How Laser Technology Trends are Transforming Metal Fabrication Industry

Metals and Mining Review | Thursday, January 16, 2020

Laser technology is constantly transforming and has started to dominate the fabrication industry, but is punching attaining any progress?

FREMONT, CA:  Laser technology has shaped the sheet metal fabrication market since its inception. The technological step forward to unabated, with machine-makers managing the fiber laser beam to enhance the cut edge and eradicate the need for deburring.

It is always important to take one step back and look at the cutting edge technology used, that is through the lens of various successful fabricators, each different laboring customers in different markets.

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Programming for a punch or laser combo with parts choice does have a training curve. Nesting on combinations isn't like nesting on the organization's flat-bed lasers, which leaves very least skeleton behind. Nest layouts on the mixes are dynamic, based around parts families to satisfy the production schedule and growing order quantities, and oriented to ensure reliable parts picking.

At first, the operators manually loaded and unloaded pieces on the first machine, not unexpected considering the device wasn't for the production. Over the past years, the organizations that transitioned its production work away from its stand-alone punches to more productive CO₂ lasers. At present, two such lasers, both with the material handling tower, remain production workhorses. Both connect to 10-shelf towers, and one laser has a rotary index fixture for tube and pipe cutting as needed.

So instead of populating auto-index stations with infrequently used tools, the company found it could cut about 80% of its parts out of a standard set of devices on a turret. The laser could handle the rest. This part mix drove the organizations to invest in the two Amada punch/laser combo systems it has today, one with a CO2 laser and the other with a fiber laser. After all, a laser might cut apart incredibly quickly, but the blank isn't really complete until the press brake can work with it.

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