Form & Verktyg AB Lööf is a company with a long tradition in the design and manufacture of mould tools for thermoplastics.
The company was set up in the early 1960s by Valter Lööf together with two friends. By the mid-1970s, the time had come for the next generation of Lööfs, sons Ronny and Benny, to step on to the stage.
Today the company, with its 13 employees, concentrates entirely on small and medium-sized tools for injection moulding machines. And they’ve taken the first step into automated tool production.
Ronny Lööf, maintaining the family tradition.
Ronny Lööf is a man who thinks, and he doesn’t find it hard to say what he thinks: “Today, 80 % of mould tools used in Sweden are imported. It’s an inescapable fact that the major share of toolmaking has already been lost to the low-price countries. It’s almost as if toolmaking and injection moulding are among the first steps in the industrialisation of developing countries.”
“What we have to do now is to focus on big orders for several tools and on more complex tools. And we need to cooperate, either in formal or informal groups. The chances of small toolmakers surviving alone are zero. I’m convinced that greater cooperation is essential to combat the competition from outside.”
Toolmakers are a dying breed. Today’s way is tool production in high-technology machines, where specialists at each machine is responsible for both preparation and machining. Manned or unmanned. Craftsmanship has become high technology. Skilled older men have been replaced by well-trained machine operators.
“There’s no doubt about it, automation is essential if we want to keep mould tool production alive in Sweden,” Ronny insists. “Mainly for strictly economic reasons – costly machines must be kept going day and night – skilled people are hard to find – competent personnel don’t like working shifts – but also because it increases self-confidence in the workshop. The personnel sense the increased competitiveness and their confidence in the future grows.”
One cell for electrode manufacture, consists of two Fanuc Robodrill Alpha machines served by a System 3R WorkMaster.
In the other, for the production of mould bases, a WorkMaster serves two Johnford-designed milling machines.
“We’d been considering automation for a long time, but the critical point was reached when one of our die-sinking EDM machines broke down totally. An investment was necessary, and it felt natural to make the move to automation. We chose a Charmilles Roboform 35P with System 3R’s WorkMaster automation solution, together with the WorkShopManager ID and planning system.”
“What a success” exclaims Ronny, “this production cell exceeds all our expectations. Simple operation. Easy to get started. We were running proper jobs from the first week. And the rate it works at! We expected the cell to take on a major part of the EDM work, but it handles practically all of it. Now we only use the other two die-sinking EDMs sporadically.”
The magazine configuration in the EDM cell is as follows – six Dynafix pallets with workpieces. 50 electrodes on Macro holders and 96 electrodes on MacroJunior holders. According to Ronny Lööf, MacroJunior electrodes are used for 80 % of the burning time. And the capacity will soon be increased with a further magazine for this size of electrode.
“Still, it’s important to remember,” continues Ronny, “that installing and commissioning an automatic cell calls for skilled employees and a structured operation. And that’s what ours was. Palletised workpieces and electrodes. Presetting away from the machines. A well-functioning local network, including design, preparation, electrode manufacture, measurement and machines for machining.” We saw an example of this structuring in the ‘electrode carriages’ with special racks, which rolled fully loaded away from the electrode manufacturing machines to the measuring room and on to the EDM machines.
“Now we’ve ‘tasted blood’, and the next step will be to automate electrode manufacturing,” Ronny says. Currently, electrodes are made in two identical multi-operation machines (15 000 rpm), where palettes with five electrode blanks are set up at one time. The idea is to install a second WorkMaster, which will serve both machines. In other words, a double cell!
“We need to keep the work-hungry EDM cell supplied with electrodes,” says Ronny. The fact is, the EDM cell is so efficient that it has some over-capacity at present. At the same time, the group of three multi-operation machines that machine the mould bases is heavily loaded.
“Some people might think it cheeky,” laughs Ronny, “but sometimes we move the last ‘slice’ from the multi-op to the EDM cell, which does the work overnight, when the operators have gone home to renew their energy for the next day. And by the way, have I told you what’s happened to our lead times…?”
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Related links:
WorkMaster
WorkShopManager
Automation in general