Leading air distribution system provider TROX UK is investing almost £2 million in technology that will revolutionise the manufacture of its products, allowing lead times to be slashed from days to hours and producing components more than 30 per cent faster than currently. The flexibility of the manufacturing cell will allow batch sizes to be reduced to one and full 24/7 “lights-out” operation will become a reality.

TROX recently opened its new Automated Sheet Metal Press facility, which comprises a range of sheet metal punching and forming technology. The facility is being implemented in two phases, with Phase 1, costing more than £600,000, designed to precision-punch sheet steel, stainless steel and aluminium components for the manufacture of air conditioning products.

Manufactured by Trumpf of Germany, the machine is capable of processing sheet thicknesses up to 8mm and component weights up to 200kg with a stroke rate of 1,200 strokes/min to an accuracy of better than +/- 0.1mm.

Pick-and-place robot technology is utilised to automatically feed raw material sheets up to 2.6m by 1.3m into the press and to remove and stack finished parts ready for onward processing. Tool changing is fully automatic, undertaken in less than three seconds by a robot arm that selects the appropriate tools from an extensive carrousel.

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