TRUMABEND V85

Despite being a satisfied Trumpf customer since the late 1980’s, Adept never considered buying a press-brake from Trumpf. This Hampshire-based sheet-metal subcontractor had progressed from Minimatics, through Trumatic 120s to its present TC 200 CNC punch-presses process but as MD, Ken Lock frankly admitted the ‘headline’ price of the TrumaBend dissuaded him from looking further but Shop personnel, led by supervisor Richard Wilson, persuaded him to take a deeper look at Trumpf. The net result was the installation of two TrumaBend V85 press-brakes.

Twelve years experience in operating Trumatic punching machines had not only exposed Adept to Trumpf quality and service, but perhaps more subtly, had created an ability within the company to respond rapidly to ever-changing customer requirements. Not only did the company widen the spectrum of work undertaken, but it also coped well with the continual ‘chopping and changing’ that short lead-time, small batch, short life products demand.

Adept’s two Trumatic 200s, backed by a ToPs programming package from Trumpf, thrived in this environment and tended to put the small batches of flat blanks ‘on the floor’ quicker than their press-brakes could pick them up.

Because of the labour-intensity of the press-braking operation, the productivity of the machine itself is not as easy to assess and quantify as on fully automated equipment. Machine attributes such as flexibility and build-quality are often regarded as so subjective and ‘unquantifiable’ that they are missed off the ‘spread-sheet’ during formal justification.

Now after two years of use Adept doesn’t just understand, it actually cashes in on the value of its Trumabends’ three main assets - productivity, flexibility, and quality of build. When Richard Wilson and his press-braking team are asked why they like the V85s they simply say that the Trumabends are –“more user friendly and more reliable.”

However, when asked to elaborate, they say that the ‘user-friendliness’ comes from the programming system, and the tooling system. The quick-change modular tooling used is so quick to set, and so accurate that they can now break-down in the middle of a running batch to cater for a rush job, and then return to the original job without any problems. They never had such flexibility before. Also build-quality has given them even greater benefits than they anticipated.

The machines are certainly more reliable – that they expected. But it did surprise them to find that machine and tooling accuracy is such that they can interchange work between the two machines. In common with their punching machines, they can pick up repeat batches months or years down the road and go straight into production from the old programme without any modifying or ‘tweaking’.

Ken Lock concludes that the TrumaBends are the final link in his productivity improvement chain. They have not only improved his press-braking efficiency, but also because their efficiency matches that of his Trumatic punching machines, work no longer hangs around waiting for bending. This saves overall time, cost, and floor-space, and when you’re achieving a seven-figure turnover from a 6,000 sq ft unit you have to keep it moving.