EMO Hannover TRENDSPOTS — Discover the product innovations of the world of metalworking: No. 3

Pilot cus­tomer en route to EMO Han­nover 2019 

Schütte ECX
Schütte ECX

As a Siemens pilot cus­tomer, GEORG is attend­ing EMO Han­nover 2019 to unveil the dig­i­tal twin for two of its machine tools, mak­ing it one of the world’s first man­u­fac­tur­ers to have already tak­en the next con­crete step in the dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion – with the new gen­er­a­tion of CNC, Sinu­merik ONE.

Until recent­ly, the engi­neer­ing of large machine tools would usu­al­ly fol­low the same sequence. While the pro­to­type was being devel­oped and built, the soft­ware would be pro­grammed at the same time – and the process­es and work­flows would only be brought togeth­er and opti­mized dur­ing com­mis­sion­ing. How­ev­er, this approach is fun­da­men­tal­ly chang­ing with the advent of the “dig­i­tal twin”. Using the next gen­er­a­tion in CNC tech­nol­o­gy, Sinu­merik ONE – which Siemens is unveil­ing to the pub­lic for the first time at EMO Han­nover 2019 – all devel­op­ment process­es can be mapped before­hand in a vir­tu­al envi­ron­ment. Siemens gives the fol­low­ing exam­ple: While a machine is still being man­u­fac­tured, the con­trol soft­ware is not only writ­ten, but also test­ed in a vir­tu­al world. At the same time, future users are trained on oper­a­tor con­soles that exact­ly match those of the machine that will ulti­mate­ly be delivered.

As a spe­cial­ist in machine tools and a pilot cus­tomer of Siemens, Hein­rich GEORG GmbH has already imple­ment­ed the dig­i­tal twin in the form of Sinu­merik ONE for two of its machines – the GEORG ultra­grind SG2 grind­ing machine and the GEORG ultra­mill H mov­ing col­umn milling machine. The com­pa­ny aims to grad­u­al­ly offer fur­ther machine tools that fea­ture this new con­trol tech­nol­o­gy, which is geared toward dig­i­ti­za­tion from the very out­set. But GEORG is tak­ing things one step fur­ther. Run­ning high-capac­i­ty machines to process com­plex work­pieces pos­es spe­cial con­trol and oper­at­ing demands, so the com­pa­ny has devel­oped its own intu­itive con­trol sys­tem based on Sinu­merik ONEGEORG smart­con­trol UG. With this sys­tem, the dig­i­tal twin can be used for train­ing and test­ing pur­pos­es – in com­bi­na­tion with either the actu­al oper­a­tor con­sole or a vir­tu­al equiv­a­lent. Dr. Wieland Klein, CTO at GEORG, is cer­tain the dig­i­tal twin will deliv­er tremen­dous ben­e­fits for his cus­tomers: “The GEORG dig­i­tal twin is key to the dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion of our machines. It allows us to sim­u­late and test our cus­tomers’ oper­a­tions in a com­plete­ly vir­tu­al envi­ron­ment. Thanks to the inter­play between the vir­tu­al and the phys­i­cal machine com­bined with GEORG’s engi­neer­ing know-how, our high-capac­i­ty machines and the new high-per­for­mance Sinu­merik ONE soft­ware, our cus­tomers are sure to ben­e­fit from sig­nif­i­cant pro­duc­tiv­i­ty gains in man­u­fac­tur­ing. As a Siemens pilot cus­tomer, we are the first to offer appli­ca­tions based on this ground­break­ing new system.”

Hein­rich GEORG GmbH (57223 Kreuz­tal, Ger­many), Hall 13, Stand A64

Con­tact: Dr.-Ing. Uwe Stein

Tel.: +49 241 89468–55

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Turn­ing a mar­ket gap into a niche market

The Schütte Group has its sights set on the gap between tra­di­tion­al sin­gle-spin­dle machines and cost­ly mul­ti-spin­dle solu­tions. Its solu­tion is its very first sin­gle-spin­dle auto­mat­ic lathe, which is mak­ing its debut at EMO Han­nover 2019 as part of the group’s new ECX series.

The Schütte Group is one of the world’s lead­ing man­u­fac­tur­ers of machine tools, par­tic­u­lar­ly mul­ti-spin­dle auto­mat­ic lath­es and 5‑axis CNC grind­ing machines. The group’s new­ly devel­oped ECX series offers a com­plete­ly new sys­tem that promis­es poten­tial cus­tomers opti­mum per­for­mance and max­i­mum pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, even for com­plex parts. The very first sin­gle-spin­dle auto­mat­ic lathe in the company’s his­to­ry com­bines the know-how and speed of the mul­ti-spin­dle world with the user-friend­li­ness of sin­gle-spin­dle machines. The inno­v­a­tive ECX series is now mak­ing its debut in an ide­al set­ting – EMO Han­nover 2019, the world’s pre­mier trade fair for the met­al­work­ing sector.

Schütte aims to give users of its new machine con­cept the option of man­u­fac­tur­ing small­er batch sizes at high rates of pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, as sales man­ag­er Peter-Hans Schmidt explains. “This new machine is very ver­sa­tile and can achieve per­for­mance lev­els between those of con­ven­tion­al sin­gle-spin­dle and mul­ti-spin­dle auto­mat­ic lath­es,” he says of the strat­e­gy. “Our solu­tion achieves sig­nif­i­cant­ly high­er pro­duc­tiv­i­ty lev­els than sin­gle-spin­dle machines, and we plan to grow our mar­ket share with cus­tomers that man­u­fac­ture larg­er batch sizes.” For him, the under­ly­ing fig­ures speak for them­selves: A mul­ti-spin­dle lathe costs about five times more than a sin­gle-spin­dle unit, but can also increase pro­duc­tiv­i­ty sev­en­fold. The ECX bridges the wide gap between these two vari­ants. “We antic­i­pate a great deal of inter­est from the many com­pa­nies that con­sid­er a mul­ti-spin­dle machine too expen­sive, but can’t do every­thing they need to on a sin­gle-spin­dle machine. Now there’s final­ly a solu­tion for them.”

Alfred H. Schütte GmbH & Co. KG Werkzeug­maschi­nen­fab­rik (51105, Cologne, Ger­many), Hall 17, Stand D08

Con­tact: Christoph Schiffer

Tel.: +49 221 8399–233

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This group has a good grip on clamp­ing technology! 

The ROEMHELD Group is shin­ing a spot­light on the dig­i­tal­iza­tion and automa­tion of man­u­fac­tur­ing process­es at EMO Han­nover 2019, while also show­cas­ing a whole host of new clamp­ing solutions.

ROEMHELD, HILMA and STARK – the three brands of the Hesse-based ROEMHELD Group – are among the world’s mar­ket lead­ers for high-pro­duc­tiv­i­ty solu­tions in indus­tri­al man­u­fac­tur­ing, assem­bly, clamp­ing and dri­ve tech­nol­o­gy. The com­po­nents, prod­ucts and sys­tems they offer promise, above all, to make pro­duc­tion more effi­cient and more flex­i­ble. The ROEMHELD Group is putting dig­i­ti­za­tion and automa­tion cen­ter stage at this year’s EMO Hannover.

The company’s ros­ter of inno­va­tions at the fair includes a range of clamp­ing ele­ments with inte­grat­ed dig­i­tal stroke mea­sure­ment, ful­ly elec­tri­cal swing clamps in new sizes and the STARK.connect and STARK.airtec zero-point clamp­ing ele­ments with ful­ly inte­grat­ed sen­sors. What’s more, vis­i­tors can check out the trade fair debut of the first-ever STARK robot grip­per with a zero-point clamp­ing sys­tem that enables auto­mat­ed pal­let changes, even on machine tables that don’t have their own hydraulic, pneu­mat­ic and elec­tri­cal con­nec­tions. Not only that, but the new pneu­mat­ic swing clamp, designed to main­tain its clamp­ing force even when pres­sure drops, can be seen for the first time in Hannover.

Römheld GmbH Friedrichshütte (35321 Laubach, Ger­many), Hall 4, Stand E54

Con­tact: Markus Isgro

Tel.: +49 716217 4658

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I increase pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, there­fore I am!

Rep­re­sen­ta­tives from DP Tech­nol­o­gy are exhibit­ing a first in their company’s his­to­ry at EMO Han­nover 2019 – a new gen­er­a­tion of machine-aware ESPRIT CAM soft­ware based on arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI).

US-based DP Tech­nol­o­gy, which has a branch in the Ger­man city of Bam­berg, is one of the lead­ing man­u­fac­tur­ers and sup­pli­ers of com­put­er-aid­ed man­u­fac­tur­ing (CAM) soft­ware for a large sec­tion of the man­u­fac­tur­ing indus­try. Indeed, the company’s main prod­uct – ESPRIT – is viewed as one of the most high-per­for­mance and high-qual­i­ty NC pro­gram­ming sys­tems for milling, drilling, turn­ing and wire ero­sion machin­ery and is also used with mul­ti­func­tion­al machin­ery such as mill turn centers.

Tak­ing pride of place among DP Technology’s exhibits at EMO Han­nover 2019 is the new “ESPRIT CAM sys­tem – pow­ered by Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence”. As its name sug­gests, the algo­rithms of what is now the fourth gen­er­a­tion of the soft­ware are based on arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI). The new tech­nol­o­gy is designed to sim­pli­fy pro­gram­ming process­es and improve machine pro­duc­tiv­i­ty on the shop floor. The patent-pend­ing sys­tem is also machine-aware, draw­ing this aware­ness from a dig­i­tal twin of the CNC machines, tool­ing and fix­tures. Accord­ing to DP Tech­nol­o­gy, these new advances are the result of 35 years of inno­va­tion and make this mar­ket launch the most excit­ing prod­uct roll­out in the company’s his­to­ry. “Our AI engine rep­re­sents a fun­da­men­tal change in the way CNC machines are dri­ven,” says Chuck Math­ews, Chief Tech­nol­o­gy Offi­cer for ESPRIT’s par­ent com­pa­ny, DP Tech­nol­o­gy. “The new ESPRIT CAM system’s AI machine-aware algo­rithms pro­vide an excep­tion­al user expe­ri­ence – sim­pli­fy­ing pro­gram­ming, increas­ing tool life and improv­ing machine performance.”

DP Tech­nol­o­gy Ger­many GmbH (96052 Bam­berg, Germany), 

Hall 9, Stand D06 

Con­tact: There­sa Höreth

Mobile: +49 175 849 33 94

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Keep­ing things steady Swiss-style

EMO Han­nover 2019 is to host yet anoth­er major prod­uct launch, as NUM AG exhibits its brand-new and inno­v­a­tive accelerom­e­ter-based active vibra­tion con­trol sys­tem for CNC machine tools.

Swiss-based NUM AG is used to being ahead of the game. In fact, by the time CNC and NC con­trols start­ed to grad­u­al­ly spread in the ear­ly 1970s, the com­pa­ny already had a ten-year head-start on devel­op­ment work in the field. When it deliv­ered its first mar­ketable prod­ucts, back in 1964, NUM was one of the first ever sup­pli­ers of CNC in the world. Since then, it has main­tained its posi­tion as a tech­no­log­i­cal pio­neer in the field and also worked to extend its lead. All that hard work at NUM AG has pro­duced a great many solu­tions, and one of the lat­est is an inno­v­a­tive, accelerom­e­ter-based active vibra­tion con­trol sys­tem. This sys­tem has been devel­oped for CNC machine tools and is set to launch exclu­sive­ly at EMO Han­nover 2019.

Com­pared to pre­vi­ous alter­na­tives, the active vibra­tion con­trol sys­tem is very cost-effec­tive and is used pri­mar­i­ly to vir­tu­al­ly elim­i­nate tool head vibra­tion and thus improve machin­ing. By max­i­miz­ing the mate­r­i­al removal rate, it increas­es pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, while also pro­vid­ing valu­able real-time feed­back for pre­dic­tive main­te­nance pur­pos­es. The inno­v­a­tive vibra­tion con­trol sys­tem from NUM is avail­able as a retro­fittable option for any machine tool that uses NUM’s MDLUX high-per­for­mance dig­i­tal ser­vo dri­ves, which form part of the company’s Flex­i­um+ CNC platform.

NUM AG (9053 Teufen, Switzer­land), Hall 9, Stand E40

Con­tact: Peter von Rüti

Tel.: +41 71 335 04 11

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EAsy dos it!

At EMO Han­nover 2019, MAPAL Präzi­sion­swerkzeuge Dr. Kress KG is show­cas­ing its new­ly devel­oped EA Sys­tem, which is designed to make the process of adjust­ing exter­nal ream­ers for the fine machin­ing of small out­er diam­e­ters far easier.

Grind­ing is often used for the fine machin­ing of small out­er diam­e­ters, but exter­nal ream­ing pro­vides a cost-effec­tive and there­fore attrac­tive alter­na­tive. If an IT6 fit is required on a lathe for series pro­duc­tion, for exam­ple, exter­nal ream­ers with an adjustable insert and guide pads can be relied upon to get the job done – pro­vid­ed the tool’s diam­e­ter and the insert’s back taper can be set with pin­point accu­ra­cy. MAPAL Präzi­sion­swerkzeuge Dr. Kress KG has cho­sen EMO Han­nover 2019 to unveil a new sys­tem it has devel­oped to make adjust­ing exter­nal ream­ers with small diam­e­ters far simpler.

In the EA Sys­tem (EA = EasyAd­just), the back taper of the insert is already inte­grat­ed into the cas­sette serv­ing as the insert mount­ing. This com­plete­ly elim­i­nates the need to adjust the back taper of the minor cut­ting edge. Once the above-men­tioned cas­sette has been removed, it is quick and easy to adjust the insert itself using a microm­e­ter or mea­sur­ing plate. The appro­pri­ate set­ting dimen­sion for the insert is inscribed on the reverse of the tool. This cor­re­sponds exact­ly to the mid­point of the tol­er­ance for the required fit. Thanks to an impres­sive changeover accu­ra­cy of two to three microns and the extreme­ly straight­for­ward adjust­ment of the insert, the new sys­tem now makes it much eas­i­er to com­ply reli­ably with the required tol­er­ances and extreme­ly pre­cise fits, even in the case of small diam­e­ters. The EA Sys­tem can be used with index­able inserts that have either four or six cut­ting edges.

MAPAL Präzi­sion­swerkzeuge Dr. Kress KG (73431 Aalen, Germany), 

Hall 4, Stand A18

Con­tact: Andreas Enzenbach

Tel.: +49 7361 585 3683

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Machin­ing on a grand scale

Mechan­i­cal engi­neer­ing com­pa­ny LiCON is at EMO Han­nover 2019 to exhib­it the LiFLEX I 12126, its new and improved sin­gle-spin­dle machin­ing cen­ter that boasts a unique com­bi­na­tion of speed and cubic dimen­sions. The solu­tion is said to be ide­al for much larg­er machin­ing dimen­sions, like those involved when work­ing on struc­tur­al components.

LiCON, the sys­tem sup­pli­er of pro­duc­tion lines for the series machin­ing of com­plex com­po­nents, is show­cas­ing a new ver­sion of its LiFLEX I 12126 sin­gle-spin­dle machin­ing cen­ter at this year’s EMO Han­nover. The improve­ments in the LiFLEX I 12126, which is designed pri­mar­i­ly for work on struc­tur­al com­po­nents made of light­weight met­al, means it can now machine even big­ger dimen­sions than it could before. Depend­ing on its con­fig­u­ra­tion, the new machine can oper­ate with four or five axes and is excep­tion­al­ly fast, dynam­ic, sta­ble and robust. What’s more, tools can be changed in just one sec­ond. With rapid tra­verse speeds of up to 150 meters per minute in the lin­ear axes and high accel­er­a­tion and jerk val­ues, the machine is said to be one of the most dynam­ic for its cubic dimen­sions on the market.

One exam­ple of an appli­ca­tion is the machin­ing of sub­frames for cars. It’s real­ly impor­tant that this large com­po­nent can be posi­tioned in any way and that machin­ing work can be per­formed at all the rel­e­vant points – if at all pos­si­ble with­out hav­ing to also use angu­lar heads. To safe­guard the over­all per­for­mance of the machine, we use only com­po­nents from our own mod­u­lar LiFLEX sys­tem,” explains Win­fried Benz, Man­ag­ing Direc­tor of LiCON.

LiCON mt GmbH & Co. KG (88471 Laupheim, Ger­many), Hall 12, Stand D66

Con­tact: Nils Baumgartner

Tel.: +49 7392 962186

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Smooth oper­a­tor

OTEC Präzi­sions­fin­ish GmbH, a spe­cial­ist in per­fect sur­faces, is at EMO Han­nover 2019 to show­case a range of items, includ­ing its new­ly updat­ed CF Series disc fin­ish­ing machine.

Since it was found­ed in 1996, OTEC Präzi­sions­fin­ish GmbH has grown from being a small man­u­fac­tur­er of pol­ish­ing machines for the jew­el­ry and watch­mak­ing indus­try to become a glob­al spe­cial­ist in pre­ci­sion tech­nol­o­gy for achiev­ing per­fect sur­faces. Whether it’s debur­ring, grind­ing, smooth­ing or pol­ish­ing, OTEC machines deliv­er effi­cient sur­face fin­ish­ing for tools and prod­ucts in many dif­fer­ent indus­tries. At EMO Han­nover 2019, OTEC is exhibit­ing a whole host of inter­est­ing exhibits, includ­ing the recent­ly revamped CF Series disc fin­ish­ing machine.

Thanks to its mod­u­lar and com­pact design and opti­mized weld­ed struc­ture, the new CF Series machine has been built to ensure trou­ble-free oper­a­tion and a long ser­vice life. It can be used wher­ev­er rapid sur­face treat­ment is need­ed for fine blanked, turned, milled and punched parts and jew­el­ry. Besides the weld­ed struc­ture, OTEC has also opti­mized the waste water drain. What’s more, the machine now boasts a 7.5‑inch col­or touch dis­play that can be used to cre­ate and store up to 1,000 pro­grams quick­ly and eas­i­ly, mak­ing it even more effi­cient and user-friend­ly, accord­ing to the com­pa­ny. Options for remote machine main­te­nance and con­trol are also inte­grat­ed. In addi­tion, the machine fea­tures stor­age space for a com­pound con­tain­er and pump­ing sta­tion, and can be dis­as­sem­bled and reassem­bled quick­ly and eas­i­ly for transportation.

OTEC Präzi­sions­fin­ish GmbH (75334 Strauben­hardt, Germany), 

Hall 11, Stand G56

Con­tact: Vivian Wasner

Tel.: +49 7082 4911–670

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