Victory had been outsourcing the large die components, or moving them around on the bed of their in-house mill- ing machines to perform the machining in stages. At the time, Victory had two verti- cal machines and one horizontal machin- ing center. “This practice is not ideal and is error prone, requiring extra attention from the machinist or it could lead to quality issues and extra setup time,” said Fred Simonson, Victory general manager. “Our largest capacity for machining was 64" [1625 mm] on the X axis and 32" [812 mm] on the Y axis.” “We were spending too much time on setups and remachining components due to our limitations. By later in 2013, we recognized we could be doing this more effi ciently in-house if we had the right equipment and technology,” said Lynch. Victory’s long-standing machine tool provider, Concept
Victory Tool manufactures large, often complex metalstamping dies for Tier One stampers and OEMs using a Feeler FV-3224 double-column bridge mill.
any jobs due to workpiece size, and by keeping this work in-house we have saved 30–40% in outsourcing costs during
Machine Tool (Minneapolis), recommended that Victory con- sider a Feeler FV-3224 50-taper heavy-duty, double-column bridge mill from Methods Machine Tools Inc. (Sudbury, MA) to meet their manufacturing challenges. Victory decided to move ahead and purchase the Feeler bridge mill and by April 2014, the machine was delivered and installed. For even greater effi - ciency, by August of the same year a custom 90-tool ATC was added to the Feeler—the fi rst of its kind installed in the US. Feeler FV-Series double column bridge mills include extensive design and engineering by Methods to facilitate the production of large, high-quality components. The bridge mills feature THK linear guideways on the X axis, and Schneeberger roller linear guideways on the Y axis. A stepped Y-axis beam, together with the machine weighs up to 82 tons, contributing signifi cantly to rigidity. With the Feeler FV-3224 and its axis travels of 126 × 95 × 35" (3200 × 2413 × 889 mm), Victory can machine large parts in-house. “The bridge mill has signifi cantly expanded our machining envelope; our X-axis capability has been doubled and Y-axis reach has been tripled,” said Meixell. “This gives us a large platform to set up each job one time to machine big die sets for the tools we build. “In previous years, it wasn’t uncommon for us to out-
source $100,000–$200,000 of work annually due to our inability to handle larger sizes,” said Simonson. “Since we purchased our Feeler bridge mill, we have not outsourced
June 2016 |
AdvancedManufacturing.org 83
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130