Sandvik Coromant has announced Helen Blomqvist as its new President, succeeding Nadine Crauwels.
As president, Helen will be responsible for enhancing Sandvik Coromant’s leading position in manufacturing tools and machining solutions and sharing the knowledge that drives the manufacturing industry forward. Helen will report to the newly appointed President of Sandvik Machining Solutions, Nadine Crauwels, and will be a member of the Sandvik Machining Solutions Management Team. She starts her new position on 1 December 2020.
Blomqvist has a solid background with Sandvik Coromant and joined the company in 2003 as a research engineer. In her 17 years, she has held various managerial positions in Product Management and R&D, as well as in sales — having been the General Manager for Sales Area North Europe. She holds two patents and in 2018, she was awarded Sandvik Coromant Leader of the Year.
Blomqvist is a Swedish national and holds a PhD in Structural Chemistry from Stockholm University.
“I am pleased and honoured to have the opportunity to lead Sandvik Coromant, a company with a fantastic position for products and solutions that are adding value to our customers. I look forward to working with Sandvik Coromant’s management team, employees and partners to continue to develop our offering, our innovation power and to implement our strategy to lead the industry forward and shape the future of the manufacturing industry. My focus will be to strengthen our role as market leader.” says Blomqvist.
Sandvik Coromant owns over 3,100 patents worldwide, employs 7,00 members of staff and is represented in 150 countries. For more information on Sandvik Coromant, please visit the Sandvik Coromant website for the latest news.
Hydrostatic machine tool components help improve machining quality, ensure higher availability, and provide longer working life. Article by Maren Röding, for Hyprostatik Schönfeld GmbH.
Ultra-precise surfaces require high precision grinding spindles.
In order to get the best surface finish, the machine tool components, such as spindles, gears, hydraulic control valves, roller bearing parts and other high precision components, all need to work perfectly. If ultra-precise surfaces with a mirror finish are required, the machines must also be equipped with specialised tools.
Specialised Tools for Ultra-precise Surfaces
When procuring new machine tools, the purchase price and the long-term usability are often crucial. There are the minimum standards, in which machining quality, availability and the working life of the machine are not a focus.
However, ultra-precise surfaces cannot be achieved with the basic equipment. Specialised machining components, such as hydrostatic motor grinding spindles and part spindles, must be retrofitted or the task outsourced.
Best Surfaces with High Concentricity
When grinding, the best surface finishes are achieved if the tips of the abrasive particles rotate in an absolutely true circle both while dressing and while grinding.
To achieve this, a concentricity in the region of 0.1 µm, with high rigidity, perfect balancing and excellent damping, are required. This performance cannot be achieved with conventional roller bearing spindles, whose concentricity error varies over a range of 2 to 5 µm; in rare cases, 1 µm. Furthermore, these are damped to only a limited degree. As the period of use increases, the quality of the concentricity of conventional roller bearing spindles clearly deteriorates.
With hydrostatic high precision motor grinding spindles from Hyprostatik Schönfeld GmbH, concentricities <0.1 µm over the entire range of speed are guaranteed.
For this, hydrostatic spindle bearings have damping some 100 times greater than spindles in roller bearings. To achieve optimised damping parameters, Hyprostatik Schönfeld works with proprietary software.
Finely Balanced Spindle Bearings
The spindle bearings are very finely balanced, with a balancing quality of G 0.1. The lowest balancing quality according to DIN ISO 1940 is G 0.4.
In addition, as the spindle suspension is not damped, the radial flexibility is very low, which means the optimal damping of the hydrostatic bearings has maximum effect.
Doosan Robotics Inc. is introducing six new collaborative robots (cobots), diversifying its innovative product offerings. The new lineup includes four models from the A-SERIES and two from the H-SERIES, adding to the company’s selection of innovative, future-proof cobots.
The A-SERIES, which has achieved the industry’s best speed and affordability, is comprised of four models, A0509, A0509s, A0912 and A0912s, and offers payload range of 5kg to 9kg. Each model features safety algorithms that protect workers, and meets the highest level of safety standards set by an accredited international testing & certification organisation TÜV SÜD. The equipped mountable force torque sensors enable the A-SERIES cobots to provide versatility required by many applications such as polishing and assembly.
The H-SERIES models offer 1.7m reach and up to 25kg payload, marking the heaviest payload among currently available cobots in the market. Comprised of two selections, H2017 and H2515, this high-power lineup weigh only 75 kg, only half of other comparable robots with the same payload. Equipped with six torque sensors on all six axes, the H-SERIES provides the dexterity and flexibility required in variety of applications, in particular logistics and automotive.
“The new A-SERIES and H-SERIES will set a new standard with distinctive advantages such as best-in-class speed, superior performance and outstanding price competitiveness,” said Sangchul Kwak, CEO of Doosan Robotics. “Doosan Robotics will lead the growth of the smart factory industry in the post-pandemic era and drive the momentum of new vertical markets in service, logistics and manufacturing.”
Doosan Machine Tools is pleased to announce a new strategic partnership with TITANS of CNC, Inc. As part of this partnership, Doosan Machine Tools will become the exclusive premier machine tool builder partner for TITANS of CNC.
TITANS of CNC is focused on being the top global manufacturing education provider, and over the past few years, has reshaped the way manufacturing education is approached and delivered.
“My team and I are extremely excited to partner with Doosan Machine Tools,” stated Titan Gilroy, CEO of TITANS of CNC. “They are a global leader in machine tool technology and are trusted by companies all around the world. Together we will close the skills gap and train machinists to produce real parts, allowing them to compete at the highest level.”
For over 40 years, Doosan Machine Tools has been supporting the manufacturing industry with high performance CNC machine tools. Doosan Machine Tools shares TITANS of CNC’s passion for educating manufacturing professionals,” stated Jim Shiner, Doosan Machine Tools America’s Vice President of Sales & Marketing. “The need for trained machinists is greater now than ever, and in our new partnership with TITANS of CNC, we are proud to recommit our efforts to building the next generation of young machinists.”
The organisers of Taiwan International Machine Tool Show (TMTS) will be launching a virtual exhibition along with a series of peripheral physical events in the TMTS week (10-14, November 2020), instead of the originally scheduled exhibition.
According to a statement by the organisers:
“Due to a variety of reasons, such as the COVID-19 Pandemic remains uncertain, travel difficulties for international visitors and exhibitors, and the unbearable loss of temporary suspension, etc., we have decided to alternate the TMTS to an online virtual exhibition. In this case, not only can we guarantee the safety and health of our exhibitors and visitors, but also can we keep them connected.
The next physical exhibition of TMTS is scheduled in 2022. We sincerely appreciate the understanding from all of our exhibitors and visitors, as well as the partners from all around the world..
TMTS Online Exhibition
TMTS Online Exhibition has been opened and will launch a 3D digital exhibition. The exhibit contents include intelligent machinery solutions, professional forums, business matching and special events. TMTS Online Exhibition will showcase the professional brand image of machine tools, and the accurate domestic and international buyer database collected over the past ten years, continuing to serve the exhibitors. The organiser will promote the “TMTS Online Exhibition” and extend the exhibition benefits to attract more domestic and overseas resources and business opportunities. For the latest information, please visit the TMTS official website.”
Walter TC470 Supreme thread former with HiPIMS coating. With the TC470 Supreme, Walter is introducing a thread former especially for the requirements of series manufacturers – longer tool life, higher productivity and better process reliability.
Its geometry has more forming edges than comparable thread formers. The HiPIMS coating and the new type of tool pre- and post-treatment reduce edge wear and increase tool edge life. This enables higher machining parameters and increases productivity. The very smooth yet hard HiPIMS coating significantly reduces the torque. This, in turn, has a positive impact on the surface quality.
The TC470 Supreme has been developed for machining steel materials (ISO P). In practice, it has also produced similarly good results in aluminium (ISO N). A long tool life, high machining parameters and very good process reliability make the thread former appealing to mass producers such as those in the automotive industry. Users can choose from a large product range. Walter is offering the TC470 Supreme in four variants: With or without lubrication grooves and/or internal coolant, as well as with radial or axial coolant outlet, optimised for long and short threads. Dimension range (metric) M3–M10 or (metric fine) M10 × 1–M16 × 1.5 and for thread depths up to 3.5 × DN.
According to a MarketsandMarkets report, the COVID-19 impact on global machine tool market size is projected to reach USD 68.9 billion by 2021 from an estimated USD 65.6 billion in 2020, growing at a CAGR of five percent.
The projections were based on the ongoing automotive industry production drop, which is the biggest consumer of machine tools and, additionally, the supply chain disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in the manufacturing industry. Economies rely on machinery for production, and machine tools form the crux of it.
Companies are expected to recover from the recession slowly by taking preventive measures to meet production needs. Chinese firms have also become creative and resourceful to recruit the workforce. Some firms negotiated with local governments for permission to send in charted buses and even airplanes to bring back the workforce from remote regions. Others have started to adopt automation to make up for labour shortages. Some are also applying technologies to do crash training for newly recruited manual labour workforce.
Asia Pacific is expected to recover at a faster growth than compared with other regions post COVID crisis during the forecast period
Even with COVID-19 originating from China, the country has been successfully implementing strategies to control the spread, where it has been successful when compared to Europe and North America. Recently, China has slowly started its production activities with the minimum workforce.
With Asia being the largest automotive producer, the Machine Tool Market is expected to rebound faster with investments in new technologies like Chipmaking equipment, which is expected to propel growth. The field likely will see an increase in demand amid advancement in technologies for 5G communication and artificial intelligence.
Supply chain disruptions during the COVID-19 have made machine tool manufacturers, and other end-use industries realise the over-reliance on China could be destructive.
Problems in the supply of materials have affected machine tool manufacturers due to supply shortages from China, has most of the materials were imported from China and due to the lockdown or limited production, other countries were looked upon for the supply of material. Due to the demand, large suppliers of components that dominate the Machine Tool Market prioritised big companies to SMEs at the time of recovery.
Also, the recent disruptions in the supply chain have revealed that machine tool manufacturers over-rely on suppliers of key components and their weak negotiation power vis-à-vis suppliers of CNC, electronic components, casting, high precision components, and others.
When Mitsubishi Motors Corp. decided to set up a new production line in 2018 to improve its tool logistics, adjustment and maintenance, they relied on MAPAL’s shrink chucks and services
The MAPAL employees are always available to MMC with their know-how.
Every year, the production plant of Mitsubishi Motors Corporation (MMC) in Kyoto builds engines for around 1.2 million vehicles. Numerous tools from MAPAL are used for machining the engines for the Mitsubishi vehicles. In 2018, the persons responsible at MMC decided to change over multiple production lines completely to shrink chucks from MAPAL.
Cutting costs—automation—precision: these were the three keywords when the production of a new engine was being planned at MMC.
“We wanted to bundle the work,” explains Makoto Nishida, head of production for drive technology at MMC. “Over the past months, we have focused increasingly on automating tool logistics, adjustment and maintenance.”
The aim was to increase the cost-effectiveness of the new production line while maintaining at least the same level of precision.
In this case, MMC is relying on tools from MAPAL for machining the most important engine components. From PCD milling cutters and solid carbide drills to fine boring tools—tools for a wide variety of operations are used for machining cylinder heads, cylinder blocks and crankshafts. “We use numerous combination tools from MAPAL in order to perform multiple machining steps with one tool,” emphasises Nishida.
“A further challenge we faced was preparing the tools for their application, in other words, simplifying the clamping and adjustment processes,” Nishida remembers. “After all, we experienced long non-productive times in preceding projects. Our aim was to reduce these significantly on the new line.”
“MMC used various technologies for clamping the tools, mainly collets,” Koichi Fukui, application engineer responsible at MAPAL in Japan, describes the initial situation. This was one of the issues MAPAL addressed in order to fulfil the requirements of MMC to reduce variety and standardise processes. “We designed application-oriented shrink chucks for various lengths and diameters that are equipped with an RFID chip for automating the processes,” says Fukui. Shrink chucks achieve considerably better radial run-out values than collets and ensure reliable processes in the long term.
“The concept that MAPAL presented convinced us. However, the question was whether we would manage to implement everything by the start of production, including the procurement of the suitable shrink unit and the structure for identifying tools with the RFID chips,” says Makoto Nishida. It was in this situation that MAPAL offered to do all the necessary work, including setting up the tools.
“That was a huge plus for us,” Nishida praises MAPAL’s commitment, “because it allowed us to focus on other unresolved issues relating to engine production.”
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At the health and welfare of its customers, partners, and employees is of the utmost importance. With the growing global and national concerns relevant to the spread of COVID-19 (Coronavirus), Scott Walker, chairman, recently relayed all the actions that the company has been taking since the outbreak.
Safety first
At Mitsui Seiki’s Franklin Lakes, New Jersey offices and at its headquarters factory just outside of Tokyo, Japan, all are following the protective recommendations suggested or ordered by international, national, and local health and governmental authorities. Most of the company’s daily interaction with customers is via phone or online video calls—if the service issue can be resolved remotely via your staff and ours, technicians will attempt that mode first.
For those of customers who have purchased equipment that’s currently being built, construction continues in the factory and the subsequent run-offs are still on schedule. The company is in frequent contact with its key vendors and suppliers to ensure that schedules will be maintained, even for those machines currently on backorder, and orders being placed now.
Strong outlook, new technology development
The company is currently investing even more into R & D, looking several years down the road at the industry and anticipating the types of equipment and services that will be required for its customers in the next decades.
“We are all working diligently here to retain our experienced, valuable staff to continue to provide customers with the smartest and most professional team in the industry. The company is strong financially to weather this current health and economic storm. Further, since the company was founded 90 years ago, Mitsui Seiki has embraced a tradition to use these downturns productively,” said Walker.
Pat Boland, co-founder of ANCA talks about electric vehicle manufacturing, their new motor temperature control technology, and his outlook for the year. Article by Stephen Las Marias.
Pat Boland
Founded in 1974, ANCA is one of the leading manufacturers of CNC grinding machines, motion controls, and sheet metal solutions. The company has manufacturing plants in Melbourne, Australia, and in Rayong, Thailand, as well as offices in the UK, Germany, China, India, Japan, Brazil, and the United States.
Pat Boland is the co-founder and joint managing director of ANCA. In an interview with Asia Pacific Metalworking Equipment News (APMEN), he talked about how their industry has changed over the past decades, trends driving the cutting tool industry, and the latest technologies in CNC machines.
WHAT ARE SOME OF THE MILESTONES THAT THE COMPANY HAS HAD OVER THE YEARS?
Pat Boland (PB): It’s been an interesting 45 years that ANCA has been operating, starting with some very simple four-axis machines, up to complex multi-axis machines today.
One of the key enablers for our machines is software. ANCA has pioneered several aspects of CNC tool, cutter and grinder technology, and in particular, key software features. We were the first company to integrate in-machine measurement using a probe—measuring the geometry of the cutting tool and adapting the program to regrind it.
We were the first to introduce full 3D simulation, which generates an accurate 3D model of the tool to be produced. This revolutionised the operation of machines because previously, people had to grind the part, look at it, and then make adjustments. With the simulation, it is possible to completely do that offline and be very confident of what you are going to produce in the machine.
ANCA is known for its innovation. We have our own unique form of servo motors to drive all our machines. We call them tubular linear motors—the introduction of which increased our technological capabilities significantly.
ONE OF YOUR NEW PRODUCTS, THE GCX LINEAR, IS TARGETED FOR ELECTRIC VEHICLES (EV). HOW DO YOU SEE THE DEVELOPMENT IN THIS SECTOR?
PB: There are many changes in the sector, which have broad impacts in the wider industry. The pending move to EVs is one of those items. In some ways, the machine tool industry is going to be affected very significantly by the simplification of the drive train of the EV compared to internal combustion engine. That will impact us in terms of demand for cutting tools.
However, there are some aspects in EV manufacturing, such as a large number of very accurate, small gears required for the electric gear boxes where efficiency is absolutely critical. Among those are the internal gears. Traditional methods of manufacturing internal gears such as shaper cutters are relatively slow and have geometrical limitations. But an old concept, called skiving, is becoming very popular to manufacture these internal gears.
However, the difficulty with skiving is that every gear design requires a special cutter design, and for Class A, AA cutters, the accuracy of the cutters is extraordinarily tight.
The GCX is based on our TX7, but we have undertaken several developments such as improving the accuracy and efficiency of the machine for manufacturing skiving cutters. With software, we have a complete solution for the design and simulation of the skiving cutters, and the actual simulation of the skiving process.
So, the cutter can be designed, and the actual grinding path for that design can be generated. On the machine, we have redesigned several elements to really step up the accuracy. There is a new headstock, a new dressing technology, and other technologies such as an acoustic emission monitoring system. We also have motor temperature control or MTC (patent pending), which we developed for skiving gear tool grinding, where we actively measure and control the temperature of all the rotary motors in the machine—the dressing spindles, the grinding spindles, the axis turning the cutter.
I am proud of MTC – our constant temperature spindle control because from an engineering point of view, it is very simple, but it has a big impact on the performance of the machine. And it is something different, and to my knowledge, something unique. Just by changing the firmware and the drive system for the spindle, we were able to hold the temperature, and really have quite a significant impact on the actual stability and performance of the machine. I think it is a breakthrough.
TELL US MORE ABOUT THE TECHNOLOGY?
PB: What we did is, when you run an electric motor, by changing the parameters, you can change the losses in the electric motor. And by changing the losses in the motor, we can regulate the temperature. You set a set point, say 27 deg C: if the temperature is 26 deg C, the machine will deliberately increase the losses in the motor to heat it up until it gets to 27 deg C. Then, if the temperature is over, the machine can reduce the losses to regulate that temperature.
As far as I know, it is unique. The spindle is a key component. When you get a temperature rise, you will get dimensional variation in the position of the wheel, the grinding wheel, or the cutting tool. Maintaining a very accurate temperature improves the basic dimensional accuracy of the machine.
WHAT ARE ITS BENEFITS?
PB: Typically, you must warm up a machine by running it through a cycle to get to a working temperature. That takes around half an hour. With this technology, heating the spindle up can reduce that half an hour to maybe 10 minutes. That’s cost saving. And then of course, while you are grinding, you reduce the dimensional variation.
This offers users improved accuracy and stability. We are talking about lights out manufacturing. Everything you can do to keep things stable in that lights out environment is a benefit. We are currently using it in some of our machines: the CPX and GCX Linear. When this technology goes through the rest of our machines, I think it will be highly popular with our customers in terms of improved dimensional stability.
WHAT IS YOUR OUTLOOK FOR THIS YEAR?
PB: By nature, I am always a bit of a pessimist, and there is a lot happening in the world to cause worry. But the world changes so quickly. China is such a large and diversified industrial market that I think business is going to be tougher there, but nevertheless, it will still be very significant business. Meanwhile, I see ASEAN countries still have a lot of opportunities for growth.
Overall, I expect probably a continuation of the cyclical downturn—but I don’t know how long that cycle is actually going to last. However, we will continue to provide innovative solutions for our customers who may be looking to diversify in response to market trends.
