Based near Hannover is Haas Automation customer, Dürkopp Adler AG, well known manufacturer of industrial sewing machines. As well as its facility in Germany, the company has another two manufacturing plants: there’s one in Minerva, in the Czech Republic, and one in Romania. Under increasing competitive pressure from the Far East, Dürkopp Adler is undergoing a long-term restructuring and retooling programme, including standardizing most its CNC machine tools and machining operations.
Frank-Michael Kuhnt – Group Head of Production, Sales and Logistics: We are competing with manufacturers based in China and the Far East, but we want to keep as much of our production as possible in Germany. So, our aim is to ensure all manufacturing operations can be controlled and monitored closely from here, in Bielefeld. For example, one centralized server will share all programmes and CAD drawings, etc., and all machining and production data will be presented in real-time.
The business in Minerva employs seventeen Haas CNC machines, supported by local Haas Factory Outlet, Teximp. The factory in Biefel, which also houses the company’s business and marketing teams, has four Haas CNC machine tools, supported by HFO ARO-tec.
Currently there are only Haas vertical machining centres at this plant. We have a Haas EC-400, for when we need to use more tools – the machine has 72, and when we need to reduce set-up times for a part. We have a similar machine doing similar jobs at our Romania factory. Batch sizes can be anything from 10 – 1000 off. But, there are 15,000 different parts, most of which need 4-axes to machine, so we also use Haas CNC rotary tables. We group parts in families, so it’s quick and easy to assign parts to machines.
The standard table on our Haas VF-6 vertical machining centre is big enough that we can easily mount three fixtures. We use it mostly for small quantities of a part – it’s quick to set-up.
Many of our Haas machines are considerably more than 10-years old. However, the older machines are still going strong and have served us very well. Of course, we get much better production with the newer Haas machines – probably 20-30% better, so our aim is to replace them all, eventually.
We have a very thorough strategy for the next 4 years, taking the company to 2020. Part of the plan is to standardize machine types as much as possible – to focus on Haas. They’re such good value we easily earn back in time savings what we invest.
We’re particularly interested in the latest Haas turning centres, as they can provide affordable Y-axis and live tooling. On all Haas machines, stability is excellent. This matters a lot for the parts we make, as they’re so small and tolerances are tight.
Our intention is to machine all the critical steel parts here in Germany; probably 60-70,000 parts a year. However, where we used to employ 3000 people, locally, we now only have 250, so productivity is the issue. Investing in Haas means we can move away from complex, expensive machines, which are no longer cost-effective. When we make healthy profits, we can continue to invest.
