Vice President
- FMA
- The Fabricator
- FABTECH
- Canadian Metalworking
Categories
- Additive Manufacturing
- Aluminum Welding
- Arc Welding
- Assembly and Joining
- Automation and Robotics
- Bending and Forming
- Consumables
- Cutting and Weld Prep
- Electric Vehicles
- En Español
- Finishing
- Hydroforming
- Laser Cutting
- Laser Welding
- Machining
- Manufacturing Software
- Materials Handling
- Metals/Materials
- Oxyfuel Cutting
- Plasma Cutting
- Power Tools
- Punching and Other Holemaking
- Roll Forming
- Safety
- Sawing
- Shearing
- Shop Management
- Testing and Measuring
- Tube and Pipe Fabrication
- Tube and Pipe Production
- Waterjet Cutting
Industry Directory
Webcasts
Podcasts
FAB 40
Advertise
Subscribe
Account Login
Search
Educate metal stamping staff on deploying servo presses
New materials, high turnover make in-person, hands-on training critical to manufacturing success
- By Jim Landowski
- February 4, 2023
- Article
- Bending and Forming
Training and process education is more critical today than ever before. Why? Two key factors in the stamping market are driving the need for training today.
First, the new materials and technologies that are becoming more prevalent today present new challenges to manufacturing. Second, manufacturers are facing higher turnover rates in the plant, especially key support staff such as operators, setup personnel, and process engineers.
Teaching staff how to adapt to these new materials and their related manufacturing process, developing processes using new technologies to work with these materials, and how to implement these procedures has become a daunting challenge. Training and support have been recognized as an element for employee retention.
Teaching Staff to Work With New Materials
The advent of the EV industry and lightweighting efforts in general have accelerated the use of next-generation materials for the automotive industry. Materials to achieve lightweighting include not only new alloys now being developed with higher strengths, such as advanced high-strength steels, but also aluminum and fiber-reinforced composites and other composites. Currently, some parts are stamped from a combination of dissimilar materials such as aluminum and magnesium.
These materials each have unique formability characteristics. Combined, they present additional formability challenges. Their use has spread to many other industries as well, such as medical, defense, aerospace, appliance, and other nonautomotive applications.
With these new materials, the key is not how to “work the material,” but rather how to “work with the material.” There are a few ways to do this, and this is part of the training needed.
Training Staff to Use Servo Presses to Solve Problems
An employee can learn to use servo technology to tackle material and forming challenges. A servo press can be used to adapt to the forming needs of a particular material or process.
In most cases, operators, setup personnel, and process engineers can adjust the press parameters to work with the material. They can change the press speed at any point in the stroke, add dwell, and adjust cam settings and coil line feed signals. These are all digitally controlled, so tweaking the press parameters to get the required part accuracy may be quick and simple.
Stamping personnel should understand how a servo press’s ability to control slide velocity at any point in the stroke can allow the material to flow as needed to achieve critical tolerances.
It’s useful for an employee to learn that a servo press’s slide can dwell at the bottom dead center position for several seconds under tonnage, or to hold the die set closed for long periods without applying tonnage. This capability allows the material to set or bond. This can be especially useful for forming laminates using a heated platen. Other operations, such as in-die tapping and hardware insertion, benefit from this dwell capability as well.
Recently, these servo features have been employed in processes making proprietary batteries for EVs in the automotive industry. The ability to dwell provides moderate compression of various materials. Depending on the material and application, it may be necessary to manipulate or combine press variables.
In a few cases, increasing speed during the working part of the stroke but slowing the return speed actually minimizes reverse shock when the strippers are engaged. This improves part quality.
Having the operators and setup staff change the press parameters themselves on their current applications during die tryout can help eliminate anxiety. The adjustments can be made in the controls in real time, so they can witness the effects of the changes to the part immediately. The adage “seeing is believing” has never been more accurate.
Teaching Tooling Technology
When press and other system parameter adjustments do not solve the application problem and material has been verified to be the required spec for the part (don’t just trust the “tag” on the coil or data sheet), then it’s time to reach out to the tooling industry experts.
Many times, the tooling itself and the tooling process need to be modified. With the new materials developed today—and what’s on the board for tomorrow—continuing education and training regarding how tooling can be modified to adapt to new materials must be ongoing.
Beyond the Press and Tooling
A review of a plant’s total process sometimes reveals other areas that can be improved to increase system performance. Every part operation consists not only of the press, tooling, and material, but also material feeding equipment, the in-press part transferring method, additional in-die processes such as tapping and insertion, and the unloading process. The entire system needs to work together efficiently to net a good part. This might include adjusting or syncing the timing of the feed, transfer, press speed, and motion.
Most servo presses can stamp a part slowly, even as slow as 2 SPM. This makes it possible to inspect the timing of the feed, cams, and other devices to determine if they need to be tweaked to improve throughput and part quality. Personnel can do this to minimize reworking and trial-and-error troubleshooting time.
Gaining Hands-on Press Experience on the Floor
Sales brochures, advertising, and even tool shows are not substitutes for hands-on experience using servo technology with an actual die and material in die tryouts. This is significantly more effective in bridging the gap between using traditional mechanical presses and servomechanical presses.
There is no how-to reference book that covers all these new materials and processes. It’s optimal for personnel to engage in actual working webinars during which experts not only analyze and review actual manufacturing problems but also give live demonstrations on servo presses, showing exactly how to program the press parameters and manipulate them to solve these problems.
Overturning Turnover Problems
Concerning the turnover of staff, the necessity to hire and train new operators and manufacturing support staff is constant and increasing. New staff will need to be trained.
Follow-up visits and training by OEM press builders and experts provide a high level of support and serve as a continuing resource as materials and technologies continue to evolve.
About the Author
Jim Landowski
1701 Golf Road
Rolling Meadows, IL 60008
847-437-3750
Related Companies
subscribe now
The Fabricator is North America's leading magazine for the metal forming and fabricating industry. The magazine delivers the news, technical articles, and case histories that enable fabricators to do their jobs more efficiently. The Fabricator has served the industry since 1970.
start your free subscription- Stay connected from anywhere
Easily access valuable industry resources now with full access to the digital edition of The Fabricator.
Easily access valuable industry resources now with full access to the digital edition of The Welder.
Easily access valuable industry resources now with full access to the digital edition of The Tube and Pipe Journal.
Easily access valuable industry resources now with full access to the digital edition of The Fabricator en Español.
- Podcasting
- Podcast:
- The Fabricator Podcast
- Published:
- 05/07/2024
- Running Time:
- 67:38
Patrick Brunken, VP of Addison Machine Engineering, joins The Fabricator Podcast to talk about the tube and pipe...
- Trending Articles
White House considers China tariff increases on materials
A deep dive into a bleeding-edge automation strategy in metal fabrication
A visit to Automate 2024 reveals the future might be now
Majestic Steel Arkansas fully operational
Rivian to expand Illinois facility to manufacture midsized SUV
- Industry Events
Laser Welding Certificate Course
- May 7 - August 6, 2024
- Farmington Hills, IL
World-Class Roll Forming Workshop
- June 5 - 6, 2024
- Louisville, KY
Advanced Laser Application Workshop
- June 25 - 27, 2024
- Novi, MI
Precision Press Brake Certificate Course
- July 31 - August 1, 2024
- Elgin,