Page 73 - MetalForming October 2012
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enclosure style to another faster than the operator can call up the new bend program on the CNC.“
With the P2Xe in production at QFI since January 2012, Altman has been able to move some 85 different jobs over from its press brakes and folding machine, including the various enclo- sures that consume about 50 percent of its capacity over two daily shifts. Over- all, the machine is running at about 90 percent capacity.
“Yes, a second panel bender could be on the horizon if orders continue to climb for our products, or if we’re able to attract other thin-gauge sheetmet- al-forming work that fits well with the panel bender’s capabilities,” says Mautone. The bender does have cer- tain limitations, including a maxi- mum bend height of 63⁄4 in., and a minimum edge dimension of 11 in.
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“While we can’t form very small parts on it,” says Mautone, “the large number of part numbers that we have been able to move over to the bender from our press brakes has freed up hours upon hours of press-brake capacity to allow us to take on addi- tional heavier-gauge forming. And we’ve even been able to redesign some of the products for our customers, to take advantage of the panel bender’s efficiency and capabilities.
“We’ve had a very strong year in terms of bringing in prototype and pro- duction work involving 10-gauge sheet,” Mautone continues, “that fits right into the sweet spot of our three newest CNC press brakes (a 10-ft. 143- ton model and two 8-ft. 88-ton mod- els). Compared to 2009-2010, I’d say our level of prototype development on heavier-gauge sheet is up by 30 percent. And of those development projects, 25 percent have turned into new produc- tion jobs, with several projects still out there.”
When asked to account for the redis- tribution of equipment capacity and the gain in panel-bending throughput to calculate a return on investment for QFI’s automated panel bender, Cama- cho comes up with an impressive 24 to 28 months. MF
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