Page 39 - MetalForming January 2012

recalls project and building manager James Van Domselaar, “none of which seemed appealing. And neither did turning away orders,” he adds.
Instead, the firm focused on reduc- ing changeover times to increase pro- duction capacity from its existing lines. It found success by investing in quick- die-change systems that took die- change times from more than 2 hr. (from last part to first part) to less than 30 min.
Manhandling 7000-lb. Dies
In addition to the continuous panel lines, the plant also features 14 stamp- ing presses in various sizes and styles to produce hardware components, spring mechanisms, track, etc. “But,” notes Van Domselaar, “the panel lines are the potential bottlenecks. Uptime is critical.”
Changing out the 7000-lb. die sets used to stamp decorative features on the outer door panel once required three or four operators. “We had an efficient process in place, albeit slow and tedious,” admits Van Domselaar, noting that it staged dies near the presses to streamline the process as much as possible.
Faced with changing out dies as often as three times per 12-hr. work day, 2-hr. die changes just didn’t cut it, so Van Domselaar and his crew sought a better way. In mid-2010 it purchased a Power Pallet quick-die-change setup from Pacesetter Systems, Valencia, CA. The pallet attaches to a die and enables quick, easy attachment to a forklift. To set the die on the press, the pallet docks to the bolster and with a push of a button indexes the die into place on the press bed. A v-block mounts on the back of the die shoe and guides the die left-to-right and front-to-back around a 1-in.-dia. pin installed in the bolster to ensure accu- rate alignment.
In addition to the Power Pallet (which earned a Most Innovative Prod- uct Award at the METALFORM 2007 trade show in Chicago), Steel-Craft also invested in quarter-turn quick clamps from Pacesetter. All told, the invest-
ment paid for itself in 6 months, “since we can run the lines for an additional 90 min. per die change,” says Van Dom- selaar. In addition, changing dies with the Power Pallet reduces manpower required from three or four operators to just two.
Convinced that the Power Pallet was the solution sought, Van Domselaar next had to decide whether to use one Power Pallet for all of its dies and load
and unload dies from a racking sys- tem, or just add a Power Pallet to each of its dies.
“When we looked at engineering and building a racking system,” he says, “we calculated the costs as being sim- ilar to simply purchasing a Power Pal- let for each die. So, we decided to pur- chase a total of five Power Pallets, one for each die. In addition, we standard- ized all of our die subplates.”
Tooling Technology
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