Diacarb was founded in 1981 in an industrial area near Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport in Montreal. But a lot has changed since its beginnings. In the early 2000s, Bissonnette’s focus was transitioning the shop from the high-mix, low-volume space to production machining.
“This shift required us to focus on automation,” said Bissonnette. “From machines with bar feeders, pallet changers, twin spindle machines with part catchers, we looked at all different kinds of automation and incorporated it on our shop floor. The goal was to automate enough so that the machines can run on their own; a true lights-out operation.”
The company employs 32 people at its 22,000-sq.-ft. facility, which includes 13 CNC machines that run across three shifts, seven days per week. From Monday-Thursday, employees work one of two 10-hour shifts. The third shift runs 12 hours from Friday-Sunday. That means the shop is left unattended for four hours each day Monday-Thursday and for 12 hours each day Friday-Sunday.
“We try to have some machines running in these times that nobody is at the shop,” said Bissonnette. “Depending on the part and the machine, we can run lights out. In our milling department, we have horizontal and vertical machining centres, and all have a pallet changer.”
As the shop expands into more lights-out operations, pallet pools may become necessary. However, the initial investment cost and the high-mix, low-volume nature of this type of equipment doesn’t necessarily lend itself well to Diacarb’s current production focus.
In the meantime, the company has found several ways to increase productivity and better serve its customers.
Eliminating Machine Setups
Recently, Bissonnette and his team have been working to eliminate machine setup.
“We decided to start this new project and implement a zero-clamping system on a tombstone,” said Bissonnette.“This is going to help us be able to easily remove and put the setup back on the machine. Also, we will have permanent standard tooling. So instead of always having to remove the tools from the toolholders, we're going to keep the tools on the toolholders until they're worn, or the tool life is expired.”
This will enable the shop to work in batches, where it can remove complete setups from the tombstone and tools from the machine and easily put them back on when the project comes up for production again.
Pour lire l'article complet : New automation cell helps set Diacarb up for lights-out operations (canadianmetalworking.com)
