Page 36 - MetalForming November 2013

Tooling Technology
Appliance Maker Follows a Trusted
The largest new-appliance rollout in the history of Sub-Zero and Wolf Appliance has the firm’s pressroom and die shop on their toes. Read here of its tried and tested die- change system that keeps six hydraulic presses and three mechanicals running full speed ahead.
BY BRAD F. KUVIN, EDITOR
In 2007, the 30,000-sq.-ft. pressroom at the Sub-Zero and Wolf manu- facturing plant in Fitchburg, WI, nearly doubled in production capaci-
The Sub-Zero and Wolf pressroom runs more than 100 active dies, which weigh as much as 50,000 lb. To move its dies around the press- room and back and forth from a pair of toolrooms, the firm relies on this Atlas die-handling cart that rides on floor- mounted track.
Quick-Die-
Change
Recipe
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MetalForming/November 2013
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ty. Welcomed that year: three Williams, White & Co. hydraulic presses (a 400- ton model and two 600-ton models), and a 600-ton Minster mechanical press with coil-feed line. It added the presses to support new-product intro-
ductions and to bring inhouse previ- ously outsourced stamping work. “Those pressroom investments really strengthened our core competency in stamping and tool and die work,” says Jeff Soule, fabrication supervisor for