MOVING FROM TWO SYSTEMS TO ONE HELPS PENNSYLVANIA'S ROBINSON FANS GET MORE DONE
The last time Robinson Fans bought a new plasma cutting table Ronald Reagan was president. For more than 30 years, the system tackled all sorts of metal cutting jobs for the custom manufacturer of industrial fans and similar air moving equipment. Unfortunately, the passage of time had finally taken its toll. Robinson found it could no longer keep up with its workload and felt it was spending more time than needed on secondary operations like grinding.
Without a doubt it was time to invest in a new system. Robinson did some shopping around before choosing to purchase a new dura-kut table with a programmable bevel head from Cleveland’s AKS Cutting Systems. The table came with all Hypertherm components: a HyPerformance Plasma HPR400XD system, EDGE Pro CNC, Sensor THC, and ProNest CAM software, collectively referred to as a Built for Business Integrated Cutting Solution. By choosing this combination of hardware and software, Robinson could take advantage of Hypertherm only performance applications like True Bevel™ and True Hole®.
It didn’t take long for Robinson to experience huge gains in productivity. "We were able to replace two old plasma machines with one new one," explained Tim Rape, Robinson’s General Manager. “That’s less power consumption, and less floor space, with greater productivity.”
The new system enabled Robinson to triple its traverse speed to more than 1,200 inches a minute and improve the cut quality of parts coming off the table. Previously Robinson had to put all of their stainless parts through a secondary grinding process before welding. Now, thanks to the use of their Built for Business solution, operators are getting excellent parts right off the burn table. “We’ve eliminated absolutely all of that secondary grinding,” explained Programming Supervisor, Todd Spencer.
Perhaps, the biggest factor in Robinson’s success though was the addition of True Bevel. The True Bevel app enabled Robinson to cut beveled edges right on the plasma table rather than through the use of a secondary process. Spencer calls it a significant time savings for the company. “Now that we’re bevel cutting on the machine, we’ve cut our grinding in half.” Spencer is also pleased with how much cleaner their work environment is since the plasma cutting process they are now using is quieter and doesn’t generate as much smoke as the secondary process they used to use.
The time savings are seconded by Robinson’s General Manager. He compared a job done in 2012 using the old process with one a year later on the new machine. “We were able to save 500 hours which is very significant.”
In addition to the time savings, the Robinson team is struck by how easy it is to program bevels using Hypertherm’s ProNest software. Robinson’s table supervisor, Jeff Olinger, says even new operators don’t have a problem. “We had a job out at the table one weekend that needed to be adjusted. The machine operators were brand new at it, yet they were able to go into the software and quickly edit the bevels to make it work.”
Hypertherm’s Built for Business solution comes with another application Robinson is finding valuable: True Hole. The ProNest CAM software delivers specialized cutting parameters to the HyPerformance plasma system enabling the cutting of bolt ready holes. “We’ve come a long way using True Hole,” Spencer says. “I’d say we’re burning 20 percent more parts using the plasma process than we used to because of True Hole. It’s a less expensive process, and that means we don’t have to drill or punch.”
Robinson has gained a lot of productivity while reducing the amount of hands on work. Olinger says “We’re burning more than we ever did before, yet we’re doing it with the same people. We have not hired any additional programmers or anybody to do the setup for the burning machine. We've actually reduced the number of hours required for burning operations substantially.”
The combination of faster cut speeds, less time spent on secondary operations, and the ability to cut both beveled edges and holes right on their table means Robinson is in the enviable position of having a short payback time for its new equipment. The company had originally projected two and a half years, but the labor savings are so great, the company actually thinks it’ll take less than that.
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