In the Australian wood processing industry there is significant demand for compression routers (tools with opposing cutting flutes) also known as compound shear or up-down cutters.

As the demand for this product increased, Leitz Australia needed to protect its position against fierce competition of compression router supply.

Leitz, a world leading manufacturer of tools used in industrial processing of solid wood, wood derived materials, plastic and compound materials knew that the only way to stay ahead of the competition would be to decrease costs and improve delivery times.

An important part of the strategy for Leitz Australia was to find a suitable tool and cutter grinding machine that met their requirements.

Charles Joel, National Manager of Production/Service at Leitz Australia, said: “Leitz identified that to meet market demands, the machine had to be highly productive and satisfy the exacting tolerances set by Leitz. Local customer service and applications support was another important aspect.”

After an extensive review of several tool and cutter grinding machines, Leitz concluded the ANCA FX7 Linear CNC grinding machine was the best machine on the market to meet their needs.

They installed the grinding machine last year, which was configured with a high capacity Fanuc robot loader, ANCA Motions cylindrical LinX linear motor, full size touchscreen at 19” and a handheld pendant for simplified setups.

Time savings

“After three days of basic operator training, the machine was operating at full production capacity, said Mr Joel. “Since the FX7 was installed it has produced almost 10,000 tools so we have been thrilled with the machine uptime.”

The flexible software and time savings was another important feature.

“Using the 3DCimulation software on our offline PC means we can verify the next tool type to be produced, while the machine is in use grinding tools,” said Mr Joel.

“The 3DCim software can check and calculate all aspects of the tool, including dimensions, geometry, profiles, etc. which is critical when measuring items such as core diameter prior to grinding to avoid any production problems. The software saves time on tool design, reduces grinding setup time and ensures accurate tools are ground first time at the start of grinding a batch of tools, resulting in actual cost savings.”

Mr Joel said one of the advantages of the FX7 is the reduction in delivery times.

The machine has a robot loader for fast production of special tools in large quantities that can now be delivered within days.

Further, it has a capacity to manufacture up to 320 pieces for Ø8mm routers (maximum of 840 pieces for Ø3mm).

“And the loader has four times the capacity of the machine we previously used to produce compression routers,” Mr Joel said.

Industry 4.0

Not all production runs need to be in large quantities.

The ANCA FX7 can do multiple tool types of the same diameter size in the one pallet. Small batches of 5-10 tools of 30 different tool types can be done in the one production setup.

“As Australian manufacturing is moving towards Industry 4.0 and to be in line with the rest of the world we wanted the latest advances from ANCA in this area,” said Mr Joel.

ANCA offers a software package called Management Suite (a tool management, wheel management and production monitoring system).

“Our production efficiency and machine monitoring is critical to sustaining profitability and be competitive in the modern world. Management Suite is a game changer for the CNC grinding industry, enabling us to monitor operational performance of the FX7 which delivers live production data to make informed operational improvements,” Mr Joel added.

Relatively small footprint

ANCA’s Machine Notification Software (MNS) has a feature to remind customers when maintenance tasks are due. This results in continual productivity and the reduction of machine downtime.

Despite the FX Linear machine’s large working envelope, it maintains a relatively small footprint. Every item of the FX Linear machine, from the positioning of the grinding wheel on the C-axis centreline (to reduce thermal influence), to the Fanuc robot which loads both tools and grinding wheels (up to 6 wheel packs), have been aimed at enhancing accuracy, increasing productivity and making operator’s tasks significantly easier.

And to save energy the FX7 comes with an idle shut off feature which can be programed to shut the machine down completely when it is idle for a set period of time.

“This allows the machine to start a tool production run on Friday and when finished over the weekend, it will automatically shut down the machine, saving in power consumption,” said Mr Joel.

The ANCA FX7 Linear machine at Leitz Australia (from left) Charles Joel, Chris Jones (Leitz) with Andrew Ritchie (ANCA)