Page 29 - MetalForming Magazine May 2022

FABRICATION
Press Brake’s Automatic Tool Changer
... reduces setup time by a factor of 10 and transfers much of the process expertise from the shop floor to the engineering office, transitioning the role of operators into process designers and programmers and moving traditional blue-collar work into the realm of white-collar.
BY BRAD F. KUVIN, EDITORIAL DIRECTOR
For nearly 40 years John Pahl has owned Diamond Metal Products, Inc., a high-mix low-volume con- tract metal fabrication and machining company he launched in Roseville, MN, and now operates out of a two-building 50,000-sq.ft. location in Ham Lake, MN. With his three sons—Matt, Scott and Tim—all now active in the business, it’s more important than ever to seek process improvements to maintain, if not grow, produc- tivity and efficiency, and position the company for future success.
A recent focus along these lines for the company: reducing setup times among its press brake operations. The firm’s 40,000-sq.-ft. sheet metal-fabrication facility (it also operates a 10,000-sq.-ft. machine shop across the street) is home to 10 press brakes, along with CNC turret punch presses, waterjet and laser cutting machines, weld- ing equipment and more.
“There was a time when we had six or seven highly skilled press brake operators well-versed in setup and
A peek inside of the press brake’s automatic-tool changer, which features multi-axis manipulators that pick and place punches and dies from the tool magazine based on the part-bending program uploaded into the machine control from the engineering office. As equipped, the press brake can run about 90 percent of Diamond Metal Products’ jobs.
26 MetalForming/May 2022
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