Page 32 - MetalForming April 2013

Leveled Sheet and Plate
Improves Manufacturability
...at this German manufacturer of trailers and semitrailers with payload capacities to 10,000 tons.
Processing leveled sheetmetal can provide enormous added value, as evidenced by the experience of heavy-duty trailer manufacturer Gold- hofer, Memmingen, Germany. The need for leveled sheetmetal becomes obvious, say Goldhofer officials, when it comes to stamping presses, laser- cutting machines and press brakes, proven out when the firm recently installed an Arku FlatMaster 120 roller leveler.
Says Goldhofer production manag- er Alois Rothermel: “We now offer enor- mous added value when working with the leveled sheetmetal. Since purchas- ing the FlatMaster, we have experi- enced the importance of processing leveled materials through the produc-
This article is edited from an original article by Günter Kögel that appeared in Germany’s Blech magazine. It is reprint- ed here with permission.
tion process. We absolutely underesti- mated this effect when considering the investment beforehand. We have received exceptionally positive feed- back from every production depart- ment regarding the new leveler. The improvements were consistently noticeable from prefabrication through to edging, assembly and welding.”
Adds Klaus Desiderato, the firm’s head of preproduction: “Using our older vertical press to level material created a bottleneck in the production process. We were only leveling 65,000 parts from our total annual volume of 300,000 parts. Now, the FlatMaster’s efficiency allows us to level 90,000 parts per year.
“Many parts which previously were leveled using our older leveling press,” Desiderato continues, “now are lev- eled with the FlatMaster during pre- production. Because we level a signif- icantly higher number of parts than
originally planned, the bottleneck at the vertical leveling press has dimin- ished noticeably and the FlatMaster now runs three shifts.”
The Figures Speak for Themselves
Goldhofer’s old leveler required 5400 hr., or 3.2 shifts, to level 65,000 blanks. Now, the FlatMaster 120 can complete the same amount of work in only 2160 hours, or 1.3 shifts. As a result, the Arku machine frees up one employee for other duties. The machine also delivers further savings for assembly and welding pro- cedures. Even when conservatively cal- culated, the leveler still delivers further savings of approximately 600 hr./yr. As a result, Goldhofer would realize a return on investment of 5.7 years when run for a single shift. “The machine will defi- nitely pay off more quickly than calcu- lated,” says Desiderato.
Although the old leveler, nearly 60
30 MetalForming/April 2013
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