Fabricator said that laser-cut holes in cut-to-length tube always have the correct profile and are positioned correctly, so fit-up for welding is quick, easy and accurate
Frank Klucznik of fabrication company IAE said that: ‘The benefit of automating the manufacturing process is that laser-cut holes made in the cut-to-length tube are always in the right place and always of the correct profile to make assembly prior to welding quick, easy and accurate. The logistics are also much simpler, with the minimum possible movement of material using cranes rather than fork lifts.’ IAE has used the steel fencing that secures its two adjoining sites in Longton, Stoke-on-Trent, to show its expertise by having ornate, mesh and palisade styles enclosing 26 acres on the Mossfield Industrial Estate.
In addition to producing industrial fencing and gates, IAE makes a wide range of agricultural and equestrian products.
It has a 7 acre distribution area warehousing GBP 4.5 million of stock.
IAE was founded ounded in 1969 by Frank Klucznik (Snr), a former prisoner of war who settled in Leek after the Second World War, IAE is a third generation family business.
In the two decades that followed his late father’s retirement David Klucznik, IAE’s chairman, has pushed through an ambitious programme of expansion and, together with son Frank, IAE’s general manager, has transformed the company’s manufacturing processes.
In its move away from traditional methods the 520-employee company has acquired CNC sawing and CNC tube laser cutting and profiling using equipment supplied by BLM GROUP UK.
IAE has also installed robotic welding cells in the recently completed 65,000ft2 manufacturing facility at Longton.
The site also provides covered storage for more than 2500 tonnes of raw material, which is moved throughout the building on eight remote-controlled cranes.
IAE took delivery of its first BLM machine, a TS71 CNC saw, in the mid-1990s and it is still in use at the company’s nearby Cheadle site.
‘It was a big investment at the time,’ said Frank Klucznik, ‘But we currently sell 3000 gates a week on just one line and each gate has seven bars.
Even then, it was a lot of tube and a lot of cuts needing to be made.
After that, my father pushed for the lasers and we bought an LT652 tube laser some five years ago.
It did everything we expected it to do and we kept putting more and more work through it.
We moved to 12-hour days, then 24h operation, and even worked weekends, until we bought our second laser’.
* Tube-cutting laser - IAE’s second BLM Adige tube laser is a larger LT712D model.
It was installed six months’ ago and sits alongside the LT652 tube laser and a new BLM TS72 CNC saw in the new manufacturing facility.
The LT712D LaserTube is the latest version of machines that have been sold around the world for the past 15 years or so.
With a capacity up to 152mm diameter and maximum tube lengths of either 6.5m or 8.5m, the LT712D features automated product handling throughout the entire sequence of load, measure, feed, cut and unload.
Similarly, the TS72 CNC saw is able to cut four different programmable lengths out of the same stock and unload the cut tube into four separate locations.
The system integrates brush deburring, in-line measuring, washing systems and collecting devices.
The TS72 has a capacity of 8-102mm OD with a choice of cutting length of 1.5m, 3m or 4.5m.
* Hot dip galvanising - all IAE products, from gates to cattle grids, are hot dip zinc galvanised inside and out to prevent corrosion.
This takes place in a 100m by 20m building on the Longton site that houses a tank containing 310 tonnes of molten zinc.
When it was first filled back in 2002 zinc cost around GBP 650/tonne; today it is around GBP 2000/tonne.
However, the switch to laser cutting and profiling has enabled larger vent holes to be cut in individual components, said BLM to manufacturingtalk.com.
So more of the molten zinc drains back into the tank after hot dipping.
The resulting saving on each item dipped may not be much, said IAE, but taken over the entire product range and given the numbers produced, the cost savings are significant. Request a free brochure from BLM-Group UK….
• BLM-Group UK: contact details and other news
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CNC Cutting, CNC Laser, CNC Lasers, CNC Plasma, Computer Aided Design, Computer Aided Manufacturing