Flexible machine
In the industry, in the last ten years, pushed from the automotive sector, new production methodologies according to the Lean concept are becoming more and more common: in particular, companies that can be competitive on small production batches (producing only what is necessary) instead of manufacturing high quantities at low prices, with the risk of keeping high stock levels, are rewarded with success.
If in the automotive sector this method is since longer time a consolidated strategy, in the HVAC and sanitary industry this tendency has spread out slowly and in a non standardized way, mainly due to the high number of small sub suppliers for hot forged components.
From the bigger players the urgency toward the machine manufacturers is in any case very evident: more than high-productivity equipment, are the machines that can grant very fast set-up and extremely short production change-over time the most requested units.
The second must of the “Lean” work methodology is the zeroing of the waste and dispersions, or in other words, of the useless productions because of defected parts.
To this goal, the most requested ability of the machine is the always deeper control of the forging process: the machine must be able to collect, read and control as many as possible forging parameters, which are crucial for getting a stable-quality output. The machine must as well record these parameters, first to carry out statistical evaluations on the recurrence of deviations from the set standards, and second to allow to conduct analysis (at least at batch level, since the products are not singularly marked and identified) even on later stages, in case of customer complaints.
Mecolpress has in the production program a series of forging presses that are fulfilling in total the above-mentioned requirements:
the ME hydraulic presses range.
The hydraulic presses are designed to reduce the batch change time.