Page 47 - MetalForming July 2013

The anchor for our adventure was the Amada Innovation Fair 2013 Global. This two-month-long mini tradeshow served as the company’s showcase of new machines—13 new machines in all (see sidebar: A Baker’s Dozen of Fabricating-Equipment Inno- vation). Describing the company’s over- all commitment to its customers, Amada managers use broad-brush phrases like “helping fabricators move quickly from print to product...from blank to bend...from programming to production.”
Amada president and CEO Mr. Okamoto emphasized the company’s research and development efforts relat- ed in particular to automation, noting that, “In the future, we expect our cus- tomers to continue to ask for full automation, as with our new Lasbend AJ (an automated production center that cuts, forms, bends and taps) to help them meet prototype and short-run requirements. We’re developing the total solution for the plant floor—net- working, digital manufacturing...how to make the machines intelligent. That’s our R & D objective moving forward.”
In presenting Amada’s mid-term management plan, Mr. Okamoto notes that the goal is to grow the company’s sales from 190 billion yen in 2012 to 300 billion yen by 2015. At the same time, he expects operating margin to grow from 4 to 15 percent, in part due to its continued development of its cellular production system.
We saw the Amada production sys- tem (which it calls “booth-stand pro- duction”) in action at the Amada Inno- vation Center in Fujinomiya. The 750,000-sq.-m campus includes a high- ly automated parts warehouse, a ded- icated laser-machine factory, and a plant dedicated to machine-frame weld- ing and coating and turret-disk assembly. The laser-machine factory boasts 70 booth stands over nearly 18,000 sq. m of floor space, with the capacity to assemble 140 machines/month.
Automation in Action
Automation took center stage at Amada customer OKI Electric Industry
The sheetmetal-fabrication shop at OKI Electric Industry is home to eight robotic press- brake bending cells, including the lineup of Amada Astro-100NT cells shown here. Each Astro-100NT boasts a 110-ton press brake and a pair of material-handling robots. About half of the firm’s press-brake bending is automated, with the goal to become 80-percent automated by 2014.
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The leader of our technology tour throughout Japan was Ken Sano, from Amada’s over- seas strategic planning department. Here, Sano explains how its customer, Fukasawa Inc., uses an Amada EM255NT turret punch press to fabricate parts from 0.4- to 2.5- mm-thick stainless-steel, mild-steel and aluminum sheet.
Co., when we toured its Mechatronics Systems plant in Tomioka. OKI manu- factures cash-handling machines (ATMs and the like), airport check-in counters, call-center telecom devices and other similar equipment. The plant encompasses 62,500 sq. m and 825 employees, including 190 who work in sheetmetal fabrication. The fab shop processes as much as 20 tons of sheet- metal/day, primarily 1 to 2 mm thick.
Plant general manager and execu- tive officer Yoshiyuki Nakano, with the help of Amada’s translator Yukinaga Nakashima, explained that supplying its assembly lines once had the plant spe- cializing in metal stamping. However, as its business has transitioned to low- volume high-mix metalforming, fabri- cating processes such as laser cutting,
CNC punching and press-brake bend- ing have become core competencies.
“In 1978, we were the first manu- facturer in Japan to install a combina- tion laser-cutting and CNC punching machine,” Nakano said, “and now we have eight combination machines.” Included in this inventory is an Amada Acies punch-laser added in 2011 that Nakano says improves throughput on some parts by nearly 300 percent com- pared to a standard turret press.
In addition to its eight combination machines, the OKI fabrication shop also is home to three stand-alone CNC punching machines, a bevy of press brakes and eight robotic press-brake bending cells—including six Amada Astro-100NT cells. Each Astro-100NT boasts a 110-ton press brake (118-in.