Change is hard and that’s why FANUC helps machine tool builders make the FANUC CNC switch!
Even though FANUC is one of the most popular CNC platforms throughout the
world and is consistently voted by Control
Design Magazine’s readers as the
No. 1 control, some machine tool builders unfamiliar with FANUC controls can
be reluctant to use them. FANUC is a Service First company that prioritizes
customer support. That means when machine tool builders turn to FANUC for
help to create their specialized machines with FANUC CNCs, we are there for
them.
Below are two stories of machine tool builders that had been using another
CNC brand and for different reasons – a customer’s request and supply chain
issues, respectively – made the switch to FANUC and found themselves with a
partner they could rely on.
FANUC America Supports US Machine Tool Builder to Supply Next-Gen Fuels
Effort
Nations around the world are advancing their alternative fuels strategies to
help reduce carbon emissions. Japan sees hydrogen as the key to
decarbonizing its economy while sustaining industrial competitiveness. The
country recently announced its plans to increase its annual hydrogen supply
to 3 million tonnes in 2030.
To support these efforts, Japanese metal fabricator Kawatex is developing
high-pressure hydrogen tanks for storing the alternative fuel. The company
recently tapped MJC Engineering, the only US manufacturer of CNC metal
forming machines, to design and build a machine making aluminum liners for
high-pressure hydrogen cylinders. However, MJC used another brand of
controls for over two decades and Kawatex was interested in using a Japanese
control supplier.
“We then started talking to FANUC and figured out if their controller could
handle our custom designed machines,” says Carl Lorentzen, President of MJC
Engineering. “The FANUC controllers are the most used worldwide, but our
application for metal forming machines is quite different and a little bit
unusual.”
MJC uses hydraulics in their CNC machines and needs the advanced
capabilities of CNCs to manipulate the machine’s kinematics to perform all
the positioning. To achieve this, MJC implemented the FANUC 31i-B 5 CNC with
FANUC’s powerful motors and
drives in their metal flow forming and spinning
machines.
“With the 31i-B 5, which is the FANUC 5-axis
control that
we're using,
there's a lot of standard features in that control,” says Chris Britton,
Account Manager for FANUC America. “But there's also a lot of optional
features that can fully customize how that 31i-B 5 interfaces with these
metal spinning machines.”
FANUC America’s engineers helped train MJC on the FANUC platform as well as
implementing the control system on their products.
“We have been pleasantly surprised with the support that we've gotten from
FANUC,” says Lorentzen. “Their technical people have been helping us many
days to make sure that this works.”
Now, MJC Engineering has started to offer the FANUC CNC platform on its
Green Hydraulic Power (GHP) product. This turnkey system provides hydraulic
pressure and flow on demand through an innovative power delivery system.
Traditional hydrogen power is typically provided by continually running at
high speeds, which wastes energy and fluid as well as creates an extremely
loud working environment.
With GHP now using FANUC’s Power
Motion i to control FANUC’s highly reliable
servos, the system delivers the hydraulic pressure only when needed, which
generates less heat, uses up to 70 percent less energy, reduces noise
emissions by up to 20 decibels and is Industry 4.0 ready.
Success Abroad as FANUC Helps Austrian MTB HAGE Produce New Friction Stir
Welding Machine
Austrian machine builder HAGE Sondermaschinenbau quickly developed a new
automated system for friction stir welding of battery trays using FANUC
products. Despite the company’s inexperience with FANUC, HAGE was able to
deliver the specialized machine to the customer in under a year due to FANUC
Austria’s full project support as well as short product delivery times.
“Friction stir welding is a very new and innovative manufacturing process
and this welding technique is predominately used for aluminum,” says Tobias
Pirker, Project Manager for HAGE.
To achieve this solution, HAGE used the FANUC
CNC Series 30i-B Plus
controller because of its high reliability and productivity as well as being
capable of some of the fastest cycle times in the industry. Additionally,
HAGE implemented a FANUC
M-900iB/330L robot, which has a high payload
capacity of 330 kg and extended long reach of 3203mm, to fully automate the
production line.
Even though HAGE has relied on another control platform brand for decades,
the project’s speedy progress proved the decision to build with FANUC was
the right one.
“The innovation of this system is the highly automated and fast
manufacturing process, completed with the innovative and fast force control
process of the FANUC CNC controller,” says Pirker.
Unfamiliarity with FANUC CNCs can create a barrier for some machine tool
builders to use the platform. However, FANUC consistently provided immediate
answers to HAGE’s questions enabling the machine tool builder to shorten the
time to market.
“FANUC impressed us from start to finish,” says Peter Freigassner-Sanchez,
Technical Managing Director for HAGE.
HAGE also attended a comprehensive training course at FANUC to learn how
best to implement FANUC’s technology as well as additional CNC functions and
features, such as using FANUC’s tool management and the six-spindle
synchronization to optimize the system’s performance.
“The FANUC experts properly supported us there for two and a half weeks to
launch our product onto the market as quickly as possible,” says Klaus
Baumgartner, CNC Programmer for HAGE.
The result is an advanced and automated specialized friction stir welding
machine that has already been delivered to the customer. Ensuring even more
battery trays can be rapidly and efficiently produced, an additional system
is on the way to HAGE’s customer.
Baumgartner says contributing to the success of the project was “a short
lead time and a programming time taking four months to market readiness,
which is already very, very good.” However, the true proof of success is
that in ten months despite “the market environment with the delivery
situation—we now see the product.”