Weaving around behind four pressbrakes, two laser profilers, two punches and a laser marking machine and a power drill, visitors to Trumpf's March Open House customer event in Luton (01582 725335) would have reached the rear wall, where they might have noticed a new sign above the door there. The room it leads to used to display Trumpf Medical Systems' hospital equipment, until that business was sold for €185 million to Hill-Rom of the US last year, allowing Trumpf to focus on core technologies of lasers, electronics, machine tools and power tools.
Now, after a £160,000 refit, the sign above the showroom reads 'TruServices Centre', and the showroom beyond embodies Trumpf's new initiative to move beyond individual machine sales and support customers throughout the lifecycles of their machines. No longer will it pass on consultancy enquiries to its Germany head office, as it has in the past. Says Trumpf UK service director Lee Moakes: "Here we are demonstrating our ability to help our customers grow their business through consulting services, advanced training options and tooling and software developments, and are also highlighting core services such as the X-change spare part system."
The TruServices Centre showroom, which consists of wall units and large display screens centred around a circular lobby with catering area, aims to explain this message in more detail.
There has been a realisation at Trumpf that consultancy is becoming more important, because today's customers are simply not as knowledgeable as those of 15 years ago, advances Moakes, and need steering away from a narrow focus on machine performance specifications.
CATALYST FOR CHANGE
He offers the example of a customer who bought a TruLaser Tube 5000 some years ago to make seats and tables for canteens for supermarket Tesco and Morrisons. Initially it used the machine to replace people, but otherwise duplicated the production process, which included welding cut sections on a jig. But after product designers learned about the machine's capabilities, and the company learned about the abilities of Trumpf's TruTops software, the process started to change, he explains. "In a few months, they were lasering the holes and putting triangular cutouts, so there were no jigs anymore. They started learning more and more, and they had completely new, groundbreaking designs."
When customers are buying new [laser] machines, he explains that the focus is always speed, power, time, the classic cost of gas. "In actual fact, it's not necessarily that at all," he underlines. The real value of the machine, Moakes suggests, is what it can do in addition, and how that greater capability can change the nature of production.
He points to the wealth of capabilities available from punch machine tooling, and offers as an example the demonstration on the new TruPunch 2000 out on the shopfloor. During a March press event, the mid-range machine made a complex part, using standard punching, coin countersinking, forming and hole threading in 4 mm material, each operation supported by a 360° index tool capability, with tools taken from the magazine mounted on the machine's linear rail. To speed operations, some of the tools were held in MultiTool holders, each one containing five or 10 tools in a single unit.
Another example of the value of re-engineering production is found back inside the TruServices showroom, in the form of two nearly identical four-inch formed sheet metal brackets. One requires three bends, two welding seams and finishing work; the other has four bends, no welding and no finishing work, and is, according to Trumpf, 35% cheaper to produce.
An initial consultation at the customer's site and follow-up report are free of charge, but follow-up implementation to carry out the recommendations, whether it involves purchasing new tooling, or a week's work on site, will be chargeable, although the exact model has not yet been decided by the company. For an initial three-month trial starting in March, Trumpf has allocated half the time of an experienced applications engineer for consultations, says Moakes. This resource that may be increased, depending on customer demand, after Trumpf's new financial year begins in July. Following the Open House, Trumpf has multiple consultancy enquiries to act upon, including one enquiry from a non-customer subcontractor. That project, for a machine sales-focused organisation such as Trumpf, represents a completely new line of business, the service director adds.
More virgin territory for Trumpf is a major upgrade to its proprietary job management software, TruTops (whose existing modules include Unfold, CAD, Convert, Laser, Punch, Bend, Tube, Cell, Calculate, Monitor, Message and Fab), to be made in the autumn.
The new capability, TruTops Boost design and production software, contains everything needed to generate sheet metal manufacturing details, including part design, data import, nesting and writing NC programs for cutting, punching and bending. It does thisfor the first time in 3D, and using a new simplified approach. The software was launched in Europe at EuroBlech 2014, and Trumpf is now gathering information prior to the UK launch. The first TruTops Boost training courses are expected to be held later this year, in October.
In 2014, 94 customer training courses were held in Luton; the company is targeting 120 this year. The Luton facility boasts two TruTops training rooms and a 100-seat auditorium. Courses beyond standard operation training offered with a new machine include programming, maintenance and production support.
SPARE CHANGE FOR SPARE PARTS
In another move, Trumpf has extended its X-change rebate system for spare parts, in which the company offers credit notes of declining value in proportion to the part's age, to help customers mitigate the cost of spares (and attract them to Trumpf). The company has long offered this rebate system, should parts – such as gearboxes, electronic parts, cutting heads, infrared LED power packs for lasers – need replacing.
In the second year, Trumpf will credit the user with 75% of the purchase cost; in the third year, its 50% of its value in credit; in the fourth year the figure is 25%. Now, in addition, certain high value components in the fibre laser range, including power packs, will earn a 20% replacement credit in the fifth to the tenth year after purchase.
X-change is, of course, on top of a new machine's 12-month warranty, an arrangement that can be extended by a year, or even up to five.
Finally, when a company comes to decide to get rid of a machine, Trumpf will accept it as a trade-in. In the UK, this operation is carried out by Trumpf partner Severn Machines, which, since January, has a new international ownership structure. The Bishop's Frome, Worcestershire used and reconditioned machine dealer started out as Severn Manufacturing Systems in 1995, becoming an accredited Trumpf partner in 2004. Late last year, it was bought out and renamed by technical service manager Dan Hill, now managing director, with partners I-H&S of Aspach, Germany and Bruma Machines of Dieren, Netherlands, both of whom are used machine tool dealers.
Up close to the TruLaser 3030 Fiber (and its products)
The CO2 2D TruLaser 3030 laser cutting machine was originally launched in 2012, but a new fibre version with BrightLine technology (see also www.machinery.co.uk/60390) was demonstrated at the March Open House. This new model supports greater cutting depth from the 3 kW TruDisk 3001 or 4 kW 4001 laser available with the machine: cutting up to 25 mm in mild steel, 20 mm in stainless and 8 mm in copper or brass, with a better edge quality, compared to the original TruLaser 3030 with CO2 lasers.
For the Open Days, the machine was set up with an automatic LiftMaster Compact in-feeder, which lifts sheets using suction cups, and PartMaster out-feeder that uses two rakes to lift and shift cut parts to a conveyor that returns them to the operator. The entire system runs in a single tower behind and to the side of the machine.