General Turning
Automatic tool change: The turning point in turning
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Step behind the scenes with Bo Hammarberg and Niklas Larsson, Product Manager and Manufacturing Engineer at Sandvik Coromant, and see automatic tool change in action as they talk about the challenges it solves and the shift it brings to turning.
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If you look at the challenges within the industry today when it comes to turning centers. One of the main challenges is how you load the parts, but also how you load the cutting tools and changing cutting tools. In general, manual tool changes are often quite slow and are dependent on the operator stopping the machine to perform the toolchange. Normally the operator are in another machine and operate those. So the machine can stand still for quite some time before they change the inserts. So that's very much where we are today, I would say, before this new solution. In turning machines, a challenge has always been the number of tools. Since you only have 12 positions on a turret, you are often very limited. However, with ATC solution and an external tool stamp, we have 40 additional places to store tools. We can utilize the toolholders or the inserts much longer. The robot cell keeps track over how much the inserts have been used. And then we switch and change to a sister tool. And then the technician can take care of insert changes while the machine is running and changing insert outside the machine tool and the robotcell. We have a customer in the U.S. They set up a totally new production unit and invested in 40 new machines. They needed 100 new operators for this production facility. They could only find five operators which were skilled enough. So the skills gap is here and now. When it comes to turning centers, we have only talked about semi-automation, to be frank, because they have not been able to fully -automize on turning centers until now. Now we can change cutting tools both on static turning tools as well as rotating tools then, which no one else can do within the industry today on turning centers. That's the game changer, I think. The biggest technical advantages the customer gets with this solution, I would say, is machine uptime. With the possibility to multiple sister tools, you can use the machines for unmanned production. If you're looking at this new automatic tool change for turning centers or turret machines, because it's also a great feature on the multitask machines with the lower turret. This is the final piece that you can optimize on a multitask machine as well. So it's a great feature also for those machines. But also if you're looking from a sustainability point of view for the operators. It's quite narrow in a turning center, so it's really easy to hit some tools and cut yourself or get bruises and so on. If you change the tools with the robot, you don't have this risk for injuries. So if you're looking at automatic tool change at this solution or all other automation solutions, you can say, This is a symptom of what we call manufacturing wellness within some equipment, where we're working to improve and automate as much as possible. This is the future. As a mechanical engineer, I love new technology. Full automated turning cells that makes it possible to utilize the machine to its full potential, enhancing both sustainability and productivity. I also believe a high technical level is important. Automatic tool change is the next step in the machine development when it comes to turning centers. And now we have come to a breakthrough, I would say, where you can have automatic tool change as you have on all other machine concepts today. So that's a big advantage. When I started working here at Sandvik Coromant three years ago, I was handed this project. Here we are three years later, and I'm extremely proud with the machines fully up and running. We have a lot of collaboration with machine tool builders and automatic tool change on turning centers is one great example. But we at Sandvik Coromant, we don't make machines. We make them better.