Page 35 - MetalForming January 2017

well as time and cost sav- ings to its customers.
With two plants offering 100,000 sq. ft. of manufac- turing space under roof, Weber Specialties and its 80 employees serve a variety of markets, including appli- ance, automotive, furniture, medical, electrical and industrial-hardware. It per- forms tool build, stamping, fabricating, assembly and painting inhouse, using a variety of part materials. Though successful, the company wanted to limit some of its outsourcing operations.
“We were outsourcing
CO2- and fiber-laser work,”
recalls Andy Bozell, vice
president of engineering at
Weber Specialties. “We want-
ed to address extended lead times due to outsourcing, challenges related to breaking in to the production schedules of outside suppliers, and quality control of the parts.”
In addition, though proficient at high- and medium-volume work, “the need for a new machine centered around trying to address increasing demand in the low-volume work envi- ronment, using laser capability to cut ferrous materials,” he adds.
Originally, the company considered the possibility of adding a CO2 machine. “We tried to justify a laser in the past and finally got to that level,” Bozell explains. “We decided that we wanted to adopt the new technology and explore fiber-laser cutting machines. They are fast, and we could gain so many efficiencies with them.”
Ideal for the Material and Volume Mix
After a four-month search, in Feb- ruary 2016 Weber Specialties brought a new fiber-laser cutting machine to the shop floor, a FS 3015 model from HK Laser & Systems USA, Lombard, IL. ( Weber Specialties ultimately added a CO2 machine, dedicated to cutting
the early suppler-involve- ment process of part devel- opment.”
For low-volume work, the machine is ideal as it negates the need to create hard tool- ing, a costly venture for pro- ducing parts of limited quantities. In fact, “the new laser-cutting machine com- pleted our solution to mul- tiple-volume demands,” says Bozell. “We were a stamper for a long time, where the high-volume work was easy for us, and we did some work with quick-die- change on the tooling to bet- ter handle intermediate runs. Now we can handle from one to 1 million parts for our customers.”
On the shop floor, Weber Specialties employs the fiber-laser cutter as a standalone
machine.
“We run various amounts of differ-
ent materials and different products through it,” says Bozell. “We use it to feed our forming and fabricating departments, and spot-welding depart- ment, so it’s a launching pad for a lot of our low-volume products produced in those areas.”
Bozell points to a number of exam- ples where the machine has paid off.
“For quite some time we had been fabricating a stainless-steel panel for a customer, who then introduced a size variation in that product,” Bozell recalls. “We used a hard tool to create one size of that part, but because we added a laser cutter we were able to create a whole family of those differ- ent-sized products just by changing blank development to a laser-cutting process instead of a die-cutting process. Without the inhouse laser cut- ter, we would have had to outsource that work.”
Such flexibility enables rapid reac- tion to customer changes, and also assists with customer indecision.
“We were developing and quoting a part for a customer that was unsure
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MetalForming/January 2017 33
The new laser-cutting machine easily handles Weber Specialties’ typical part stock, including low-carbon, coated and stainless steel; advanced high-strength steel; aluminum; brass; and nickel; in thicknesses from 0.010 to 0.5 in.
Mylar for a specific project.)
An upgrade to 3-kW power enables
the FS 3015 to easily handle the com- pany’s typical part stock, including low- carbon, coated and stainless steel, advanced high-strength steel, alu- minum, brass, and nickel, in thickness- es from 0.010 to 0.5 in.
The machine features a durable rack-and-pinion motion system, light- weight cutting bridge with synchro- nized dual servo motors and a quick- change noncontact cutting head. Offering energy saves to 70 percent as compared with traditional CO2 laser cutters, the FS 3015 provides cutting feed rates to 1000 in./min and traverse speed of 6700 in./min. with 1.5-G accel- eration, according to HK officials.
Upon install, the company, bene- fitting from offsite and inhouse training backed by the machine’s library of material-cutting conditions and job- recall capability, quickly realized the advantages of fiber-laser cutting.
“It really increased our ability to help customers develop parts in a quicker manner,” Bozell says. “We can make multiple iterations of a fabricated part very quickly to validate a concept with our customers, so it helps us in