Contact us today:
(847) 934-4500
tdaro@bernardandcompany.com
Contact us today:
(847) 934-4500
tdaro@bernardandcompany.com
I’ve previously written about the top ten do’s and don’ts at shows. The basics remain:
Bring people, including your reps, dealers and distributors. Some large machine dealers are exhibiting again, showing all their lines on a co-op cost basis. Bring your good tech people, as attendees want answers on the spot and they will appreciate the learning experience. Don’t say “I’ll check the guys at the factory and get back to you.” YOU are the guy from the factory the attendees came to see.
Bring your product, whatever it may be. THAT’S what people attend shows to see, in addition to those experts noted above. An obvious exception would be our client who builds machines the size of a basketball court. Show ‘n tell has as much value today as it did when the nuns had us do it in grammar school.
Be open about pricing. I know that’s difficult but even a ballpark number will lend clarity to the conversation.
Engage the media. At large shows with 1000+ exhibitors, use your agency (or us) to corral the media for meetings, a presser or other event. It’s simply putting your head above the crowd. (Tim has an Irish town crier in his family tree!)
Look sharp. I was a rarity in a suit and tie, but that’s a personal choice. My father went to work every day of his life in a suit, as my son does. Restaurant and hotel moguls.
And, lastly, bring candy…even when it’s not Halloween! Our friends in other countries make shows much more of a social event than we do in America, but that’s a personal choice, too.
Take time, talk to your agency or us to learn from our experience at many shows in many industries, each year. You’ll be better prepped to max up the value of the events for your company.
Make sense?
Tim Daro
Continue readingJust returned from my 12th trade show since Labor Day. So good to be back in touch with clients, media and industry associates. The kids at the agency tell me we’re in constant contact (sic) with our clients and the industry. That’s true, if you consider blasts, zooms, roundtables, lunch ‘n learns, webbies, social media and the other electronic forms of communications sufficient. Those tactics got us through the depths of Covid, to be sure, but as that landmark SME study proved loudly, the top sources industrials still use today to gather information to do their jobs are trade magazines (yes, Virginia, they’re still alive and well) and trade shows.
Some call me Pollyannish for this view. Anybody who knows me knows that simply ain’t so. (copywriter privilege for grammar)
We have identified seven ways you need to communicate and shows are high on the list. Why? In the case of our machine tool clients with average prices over a million bucks, it should be obvious. For consumable seller clients, the supply chain has been changing rapidly and shows maintain contact with the ultimate buyers. For custom crafted live tools and tool grinders, for example, not only are our clients a pair of wizards in engineering, but they also solve problems on the spot for people at shows. I’ve stood at their booths and watched them work their magic. When the customer or soon-to-be customer’s eyes light up at the suggested solution or unique feature on a machine that will significantly enhance their production, the battle is practically won.
Branding, of course, is enhanced by shows and by print advertising in ways no digital tactic can match, save perhaps the powerful video, which is now an integral part of our agency’s communication strategy in both advertising and PR.
Best of all…and this may seem sappy…there’s the clear benefit of personal contact. Here again, the youngsters who live in their digital worlds tell me such encounters are overrated. They’re wrong. The value of listening to a smart person IN PERSON who can help your business thrive and prosper, plus establish that esoteric but very real credibility only an industry expert can sustain, is never out of fashion.
On the numbers, some shows were roaring, others were dead, due largely to poor planning on the part of the organizers. I’d peg 65% as an average turnout at the shows I’ve attended, compared to pre-Covid days.
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Greg Groth, the Brookfield, Wisconsin Division Manager, was part of a panel discussing additive manufacturing, its challenges and opportunities
Exact Metrology: A Division of In-Place Machining Company and a comprehensive 3D metrology service provider and hardware sales company, had one of their employees give a presentation on 3D scanning and how to use it. Greg Groth, the Division Manager at the company’s Brookfield, Wisconsin location, presented at Rapid+TCT, North America’s largest additive event. Held recently at McCormick Place in Chicago, Illinois, Groth was part of a panel discussion entitled “3D Scanning: Why do it and how.”
He discussed Exact Metrology’s capabilities, with an emphasis on CT technology. Groth also cited how CT fits into the company’s business model and how it supplements additive technology. In addition, the discussion covered the challenges that arise with complex additive parts and the need to incorporate 3D scanning into the quality process that validates parts. He also shared several examples of complex projects Exact has performed over the years.
When talking about additive manufacturing today, Groth said that there is a growing need for evaluation of additive parts once they are made. “We are naïve to the thought that even though additive circumvents the traditional manufacturing restrictions (draft/shrink) when making parts, the end result part is not perfect.” He added that these parts need to be validated. Due to the fact that additive parts are so complex, inspecting them is a challenge. Thanks to CT scanning, this has become easier.
Even though CT technology has helped capture internal geometry for additive manufacturing better than other methods, there are still limitations of material penetration. Part design should think about the way the part will be inspected, whether using contact or non-contact measurement techniques.
Depending on the complexity of the part, most additive substrates can be scanned using structured light or laser scanning. However, complex powered metal substrates are feasible for CT scanning if their material properties and scale don’t impede the penetration of the X-rays on the CT scanner. The denser the material, the more power is required.
In conclusion, Greg Groth said, “I think all additive markets can find value in the scanning and validation process. With the wide variety of scanning technology available, I don’t think any market is untouchable.”
Exact Metrology: A Division of In-Place Machining Company, is ISO9001, AS9100 Certified as well as ITAR Registered.
Exact Metrology: A Division of In-Place Machining Company, with facilities in Cincinnati, Ohio, Moline, Illinois and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, plus affiliated offices throughout the country, is a comprehensive metrology services provider, offering customers 3D and CT scanning, reverse engineering, quality inspection, product development and 2D drawings. The company also provides turnkey metrology solutions, including equipment sales and lease/rental arrangements.
In-Place Machining Company: On-Site Machining Solutions In-Place, Any Place in the World.
In-Place Machining Company, with facilities in Wisconsin, Washington, Virginia, Ohio, California, and Ontario, Canada, is the premier provider of high-precision engineered on-site machining, metrology, and large scale cutting & drilling services for a wide range of renewable energy, aerospace, industrial, and military customers throughout the world.
For more information, please contact:
Greg Groth
20515 Industry Avenue
Brookfield, WI 53045
Phone: 262-533-0793
www.exactmetrology.com
gregg@exactmetrology.com
Recently launched at Eastec 2021, LaserUltra dramatically increases capacity and reduces waste through highly accurate and fast in-process measurement and compensation
ANCA leads the market in inventing, developing, and offering its customers the latest technology to realize the benefits of automation and lights out manufacturing. LaserUltra is the next generation of the highly popular LaserPlus, an in-process measurement technology only available with ANCA that gave customers the power to operate unmanned overnight with confidence they could retrieve their finished tools the next day within specification. LaserPlus was itself a game changer for the industry and already significantly faster than external tool measurement processes.
The 70% reduction in measurement time compared to Laser Plus is achieved through the new Analog measurement. The Analog measurement is a continuous edge scan instead of number of digital points along the cutting edge. This process also eliminates variations caused by machine standing idle, errors due to manual wheel corrections and the requirement of skilled operators. In its place LaserUltra has increased accuracy, productivity, and reduction of scrap.
ANCA’s LaserUltra allows the measurement of tool geometries to tolerances of 0.002mm without removing the tool from the grinder, saving time in the manufacturing process, and ensuring maximum accuracy in measurement is maintained over large batch grinding.
Pat Boland, ANCA Co-Founder said: “The intersection of 5 axis milling machines, advanced CAD/CAM software and advanced profile geometry cutting tools is revolutionizing the Die and Mold and Aerospace machining industries. ANCA’s Laser Ultra tool measurement system together with RN34 software gives tool manufacturers all they need to manufacture complex profile endmills productively to outstanding accuracy.”
LaserUltra offers customers:
Thomson Mathew, ANCA Software Product Manager said: “gone are the days of manual or external measurement and compensation for critical dimensions or profile forms due to wheel wear or other grinding factors as LaserUltra can measure and compensate within a couple of microns. All this is done in process without taking the tools out of the machine with complete control of process stability and capability. These measurements are displayed at various locations to give our customers complete visibility and trust in their grinding process.”
LaserUltra is an automatic OD, profile measurement and compensating system for ANCA’s TX, MX and FX machines. It is ideal for measuring and compensating tools to maintain tight tolerances (0.002mm) in unmanned production grinding. The in-process measurement is available in both digital and analog for fast and accurate measurements to enable productivity and performance improvements.
It is permanently mounted inside the machine and will not interfere with typical grinding processes and accessories. Using the laser, the operator can perform accurate in-process measurement and compensation without removing tools from the machine.
Thomson continues: “It gives customers flexibility to service multiple markets, supporting a large range of cutting tool applications, for example, all types of endmills or step tools — including profile, compression routers and Threadmills and several more. Furthermore, different versions of LaserUltra can cover large diameter ranges and various lengths depending on user cases. And finally, LaserUltra can generate reports which can be configured depending on customers’ requirements.”
For further information, please contact:
Johanna Boland
Group Strategy and Communications Manager, ANCA
M: +61 407799779
Johanna.Boland@anca.com
ANCA is a market leading manufacturer of CNC grinding machines. It was founded in 1974 in Melbourne, Australia where the company still has its global headquarters. ANCA has offices in the UK, Germany, China, Thailand, India, Japan, Brazil and the USA as well as a comprehensive network of representatives and agents worldwide.
ANCA CNC grinders are used for manufacturing precision cutting tools and components across a diverse range of competitive industries including cutting tool manufacture, automotive, aerospace, electronics and medical.
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Exact Metrology: A Division of In-Place Machining Company and a comprehensive 3D metrology service provider and hardware sales company, recently reverse engineered an impact driver body.
Reverse engineering involves digitally deconstructing products to extract design information from them. Thus, users can determine how a part was designed so that it can be recreated. Although the process tends to imply that 3D scanning will be used solely for product design, it can be used to address many other engineering functions. These include product design and manufacturing, facilities maintenance and plant engineering, architectural and civil engineering and custom manufacturing.
While there are many ways to reverse engineer, CT scanning was used due to plastic nature of the impact driver body. CT excels in digitalizing small plastic parts. This impact driver body was scanned using the ZEISS METROTOM 6 scout. This CT scanner digitizes complex parts including the internal geometries at the finest level of detail. Users obtain a complete 3D image for GD&T analysis or nominal-actual comparisons. The combination of a 3k detector and 225 kV X-ray enables ZEISS METROTOM 6 scout to provide high contrast, high-resolution measurement results and exceptional sharpness of detail. As a result, even the smallest defects in the part become visible and can be analyzed to the last detail. Furthermore, CT scanning quickly captures data and one scan can be used for void analysis, inspection, volume porosity, etc. A 5-axis kinematics with integrated centering table helps clients optimally position the part in the measuring volume and the control of the device and the metrological evaluation of the data are combined in a single software package, making additional software or intermediate steps redundant.
Greg Groth, the Division Manager at the company’s Brookfield, Wisconsin office explained that the impact driver body although relatively ubiquitous, presents many challenges in the digital modeling process. One of these challenges includes the complex geometry. The smooth outside ergonomics can be difficult to duplicate and interpret with traditional CAD functionality. According to Groth, “We used a combination of hybrid NURBS (Non-Uniform Rational B-Splines) modeling to duplicate the smooth, sculpted surfaces and combined them with traditional mechanical CAD features to create the part shape.” Another challenge with plastics components is replicating complete parting lines from the original tooling to make the part. These can zig-zag around the part depending on the geometry and are sometimes omitted or cleaned up at the factory. The final challenge involves compensating for warp and shrink during manufacturing, as injection molding is used. Once the formed part starts to cool, it may change its shape. Predicting the movement and compensating it back to the intended design was time consuming.
Exact Metrology: A Division of In-Place Machining Company, is ISO9001, AS9100 Certified as well as ITAR Registered.
Exact Metrology: A Division of In-Place Machining Company, with facilities in Cincinnati, Ohio, Moline, Illinois and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, plus affiliated offices throughout the country, is a comprehensive metrology services provider, offering customers 3D and CT scanning, reverse engineering, quality inspection, product development and 2D drawings. The company also provides turnkey metrology solutions, including equipment sales and lease/rental arrangements.
In-Place Machining Company: On-Site Machining Solutions In-Place, Any Place in the World.
In-Place Machining Company, with facilities in Wisconsin, Washington, Virginia, Ohio, California, and Ontario, Canada, is the premier provider of high-precision engineered on-site machining, metrology, and large scale cutting & drilling services for a wide range of renewable energy, aerospace, industrial, and military customers throughout the world.
For more information, please contact:
Exact Metrology: A Division of In-Place Machining Company
Dean Solberg
20515 Industry Avenue
Brookfield, WI 53045
Local: 262-533-0800
www.exactmetrology.com
deans@exactmetrology.com
Exact Metrology: A Division of In-Place Machining Company
Steve Young
11575 Goldcoast Drive
Cincinnati, OH 45249
Local: 513-831-6620
Toll Free: 866-722-2600
www.exactmetrology.com
stevey@exactmetrology.com
With SINAMICS PCS, Siemens presents a new power conversion system for battery storage applications. The SINAMICS PCS grid converter makes locally generated batter power usable for industrial and public power grids. SINAMICS PCS controls the charging and discharging process of the battery and helps to handle load peaks and grid disturbances via the battery storage, to store the electricity in an energy- and cost-efficient manner, and to bring the energy stored in batteries efficiently and reliably into the grid.
The grid converter is based upon the industry proven technology of the SINAMICS S120 drive platform and works very energy-efficiently thanks to liquid-cooling. The compact and robust power conversion system includes connection technology and control, line filter, drive and liquid-cooling, and can be easily integrated as a complete system in control rooms or containers.
SINAMICS PCS is certified in accordance with the “Technical Connection Rules” VDE-AR-N 4110, which is valid in Germany. This means that stationary battery storage units can be connected to the public medium-voltage grid with minimal system certification effort.
A validated Matlab/Simulink simulation model simplifies and accelerates the planning, optimization and grid integration of the power conversion system — and thanks to the SINAMICS Startdrive tool in the TIA Portal engineering framework, the grid converter
can be easily integrated into the drive world. Operating states and system parameters can be read out via the Profinet communication interface, which allows data from operation to be monitored and analyzed and makes precise statements about upcoming service work possible.
For specific product information and inquiries, send an e-mail to:
mc.us@siemens.com
Siemens presents SINAMICS PCS, a liquid-cooled, robust power conversion system for battery storage systems.
For more information about SINAMICS PCS, please visit: http://siemens.com/sinamics-pcs.
Siemens Digital Industries (DI) Siemens Digital Industries (DI) is an innovation leader in automation and digitalization. Closely collaborating with partners and customers, DI drives the digital transformation in the process and discrete industries. With its Digital Enterprise portfolio, DI provides companies of all sizes with an end-to-end set of products, solutions and services to integrate and digitalize the entire value chain. Optimized for the specific needs of each industry, DI’s unique portfolio supports customers to achieve greater productivity and flexibility. DI is constantly adding innovations to its portfolio to integrate cutting-edge future technologies. Siemens Digital Industries has its global headquarters in Nuremberg, Germany, and has around 72,000 employees internationally.
Siemens Corporation is a U.S. subsidiary of Siemens AG, a global technology powerhouse that has stood for engineering excellence, innovation, quality, reliability and internationality for more than 170 years. Active around the world, the company focuses on intelligent infrastructure for buildings and distributed energy systems and on automation and digitalization in the process and manufacturing industries. Siemens brings together the digital and physical worlds to benefit customers and society. Through Mobility, a leading supplier of intelligent mobility solutions for rail and road transport, Siemens is helping to shape the world market for passenger and freight services. Via its majority stake in the publicly listed company Siemens Healthineers, Siemens is also a world-leading supplier of medical technology and digital health services. In addition, Siemens holds a minority stake in Siemens Energy, a global leader in the transmission and generation of electrical power that has been listed on the stock exchange since September 28, 2020. In fiscal 2020, Siemens Group USA generated revenue of $17 billion and employs approximately 40,000 people serving customers in all 50 states and Puerto Rico.
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For over 55 years, Guill Tool has been providing tooling for the aerospace, extrusion, medical, consumer and commercial, defense, wind, oil and energy industries. Due to its years of experience, the company has a highly skilled team of expert machinists engineers trained in the latest CAD, CAM, CFD and FEA programs. Besides being experts in extrusion tooling, Guill is a major industrial manufacturer who can provide customers with one-stop shopping for their tooling and other select machine shop needs.
Today, the company announces its intent to offer merchant machining services to the global aerospace industry. Tom Baldock will lead this effort at Guill. He is based at the company’s headquarters in Rhode Island.
The Guill high quality standards are evidenced by the company’s many certifications, including ISO 9001:2015. Defense certifications include AS9100:2016 (aerospace manufacturing), MIL-I-45208A (inspection system), MIL-STD-45662A (calibration system), JCP Certified (government contracting), ITAR Registered (export compliant), NIST SP800-171 (cyber security) and others.
As part of this new merchant machining program, Guill offers 5-axis machining centers, high precision machining and full wire EDM capabilities, highlighted by a .008” hole popper. Guill machines super alloys and exotic metals to close tolerances. They offer state of the art precision machining of many materials including aluminum, aluminum bronze, HY-80, HY-100, Hastelloy, Inconel, K-Monel, nickel copper, stainless and carbon steel and titanium. Guill continues to invest in utilizing innovative machine tools with the most advanced automation controls and operated by experienced technicians. Guill Tool endeavors to be a cost efficient manufacturer while adhering to a continuous improvement quality program.
Guill CNC milling machines offer resources needed to successfully fulfill the most challenging aerospace parts and tooling to keep aircraft running efficiently and precisely. The precision of CNC turning is offered for quicker production that meets rigorous standards on short and medium runs, regardless of the complexity of the parts. Guill multi-axis machines can produce a variety of sizes, complex engineering and geometric intricacies. Prototype machining and rapid manufacturing enable engineering to develop and innovate solutions with the ability to respond quickly and modify parts. Super alloys and other materials are offered to benefit customers who need new solutions to remain competitive. Finally, wire EDM eliminates the force put on part surfaces. This protects intricate and fragile tooling, plus it provides higher tolerances and accuracy.
Machining capabilities range from small hole machining of .008” in diameter and machining material measuring up to 15 inches in all axes.
Typical products produced are brackets, latches, engine components, fine hole cooling channels and structural mechanisms.
For more information, please contact:
Tom Baldock
Guill Tool & Engineering
10 Pike Street
West Warwick, RI 02893
USA
Office: 401-828-7600
www.guill.com/aerospace
SINUMERIK ONE digital-native CNC selected as the control of choice for new line of milling and turning production machines
Siemens announced today that its SINUMERIK ONE CNC platform has been selected by TRAK Machine Tools (Southwestern Industries, Inc.) as the control of choice for their new VMC-series milling and TC-series turning machines. These new machine tools are intended to work in the high-volume, price-sensitive job shop market.
According to company president Steve Pinto, “TRAK wanted to partner with a large, well-established CNC leader with a global footprint for a new line of production machines, aiming
to reach a new level of digitalization — one that reflected that trend in every area of life today.”
Throughout the process, Siemens employed a consulting approach, selling the value of SINUMERIK CNC and the entire Siemens portfolio of product, software, communications and cloud-based data analytics. The transition to Siemens CNC was made easier, as conventional programming and HMI with SINUMERIK ONE had the same look-and-feel as the TRAK captive control. Wanting to offer automation in its portfolio, Siemens gave TRAK Machine Tools a wide range of possibilities, with the digital-native CNC.
Siemens is providing user support by ramping up its standard CNC offerings for the job shop market with SINUMERIK ONE, standard PLCs for mills and lathes, custom HMI screens and
it has worked closely TRAK Machine Tools for training. TRAK staff including application engineers, sales, service and dealers were offered SINUMERIK online web-based training,
in-person training, and time on the machines for benchmarking and test cuts. As always, Siemens is offering spare parts, 24-hour service and a quick repair turnaround to support its products and TRAK Machine Tools’ dealers.
In the future, TRAK Machine Tools also plans to develop a 5-axis and horizontal CNC offering with SINUMERIK ONE. The company is looking to brand-label a robot to automate their CNC machine with the SINUMERIK Run MyRobot application, integral to the SINUMERIK ONE CNC platform.
Brian McMinn, head of the Siemens Machine Tool Systems business, observed, “This development marks the first US-based OEM that has accepted the digital-native CNC concept of SINUMERIK ONE. At every stage of development — from concept to the Digital Twin of the machine known as Create MyVirtual Machine — to the prototype and runout, Siemens has collaborated with TRAK in a very unique way. The result is an exciting line of CNC machines that will significantly impact the job shop market, almost immediately. We are proud to partner with this forward-thinking machine tool builder.”
Steve Pinto concluded, “Having found the right technology partner in Siemens, we can now offer machine technology solutions to help TRAK customers confidently take the next step into digitally-enabled production.”
For more information about SINUMERIK ONE, please visit usa.siemens.com/sinumerik-one.
For specific product information and inquiries, send an e-mail to: cnc.marketing.us@siemens.com
Siemens Digital Industries (DI) is an innovation leader in automation and digitalization. Closely collaborating with partners and customers, DI drives the digital transformation in the process and discrete industries. With its Digital Enterprise portfolio, DI provides companies of all sizes with an end-to-end set of products, solutions and services to integrate and digitalize the entire value chain. Optimized for the specific needs of each industry, DI’s unique portfolio supports customers to achieve greater productivity and flexibility. DI is constantly adding innovations to its portfolio to integrate cutting-edge future technologies. Siemens Digital Industries has its global headquarters in Nuremberg, Germany, and has around 75,000 employees internationally.
Siemens Corporation is a U.S. subsidiary of Siemens AG, a global powerhouse focusing on the areas of power generation and distribution, intelligent infrastructure for buildings and distributed energy systems, and automation and digitalization in the process and manufacturing industries. Through the separately managed company Siemens Mobility, a leading supplier of smart mobility solutions for rail and road transport, Siemens is shaping the world market for passenger and freight services. Due to its majority stakes in the publicly listed companies Siemens Healthineers AG and Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy, Siemens is also a world-leading supplier of medical technology and digital healthcare services as well as environmentally friendly solutions for onshore and offshore wind power generation. For more than 160 years, the company has innovated and invented technologies to support American industry spanning manufacturing, energy, healthcare and infrastructure. In fiscal 2018, Siemens USA reported revenue of $23.7 billion, including $5.0 billion in exports, and employs approximately 50,000 people throughout all 50 states and Puerto Rico.
About TRAK Machine Tools (Southwestern Industries, Inc.)
TRAK Machine Tools is well-known for its ProtoTRAK brand of CNCs and TRAK Machines. Founded in 1952 as a job shop serving the aerospace industry, it has been manufacturing ProtoTRAK CNCs since 1984 and selling them throughout North American and Europe. TRAK Machine Tools fields direct-to-customer Sales and Service Organizations throughout the United States in many of the areas that have high concentrations of manufacturing. Where it does not have its own field sales and service, TRAK Machine Tools serves customers via close relationships with independent distributors that share the core values of service to customers and community that has been the key to the enormous popularity of the ProtoTRAK and TRAK brands. The new initiative with SIEMENS will utilize the talents and reach of TRAK Machine Tools beyond the toolroom and into production and automation applications. For more information, please see www.trakmt.com.
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New quality standard heightens performance at company, opens new market opportunities
Accurate Pattern Inc. (Butler, Wisconsin) proudly announces it has received the Certificate of Registration for ISO 9001: 2015, effective July 29, 2021. The announcement was made by the new owners of the company, President & CEO Polly Sackett and COO Kevin Williams, who took the reins from Kevin’s father, Bruce Williams, on April 8, 2021.
As the ISO certificate states, Accurate has demonstrated that their Quality Management System complies with the requirements of ISO 9001: 2015 and, further, that the scope of this registration includes the design and manufacturing of patterns, tooling and gages for a variety of industries and provision of contract services for inspection and machining.
There are two distinct halves of this busy 25-person job shop, namely, patternmaking and fixturing. Each requires a unique set and President Polly Sackett comments, “We are so fortunate to have a dedicated group of employees who can work both sides of the operation to get the jobs done.”
Accurate performs CAD design services, manual and CNC machining up to 5-axes, CMM inspection and certification plus welding and spray coating, as it provides products to the automotive, metalcasting, marine and other markets nationwide.
In detailing the story of its ISO certification, Kevin Williams said, “The process actually began before Polly and I bought the business. Our quality manager Kris Bird has a passion for excellence and he was the key driver in this effort. But all our team really worked together, investing over 1500 hours in meetings, documentation, process and procedure development.”
Polly Sackett echoed that sentiment. “We partnered with the Waukesha County Technical College to obtain their Incumbent Worker Training Grant and it helped us train the entire team for the ISO audit, conducted by American Management Technology, Inc. (AMTEC) in Fontana, Wisconsin.” The result was a series of protocols and documentation on the entire production process at Accurate, resulting in an overnight success through the certification. As Polly notes, “We had the entire document prepped and provided it to AMTEC on a Thursday morning and we were certified by Friday night. We promptly threw a party for the employees and their families to celebrate.”
In practical terms, the benefits of achieving the ISO certification are many. The company anticipates it will explore greater opportunities in its core market of automotive, plus the ISO certification opens new market opportunities. “Those are both very exciting prospects for Accurate and we’re certain this accomplishment will lead to increased business for the company, a goal Kevin and I have set, despite these challenging times and business conditions,” she concluded.
Discussing the origin of this process at Accurate, Kevin noted, “It was a combination of customer-driven need and the passion of Kris Bird, who lobbied for the ISO certification. We quickly realized the benefits to the company and knew it would be worth the investment of time and resources to make it happen.” He further commented that the entire team at Accurate took ownership for the success of the process and the result was therefore more quickly achieved.
Polly explained the process further. “Seven or eight of us would meet weekly to discuss every stage of this endeavor and all the necessary documentation. Because we have both a metal and a model side to our company, it was a challenge to find one solution to fit both departments, but we did it,” she said, clearly proud of the achievement attained by the team at Accurate.
Kevin observed, “It was smooth sailing with very little pushback and that’s always a worthwhile experience.”
One other employee voiced his satisfaction with the accomplishment of the ISO certification. Armand “Mandi” Lulo, the company’s Director of Business Development, said, “As soon as we had the certificate in hand, I was contacting current and prospective customers to let them know. All of us at Accurate Pattern are very excited and very proud of this achievement.”
For more information, please contact:
ACCURATE PATTERN INC.
12833 W. Glendale Ave.
Butler, WI 53007
Phone: (262) 781-5558
www.AccuratePattern.com
Attention: Kevin Williams
Fully automated non-manned coil handling cranes and coil transfer cars integrated with motion control and communications hardware; zero downtime after six months of operation
A major U.S. steel mill in Arkansas required an entirely new approach to coil handling for its rolled-to-order production strategy. Its engineering and materials handling equipment partner, Morgan Automation, devised and implemented a fully-automated, non-manned series of three cranes to work with two coil transfer cars accepting hot coils off the walking beam from the hot mill. In manufacturing this system solution, Morgan turned to its longtime drives and motion control partner, Siemens, who provided a full complement of drive, plc, safety I/O, power quality meters, PCs, wireless hardware plus communication software and its TIA Portal for commissioning and monitoring on the project. According to the president of Morgan Automation, Mark Sharamitaro, “The excellent reliability and performance of the Siemens solution on this project was invaluable in helping us achieve complete operational efficiency and zero downtime during the first six months of operation.”
This greenfield project involved the handling of approximately 1000 coils or 30,000 tons of steel a day at the mill. A typical coil in this yard is approximately 83” OD x 82” W and weighs 28 tons on average. As the mill operates on a “made to order” mindset, there is a dual challenge of handling hot coils from the mill and organizing their staging for shipment by truck, rail or barge, with an additional quadrant on the ground for coils heading via the coil transfer cars provided by Morgan to the Pickling Line Tandem Cold Mill (PLTCM) on the premises. In the proposed and enclosed coil yard, the walking beam would deliver the coils from the hot mill, then the crane grab would secure the individual coil and place it in the coil transfer car or on a saddle in the appropriate quadrant on the floor. During low production times, the system would defrag the coil assortment into the proper positions to conserve storage space with full tracking in real time. Each crane has a thermal imaging camera for temp sensing plus a patent-pending laser positioning system. The comprehensive data tracking is clearly displayed in the mill control room with real time KPI calculations.
The goals for this new autonomous coil yard (ACY) included the indoor facility to reduce rust and corrosion, improved coil handling to meet the shipping protocols, reduced energy costs by eliminating lift truck handling and reducing physical distancing of coils, plus faster location of the coils on their saddles for crane handling into shipment staging areas. Critical overall was the safety of the personnel, so a system of nine remote I/O cabinets and 21 safety gates was to be implemented. Integration of the entire operation was to be handled by the proprietary Morgan CEPHAS logistic management system with a rules-based engine for algorithmic decision-making. All the information management would be transmitted and handled by mill personnel, using the in-house platform and virtual private network (VPN).
With those logistics, performance goals and system integration requirements, Morgan began the process of working with the Siemens team to utilize the full range of product and software options for construction of the optimum materials handling, motion control and data management system for the ACY. According to Mark Sharamitaro, “We were bringing our established CEPHAS warehouse management system to this challenge and seeking to marry it to a single user interface, driven by the rules established by our customer, so there’s essentially a single bucket of data on each coil.” In that “bucket” are all the physical characteristics and temperature of the coil plus the determined location for placement. All these data are transmitted through a series of Siemens SINAMICS drive modules, SIMATIC PLCs and the SINEMA network monitoring server, complemented by WinCC V16 supervisory control for monitoring over long distances. In addition, Siemens offered its SCALANCE wireless suite of ethernet switches and access points to communicate the ring topology and VLAN data to the mill control room personnel.
The Siemens SIPLUS controller components were used outside of the e-house because of the higher ambient temperatures, as these devices are built for more hostile environments. Sharamitaro reported that the Morgan team actually tested these components beyond their published ratings, so his team knew they would perform in this application, especially at the moment when the crane would pick up a hot coil and hoist it up near the trolley with the controls onboard.
Sharamitaro also noted the need for an embedded quality system to identify secondary coils on the floor and determine their transfer path. As each coil is grabbed, a full battery of sensors, switches, I/O power supply, drives, PLCs and wireless communication sends information from the crane trolley directly to the control house. The three 190-ton cranes are thus fully synchronized for handling the incoming coils from the hot mill plus the placement of the coils in the transfer cars and staging lines. The information feeds the CEPHAS system of Morgan Automation, which makes the algorithmic determinations for each coil, based on predetermined parameters set by the mill. An extremely efficient and reliable system of coil handling is achieved, as a result.
Mill personnel (as shown in the video link) cannot access any of the four quadrants in the ACY if the lockout devices are engaged. The ground-based safety system literally “asks” the crane for permission before allowing personnel to access the area.
Leading the project for Siemens were Roland Najbar, business development manager, as well as Rick Ludlow, account manager, both focused in the crane industry. Najbar comments on this project, “Once we had the full requirements from Morgan, we went to work assembling our motion control and material handling product and software suites to accommodate them. The need for fully unattended operation and wireless communication in the mill presented some challenges, but our team responded with a combination of time-tested drive, wireless and PLC products as well as some newer offerings such as the SINEMA network monitoring system.” He further noted that Morgan took the Siemens offerings to new heights of performance, through the integration with CEPHAS, the Morgan logistic management system that performs inventory tracking and routes every coil from the mill to the shipping stage in a time-sensitive and deterministic order of motion.
The SINAMICS drives interface with the SIMATIC S7-1500 PLCs on this application to seamlessly distribute data and commands through a network of safety I/O, also supplied by the Siemens crane team.
Najbar also cited the intentional redundancy in the drive safety and production isolation that allowed the cranes to keep working independently but in a highly integrated manner to achieve a non-stop production environment at the mill. Through the Siemens SIMATIC S7-1500TF PLC, integrated safety is provided, along with the drives in this system. The open communication protocol on the PLC allows for C++ high-level language applications, such as protocol converters, database connectivity, complex algorithms such as those on the Morgan CEPHAS system plus integration of crane vision systems and laser trackers.
To evidence the energy savings, Siemens also provided its PAC3200 power meters that track and record power consumption ongoing in a system and efficiently communicate data over a network protocol. Another key component in the Siemens solution here was the SINAMICS S120 Smart Line Module for crane applications, which features onboard regenerative drive. This feature takes the excess motor power from a crane hoist, for example, during descent and feeds it to another component in the system or back to the grid for trackable energy savings to the customer. Further, this Smart Line Module has particular application in the crane world, as it features a line-commutated infeed that is enhanced by the use of IGBTs that avoid commutation faults typical of thyristor-based rectifiers.
Morgan Automation is sister company to Morgan Engineering and part of the Morgan Industries group of companies, which has served the steel industry for over 150 years. Morgan designs, engineers, builds, commissions and services its systems. Morgan Engineering is well known throughout the world as the leading designer of overhead electric traveling cranes, a holder of thousands of patents and designs, and manufacturer of more than 30,000 cranes. In addition to custom overhead cranes for aluminum companies, steel mills, electric power plants, refuse facilities, container handling and general industry, Morgan manufactures equipment such as transfer cars, ladles, scrap buckets, presses, manipulators and large fabrications. It has been in a close supplier relationship with Siemens Motion Control for over a decade.
For a full video on this coil handling operation, please click here: