Page 46 - MetalForming May 2012

Machine-Tending
Robots
Lead Reshoring Effort
Made in China no longer makes good business sense to an electronics OEM, thanks in part to a New England sheetmetal fabricator providing significant cost savings through the use of press-brake-tending robots.
BY BRAD F. KUVIN, EDITOR
Green-light time on a pair of robot-tended press brakes aver- ages 40 percent higher than on manually tended brakes at contract sheetmetal fabricator Metal Works, Inc., Londonderry, NH.
The firm provides full-service sup- port to hundreds of customers, includ- ing engineering, prototyping, machin- ing, painting and powder coating, assembly and custom inventory-man- agement programs. When a bottleneck struck its press-brake forming depart- ment about four years ago, an invest- ment in robotic technology saved the day.
“We had just acquired three new servo-electric turret punch presses
Forming enclosures for Suntron and ZeeVee at a Metal Works’ robotic bending cell begins with a robot pulling a blank—prefabricated on a turret press—from a rack and placing it against automated backgauges in a press brake.
44 MetalForming/May 2012
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(Amada EM2510NT NT units), and throughput rose so dramatically that our conventional, manually tended press brakes could not keep up,” recalls company CEO Fred Pierce. “At the same time, we knew that even if we acquired new press brakes to free the bottle- neck, we’d struggle to find qualified operators to set up and run them.”
As a result, Pierce opted to add a pair of Amada 10-ft.110-ton Astro II 100NT robotic forming cells to his sta-
ble. The automated forming cells, says Pierce, completely integrate what he viewed as two separate functions—a press brake that goes down and up, and robots that feed sheet in and out and position parts against multiaxis backgauges.
“Through software and integration,” stresses Pierce, “the two technologies act in sync. We’re able to teach the robots and press brake, through the cell’s control functions, how to truly