Page 36 - MetalForming August 2019

Servo Presses 2.0:
The Evolution Continues
Tier One automotive stamper serves as an example, while experts share their views on what’s trending and what’s ahead.
BY JOE JANCSURAK, SENIOR EDITOR
This 1500-metric-ton servo transfer press stamps a range of HSLA automotive parts. Among them, door-hinge parts, which were moved from production on a mechanical link-motion press to the servo press.
As with any new technology, it takes a while before industry begins to exploit all of its capa- bilities—and servo drives are no excep- tion. Though more than 20 years have passed since the first servo press was introduced, it wasn’t until the use of high-strength materials ramped up about a decade later that stampers began varying speed and dwell using servo-controlled slide velocity. Today, stampers, in conjunction with equip- ment providers, increasingly approach servo presses as manufacturing systems,
rather than as standalone machines. The results of this evolution can be seen at Midway Products Group, a Tier One automotive supplier with eight plant locations in Ohio and Indiana, 1600 employees and 135 presses, six of which are large servo-driven machines from by Aida—three 1500- and two 2000-metric-ton servo transfer presses, and one 800-metric-ton progressive die press. Jim Ward, manager of man- ufacturing at Midway, looks for the company to add servo presses moving forward, though he notes that there
always will be a need for traditional mechanical presses, especially for low- volume, hand-fed operations.
Achieving Multipart Harmony
Since 2013, when Midway received its first two servo presses, achieving optimal coordination between the press-slide motion with transfer automation in transfer applications has been a primary objective, according to Ward. “Our objectives early on involved overcoming the challenges associated with stamping heavy-gauge,
34 MetalForming/August 2019
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