With the arrival of the Yamada Dobby NXT 80XL, Brandauer has topped off the £2 million modernisation of its facility, a spend which has also included a new GF wire-cut EDM machine, two Andmar surface grinders and an OGP Smartscope Vantage 250 to help with inspection.
Don Walters, operations manager at Brandauer, says: “We first came across the press at Blechexpo and were impressed with what we saw in terms of its speed, repeatable quality and usability. Our subsequent visit to their showroom in Italy gave us the chance to see the Yamada in all its glory, and we worked with their experts to configure the machine so it delivers the accuracy and performance required.”
It took just nine months from the order being placed for the Yamada NXT 80XL press to be installed and commissioned, with the machine now working on components that use material ranging in thickness from 0.2 to 0.8 mm. The 1.5 m bed is the largest the company currently has available, and it can operate at speeds of between 100 and 800 strokes per minute.
Karl Jeavons, press shop team leader at Brandauer, went on to add: “The quality is second to none and we run off thousands and thousands of components every day, thanks in part to the double link motion mechanism that delivers Yamada’s repeatability, while helping to prolong the life of the tool.
“What really impressed is how easy the press is to set-up and use, reducing the set-up time in some instances from 3.5 hours to 6 minutes,” he adds. “This is due to the simple user interface, which is capable of storing up to 1,000 different set-ups. Once the initial setting work is done, a semi-skilled setter can take over for all future runs of the same product. This massively releases resources, giving us the ability to move engineers to different projects so that we can run jobs simultaneously.
“Other benefits that the Yamada delivers, include proven low maintenance, excellent standard-fit equipment, and SMED and Industry 4.0 capabilities to futureproof the press going forward.”
Building on the installation, Brandauer’s manufacturing environment has been assigned as a technology showcase partner for Yamada Dobby, with a number of open houses planned for later in the year.
