Page 12 - MetalForming December 2017

Automotive Stamper Addresses
Stacking Challenges
Two years ago, Shiloh Industries teamed with automation-equipment supplier Bachuber Manufacturing, Inc., to accomplish the precision processing and stacking of extremely large, irregularly shaped blanks.
The end result is seamless and continuous.
BY JOE JANCSURAK, ASSOCIATE EDITOR
Big jobs bring big challenges. That doesn’t mean, how- ever, that solutions need to be complex. A proof-pos- itive example of this is found at the 81,000-sq.-ft. Shiloh Industries’ factory in Bowling Green, KY, which processes and stacks large, irregularly shaped blanks used in pickup-truck frame rails.
Just how large is large? According to Kelly Billingsley, Shiloh manufacturing engineer, the rail parts range in size from 57 to 96 in. long, and weigh from 48 to 89 lb. The mate- rial: 80-grade hot-rolled pickled-and-oiled BlankLight,
Shiloh’s laser-welded blanks that range from 0.200 to 0.280 in. thick. The press, a 3000-ton Danly blanking unit with a feed line, produces a set of left- and right-hand parts with each stroke, at speeds to 20 strokes/min. using a progressive die. At that rate, more than 3500 lb. of parts/min. are processed and stacked.
The stacks can be as high as 24 in., and even though the blanks are irregularly shaped, they must be stacked uniformly and with no variation because Magna International, Shiloh’s Tier One stamping customer, places the parts, as shipped,
Shown here are the stacker’s dual part-carrying gantries.
One of the five precision adjusters used for setting part-nesting stops. They help ensure precision stacking of the irregularly shaped blanks.
10 MetalForming/December 2017
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