GSM pressroom runs through progressive tooling—not the case until the last 20 yr. or so. The move away from hand- fed blanks began at GSM around 2003, as it started to acquire larger, higher- tonnage presses. Says Hawkins: “As we added presses and moved more into progressive tooling, our need for die protection grew. However, over the years we found it difficult, with older press controls, to add the level of die protection we wanted.”
Hence the move, 5 yr. ago, to upgrade its press controls. “We build about 40 new tools each year, and every one of them now has die pro- tection built in,” says Jonathan Stough, stamping department man- ager. “And, we’ve retrofitted just about every existing die with additional sen- sors. For dies that run infrequently, we use magnets to fit sensors to the press bolsters. The SmartPac 2 con- trols really simplify the process of implementing die protection.”
Brent Ortman, stamping lead and certified machine skills instructor, recalls a time, prior to the press-control upgrade, where an operator stood by at every press as it ran, “just watching and ready to take action if something went wrong,” he says. “We no longer must do that, thanks to the added die protection and upgraded press con- trols. Now our operators primarily are responsible only for end-of-line stamped-part handling, and for assist- ing with changeovers.”
Also noted as an upgrade with its new controls: an upgrade to its tonnage monitoring capabilities. “Prior to installing the new controls, we would periodically experience tonnage-relat- ed quality issues,” Ortman says, “espe- cially on thicker work requiring higher press tonnage. Now, any imperfection in the tool or the process and the press
will stop before damaging the tooling or the parts.”
Quality Control is Cost Control
On the GSM website, this phrase caught my eye:
“Quality control is cost con-
trol,” and the press-control upgrade fits this bill. “Poor qual-
ity costs not only dollars and
cents, but your reputation, and
can damage customer rela-
tions,” Hawkins says. “From the feedback we receive from our customers, two things keep them com- ing back: quality and our customer service. We immediately address cus- tomer issues from a containment strat- egy internally, and we’ll even go to cus- tomers’ facilities and support them as needed. That’s why it’s critical that we error-proof our processes as much as possible up front.”
The senior management team at GSM reviews several key performance indicators at monthly senior-manage- ment meetings. Among them: overall equipment effectiveness (OEE), avail- able to run, preventive-maintenance on-time completion, schedule attain- ment, on-time delivery and first-pass yield on repairs.
“Schedule attainment is averaging 95.7 percent for the last 6 mo.,” Hawkins shares, “and has remained within a percentage point or two each month. OEE for the press department has, for the last 6 mo., averaged 74 per- cent, and first-pass yield on repairs has stayed steady above the 90-percent goal.”
Visibility into the Presses and Processes
Along with the new SmartPac 2 con- trols, Wintriss also supplied GSM with its SmartView Network Interface, a Windows application that enables managers to view press status, produc-
tion counts, press tonnage (when ton- nage monitoring is active) and other information in real time, from net- worked SmartPac units on a Windows PC.
“Using SmartView, we instantly can see which presses are running and which are not,” Stough says, “and why. The application also calculates how far along a job is (generating a per- centage) and how much longer the job needs to run until it’s complete. An event log displays a date- and time- stamped list of the last 200 events and any errors that occurred at each press control.”
Stampers also can use SmartView send short text messages to the press operators, displayed on the SmartPac screen as a “sticky” note, according to Wintriss, and recorded in the SmartPac error/event log.
“Being able to remotely monitor each press,” explains Ortman, “makes it easier to troubleshoot our production, especially during an off-shift where management may not be around. We can log in remotely, and even use Face- time to watch the press run, then go into the program and make any nec- essary adjustments, such as changing the timing of the die protection or of the feed line, rather than having to shut a press down and wait until the morn- ing to address the issue.” MF
26 MetalForming/October 2022
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