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Case
Study 1: Ideal Boilers
Case Study 2: Triumph Business Systems
Case Study 3: Glyn Bingham Associates
Case study: IDEAL BOILERS
Atkin
provides the Ideal solution
Nearly a century old, Hull-based
Ideal Boilers (part of the Caradon Group) has remained a
force to be reckoned
with in today’s competitive market place. However,
as with all successful companies, there have been significant
changes made in order to ensure it maintained its position.
The introduction of a new range of boilers, the M series
W6436, meant that the traditional manufacturing press shop
could no longer meet the output conditions for this new
product. The team at Ideal decided to invest in a state-of-the-art
roll-form production line, and its long-established relationship
with Atkin Automation was once again called into action
as the combined teams undertook the four year product design
and development project.
Tony Blakey of Ideal Boilers explained: “We
knew what we wanted from the new production line, but were
working
with sketchy ideas and abstract concepts. Apart from Atkin,
none of the other companies who we contacted about specifications
and cost were willing to be flexible enough to work with
what we had. We decided to include Atkin in the design
team and so they worked with us all the way on every element
of this unique new boiler casing production line to produce
the turn-key package we were looking for.”
Thetford-based Atkin Automation provides engineering and
industrial automation solutions to a wide variety of industries.
It is also the UK’s leading designer and manufacturer
of press feed and coil processing equipment. Ideal Boilers
use other Atkin Automation equipment in its Hull factory,
and so it was the obvious choice.
Specification sign-off
to installation of the new production line took just eight
months, with Atkin manufacturing all
the machinery, which makes up this integrated boiler casing
production line, and the line has worked perfectly ever
since. It is the first such line at Ideal Boiler to be
tagged directly onto the main assembly line, which makes
the complete assembly of the boiler faster and easier.
The line’s function is to produce chassis and side
panels to exacting specifications for use in the production
of the high-quality models which have earned Ideal its
enviable reputation. Steel blanks of up to 1.8 metres move
through the integrated line which, in turn, punches holes,
makes envelope folds and presses in indentations before
the finished boiler casing emerges at the other end. The
one-man production line requires minimal human input, with
the chassis being fitted with a barcode label to aid quality
control and end-user maintenance.
At present, the line produces
variants from two chassis types, although it has the capacity
to produce almost infinite
differing designs. It is also flexible enough to be quickly
programmed to handle model change-overs to handle small
batches or one-off orders with minimal change-over time
of only fifteen minutes.
When witnessing the ease of operation
offered by the boiler casing line, it is hard to imagine that
this work was formerly
done by hand. In fact, the tools needed to produce the
chassis and side panels traditionally cost over £100,000 – plus
the high labour costs needed to operate the five presses,
which would have been needed to make all the parts. The
type of chassis that Ideal is producing for the new range
could never have been made by hand. At 1.8 metres in length,
the blanks could not be easily handled on a traditional
machine shop.
Production Team Leader, Tony Blakey, commented: “The
Atkin team supported us through every step of the design
process and has delivered the perfect design solution.
Even now that the line is in place I know that, if there
is a problem, the same men who we worked with on the design
are on the other end of the telephone and are ready to
help. Some of the companies who gave us quotes at the beginning
of the process were going through third parties to be able
to supply all the pieces of equipment needed to make up
this integrated production line. The personal approach,
teamed with technical know how and experience, gave Atkin
Automation the cutting edge.”
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Case study: TRIUMPH BUSINESS SYSTEMS
Ball bearing system is a ‘triumph’ for
Atkin Automation
Steel storage systems and filing cabinet manufacturer Triumph
Business Systems(TBS) has been producing high-quality filing products at its Merthyr Tydfil site
for over fifty years, and turned to Atkin Automation when it was felt that its
slide production line needed to be made more efficient.
TBS has been manufacturing
slides for filing cabinets since the 1960s, but these were the traditional wheeled
slides, and the company wanted to offer
its highly competitive market the improved quality and performance provided
by ball bearing slides. Although ball bearing slides were already used in heavier
applications, the TBS team had been unable to find a company which could produce
these in high volume at a low enough cost. In 1987, a development partnership
with a supplier led to the launch of Triumph’s own unique ball bearing
slides. The manufacture of these slides, marketed as ‘Superglider’ was
based on extremely simple, and now ageing, automation for assembly and labour
intensive manual operations for punching forming and finishing.
Atkin Automation
has been supplying equipment to TBS since 1978, and so the relationship between
the companies was already well established when the decision
was made to automate the slide production line. TBS had been looking for a
manufacturer to produce a purpose designed system for its needs since 1979,
and had been in serious discussion with several overseas companies. TBS Operations
Director, Andrew Jackson, explains: “ For many the sheer complexity of
the job frightened them away, whilst the costings which we were given by other
overseas companies were uneconomic in terms of payback and did not represent
a viable investment. However, it appeared that no British company was flexible
enough and technically capable to produce what we needed. For a while it seemed
that we were not going to be able to find a solution.”
Luckily, Atkin Personnel were in Merthyr Tydfil discussing another machine
when they heard of the problem. Andrew Jackson said: “We saw Atkin as
a company which supplied high quality coil processing equipment, it simply
didn’t come to mind as designing manufacturing solutions.” The
extensive automation experience of the Norfolk based company enabled a project
team to design the automated slide production line from Triumph’s specifications,
working closely with TBS’s production team in the final stages to ensure
that the line met with the most stringent of safety measures, whilst performing
within the unique requirements of this application.
With an estimated payback period of some twelve months on an investment of
approximately £500,000, it is clear that this project has been a huge
success. The previous method often resulted in production bottlenecks, meaning
that the assembly team had to work overtime in order to meet production targets.
The new system has reduced the labour requirement from 40/50 workers over
a twenty-four hour period to only six (two per shift), with over 3,200 slides
being produced in each 8 hour production cycle, and scrap has been reduced
from a high of 6-10% to virtually nil. This is because the Atkin machine
alerts the operator if there has been a mistake - for example, a ball bearing
missing from the slide, so that the slide can be stripped down and put back
through the line. The machine is also linked via modem to the Atkin Automation
technical support office in case of any serious problems.
Another benefit
is that the new system can produce four variants of the main slide design,
simply by the operator calling up different computer programmes,
with no tool changes being required. Some unexpected benefits have also been
obtained, a greater consistency and a cleaner end product, free from the usual
smears of grease used extensively in the previous production process, is further
reducing overall manufacturing and assembly costs.
Andrew Jackson is very pleased
with the Atkin system. “We knew that
our production method could be improved upon, but hadn’t fully appreciated
the total impact an automated line would make until Atkin Automation installed
the new system. Apart from the punching and forming operations, the machine
is assembling 53 separate components for each slide. The concept of all these
operations happening at the same time, and at such speed, in such a compact
machine is quite amazing. The benefits of the investment are unquestionable.
This truly is a spectacular machine.”
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Case study: GLYN BINGHAM ASSOCIATES
Atkin seals success for Glyn
Bingham Associates
at Klinger
With its head office in Switzerland and manufacturing plants around the world,
Klinger is a highly respected gasket and seal manufacturer, and its factory in
Bradford, West Yorkshire supplies the global petro-chemical sectors with a range
of specialist, spiral wound gaskets which are designed to withstand pressures
ranging from 150 to 2,500 lbs per square inch.
Yet this highly efficient factory
functions without the production and works engineering departments traditionally
associated with an operation that utilises
heavy presses and associated ancillary equipment to process metal strip into
precision engineered components; this is a cost effective success story which
has been brought about by engineering consultancy Glyn Bingham
Associates and
a number of carefully chosen equipment and machinery suppliers, including Atkin
Automation.
Glyn Bingham Associates is a specialised engineering consultancy
which provides project management and interim management services to a growing
number of manufacturers
to help with issues which can include relocation, process evaluation, equipment
selection and, importantly, the management of change which is often associated
which such issues.
Glyn Bingham, the consultancy’s senior partner, was
introduced to Klinger in 1999 through a mutual friend, since when the organisation
has played an
increasing important role in helping this dynamic organisation achieve a number
of demanding goals.
One of the first projects undertaken by the consultancy
for Klinger involved the introduction of a Atkin decoiler/recoiler which had
already been selected
by the previously appointed main contractor. The project was highly successful,
resulting in a 75% increase in material utilisation whilst increasing the output
of blanks to 50 off per minute, and a successful working relationship was established
between Atkin Automation and Glyn Bingham Associates.
Three projects later Glyn
Bingham Associates led the introduction of a process which has provided huge
cost savings for Klinger. The company is a large user
of pre-formed metal wire which needs chamfered edges, and its buying team had
identified that the cost of chamfering as a subcontract process was placing
a 100% premium on the material purchase cost, when compared to the slit price.
If the chamfering process could be undertaken in house surely there were substantial
savings to be made?
Norfolk based Atkin Automation has been manufacturing press
and coil feed equipment for over 60 years, and over the last ten years it has
become one
of the leading suppliers of purpose designed, automated production systems
for companies in a wide range of industry sectors which process metal strip
into finished components. Glyn Bingham Associates approached Atkin with the
concept of an automated system to undertake Klinger’s need for the precision
chamfering of high volumes of metal wire and, together with the Klinger production
management team, a design emerged.
The contract for the system, which consists
of a 500 kg capacity coilholder with threading drive and a pneumatic safety
snubber arm; a simple ‘pull through’ straightener; an edge machine
section with intermediate roll drives; multiple tool stations, tip lubrication
and recovery system and hydraulic introduction/retraction of tooling onto the
strip edge; 500 kg motorised recoiler with heavy duty drive and pneumatic safety
snubber arm and a line control system with an operator panel mounted in front
of the
machine section was placed at the end of 2001 and by May 2002 Klinger’s
in-
house chamfering line was fully operational.
“Atkin Automation was able to quickly understand what we were trying
to achieve for Klinger, and we worked together to specify and design a system
for what is a very specific task,” said Glyn Bingham.
He continued: “The system has proven reliable and has been capable of
everything that we have asked of it, and a pay back period of less than 12
months on a six
figure capital investment project has justified the belief that there were
considerable cost savings to be made by making chamfering an automated in-house
process.
“ Klinger is a dynamic organisation and there are a number of
projects in the pipeline which will involve changing production processes.
I am sure
we shall work together with Atkin Automation in the future on a number of aspects
of metal strip handling and processing.”
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