Page 36 - MetalForming September 2017

Automatic Panel Bending
brake, without us having to buy and set up 5-ft.-long radius tools on the press brake.”
In a manufacturing cell, the P4 replaced two existing press brakes, which were transferred to handle sheet from a coil-fed laser-cutting machine. Raddatz stresses that pro- ductivity savings through the P4 addi- tion have freed up employees for other operations at Bretford.
“We don’t let anyone go when we make lean improvements, such as bringing in the automatic panel ben- der,” he says. “We will move people to other areas and only reduce employment through attrition.”
In getting the P4 up and running,
Bretford provided to Salvagnini a list
of parts, many being difficult to form
on the press brakes, to see which ones Primarily for educational settings, Bretford Manufacturing constantly debuts new products, would be ideal for running through including mobile charging carts for iPads (top) and furniture with built-in charging stations.
the new machine.
“About 70 percent of those parts could be run with no
issue,” Santaromana recalls.
In any case, when programming the panel bender, com-
puterized simulation ensures an ideal process.
“I just fine-tune within our typical tolerance of 0.015 in.
and the job is good to go,” he says.
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34 MetalForming/September 2017
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