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Royal Laser Tech is a public company, trading on
the Toronto Stock Exchange, recently combined with Rea International
on April 29, 2002. The combined entity will be renamed Martinrea.
It's areas of expertise include fluid handling, hydroforming,
stamping, welded assemblies, multi-axis laser cutting, prototype,
tooling and equipment. They are also involved in engineering and
manufacturing of automotive and industrial systems, components and
modules. Each of their businesses is decentralized, centered on
areas of expertise and responsible for its own bottom line. It has
eleven divisions, including Mexico, which is projected to start-up
in summer 2002.
One such division is the Royal Laser Tech
operation on Clairville Road in Toronto, which is one of two Royal
Laser plants specializing in industrial work. This work involves
short-run production and job shop type for bus & truck
manufacturers, military, agricultural, etc.
“As a job shop,” says General Manager Robert
Watson, “we are capable of reacting to a wide variety of jobs.
Sometimes we will get larger projects, like recently we had to
produce turnstile systems for a large subway system. This ran for a
few months, and then suddenly it is gone and we moved on to the next
short-run job.”
“We deal with a variety of materials,” says
Watson, “including mild steel up to 3/4 of an inch, a great deal of
aluminum work for the military, and cosmetic and fixture work, most
of which is stainless steel. We are an industry that is typically
lower volume than automotive work, which is why we run lasers, punch
presses, shears and waterjets. We do have some medium volume work
where we will laser cut blanks and have die sets to do the forming
as opposed to straight air bending of the parts.”
“Approximately 80-85 percent of the work that
comes in the door gets touched by a laser,” says Watson. “Our runs
vary in size from one part to a maximum of 40,000 parts a year.
Since most of our machines are CNC-controlled, automation is an
issue but it is somewhat less fulfilling or beneficial than, say,
for a long-run manufacturer.
However, we did install one stacker and load/
unload system for two of our lasers because they are hybrids and did
not come with pallet changers. Automation was therefore a little
more critical for these two machines because they also traditionally
do more of our longer run jobs. These will run unmanned on our night
shifts, and when the employees come in for the day shift, they will
bend the parts on press brakes, positioned adjacent to the lasers.
Our Trumpf lasers are lined up side by side with
a new LaserMate materials handling system mounted directly overhead.
Since these lasers do job shop work, full automation wasn’t
appropriate. This system is basically just a load system and it has
a five shelf rack positioned beside the first machine. The racks are
loaded with approximately a shift and a half of inventory to ensure
the machines will almost run continuously through a full shift. Beam
time has increased by approximately 9 percent since this system has
been installed. Another benefit of this loading system is that we
have considerably less waste on cosmetic work because it places the
work gently on the laser table, instead of sliding it with a
forklift.
Prior to the installation of the LaserMate
system, the three Trumpf lasers were positioned a much greater
distance apart because the machine loading was a combination of jib
crane and fork lifts between each laser. The LaserMate system has
not only freed up a great deal of floor space, it also improved the
safety of the work area because the forklifts no longer needed to be
there. Productivity has also definitely improved.”
Right now the big concentration on automation is
happening in the company computers. “Our goal right now is to try
and automate our MRP system,” says Watson, “where we automate the
processing of orders to the cutting process. Right now the system
will demand to cut certain parts on particular work centers and our
goal is to interface the electronic ordering of parts with our
nesting software, so the system can truly plan workflow efficiently,
from machine to machine. We would also like to be able to monitor
the progress of our manufacturing in real time, machine by machine
and eliminate the need for operators to input each batch of work
they produce.
As far as automation in the plant, we do have
some automation, like robotic welding, but a great deal of our jobs
is still done manually. In a job shop environment where job sizes
and materials vary so much, the type of automation that would have
the biggest impact would be for material storage, more so than on
the machines. A great deal of time is wasted looking for a piece of
material that doesn’t get used often, which gets left in an
out-of-the-way place for the next time. Right now, automation in the
plant is essential but in our environment it’s impact is more
beneficial in a few isolated areas, than throughout the plant.
For more information visit the Royal Laser
website at
http://www.royal-laser.com/ or for information on LaserMate
loading systems, contact Advanced Fabricating Machinery in
Mississauga, Ontario or visit their website at
http://www.afmcanada.com/ or
Windsor Industrial Services in
Windsor, Ontario or visit their website at
www.lasermate.ca. |
