Lasers’ Growing Role in the Blanking Market
The advancement of laser technology has offered an alternative for high volume blanking to traditional mechanical stamping with dies. Along with the reduced overall cost of eliminating dies, improvement in edge quality and material utilization and the simplification of facilities, the flexibility offered to vehicle designers and production launch engineers by these laser blanking systems is as technologically advanced as the lasers themselves. Coil fed laser blanking technology includes laser cutting on a continuous strip, Z-axis technology for achieving higher cutting speeds and nesting software that optimizes material utilization, which is an important issue with the cost of today’s advanced materials. And, from a labor perspective, as the proliferation of lasers continue to increase, it will be increasingly easier to provide quality personnel for a laser blanking operation. This provides another advantage over mechanical blanking where there has been a continuing decrease in skilled tool and die makers.
Jay G. Finn, P.E. - LaserCoil Technologies, LLC
Safe, Economical Coil Storage: A Decade’s Look-Back
This presentation discusses experience over the past decade of various elements that should be considered when selecting a storage system for steel coils. When one takes into account the impact of a properly designed system, substantial savings in an operator’s Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) can be achieved. The methodology, assumptions, rationale and results of a TCO economic evaluation are presented herein. The conclusions are that, by selecting a coil storage solution using current polymeric design, one can benefit from a significant net present value return on investment versus wood block systems over a 30-year design life.
Steve Detweiler - Philpott Rubber & Plastics and Michael K. Baach - Philpott Solutions Group, Inc.