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Radbend “Bends By Numbers” for Print Finishing Specialists

One of the world’s leading manufacturers of print finishing equipment says using the universal Radbend software on its LVD press brake means folding its sheet metal components is almost like “bending by numbers.”

With over 15,000 of their finishing machines installed at customers’ premises in more than 80 countries, every sheet metal component that goes into making them, passes through Radan – the world’s most powerful sheet metal CAD/CAM software – including those for a unique book spine-forming system.

Traditionally, once a number of printed sheets have been folded into a booklet they tend to spring open, but Watkiss Automation have patented a machine that keeps the spine square, creating a flat booklet, even on documents around 200 pages thick. There are only five companies in the world to offer bookmaking machines, and Watkiss pioneered this SquareBack book style.  They work with a number of partners who distribute the Watkiss brand around the globe, as well as producing finishing equipment for a number of printer manufacturers such as Océ, Xerox, Konica Minolta, Ricoh and Kodak.

The booklets created on Watkiss finishing machines include product manuals, financial reports, lecture notes, examination papers, sheet music, and brochures.
  
As part of a quest to create a leaner manufacturing process, they replaced their three manual set-up press brakes that had simple CNC back gauges, with the LVD 3-metre press brake (pictured left)  which has a Cadman touch controller and Easyform measuring system. Previously, bending the punched components produced on their Amada Vipros 358 King punch press was extremely time consuming, as the operator manually worked out the bends and bend sequence from the drawing, and then physically tried it with a piece of metal.

Technical Director Mike Watkiss (pictured right)says if they didn’t run all three manual press brakes at the same time, the bending operation formed a bottleneck. “Once the bend sequence had been created during the prototyping, it still took about 15 minutes to set up a machine for each individual bend for the production run, and a part may have 2 or 3 bends. So if we were making 2 parts it’d take about an hour to set up. Now, with the new LVD driven by Radbend, it takes around 7 minutes. Also, because the programming is done offline in the office, the machines can be used for production at the same time, and we see the entire process on the computer simulation before it even gets to the press brake.

“You don’t need to be a skilled sheet metal worker, or even understand how to bend, to operate a press brake driven by Radan. The machine tool and program comes through from the computer to the press brake in an easy to understand format showing exactly the sequence to follow. It’s almost like bending by numbers.”

A combination of using Radbend in conjunction with the ability to create nests for multi parts through Radan’s TrueShape nester, has proved to be essential to the new, leaner way that Watkiss Automation operates. “While we want to create multiple parts in short runs now, we still need to be able to fill a sheet, and Radan’s TrueShape nester does that for us. Historically we’d just fill a sheet with the same part. Even if we only needed 10 and a sheet would hold 35, we’d punch all 35 and put the rest into stock, as we didn’t want to waste material. That meant we’d be clogging up the production flow with parts that were going to stock, and our stores would be getting bigger.”

On an average week they may need to make about 245 different parts, comprising around 3,500 individual components, frequently including a number of new R & D parts, which, thanks to the TrueShape nester, can be nested on the same sheets as the production run. In addition, Radan gives them the capability to nest parts from across the full range of their print finishing machines on the same nests.

Manufacturing from a number of thin metals, usually 3mm or less, including stainless steel, mild steel and Zintec, it is essential for them to nest by material, because of the different die clearances. “We use three different die clearances so the punching is grouped within the required clearance, and we use the tooling option to minimise tool changes,” says Mike Watkiss. “By optimising the tool changes and sheets we can often change programs with no tool changes.”

As Radnest ensures the best material utilisation in this way it is contributing significantly to their bottom line. “Cutting wastage to an absolute minimum is very important to us, because wasting material is wasting profit. We’ve been using Radan since 1988, and it’s played a major part in helping us develop our lean manufacturing process.”

Another key feature of Radan which aids their lean manufacturing philosophy, is the ability to define a symbol of the component including tooling information. “Because we have repeat production we need to be able to lay down the components without worrying about whether they can be properly punched and folded. The symbol defines both how the part is made, and the tooling. It then becomes the item that can be called in at any time to be manufactured within our usual tolerance of 0.1mm.” 

A family run business, with six members of the Watkiss family now working there, the company has around 75 employees operating out of three factories, totalling 45,000 square feet, in Bedfordshire.

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