To learn more, visit Mitsubish-World.com/pressbrake or call 866-994-7856.
EDM | LASER | WATERJET | MILLING | HIGH-SPEEDVMC | PRESS BRAKE
AUTOMATION | CONSUMABLES | PRE-OWNED | SERVICE | FINANCING
Y
.
N
MC Machinery has a press brake for you
With MC Machinery, the right press brake is within reach. That’s because we have the
industry’s widest selection of press brakes—ranging from 40- to 2,000-ton capacities.
And with smart, value-added features and options—including DiamondSoft© software
with auto tooling, collision-check, tool layout, bend reports and back-gauge editing—our
technology can’t be beat. Best of all, we back each machine with Mitsubishi’s industry-leading service and support.
G
AN
T
RY
LAS
E
RS
L
AS
ER
WAT
ERJ
ET
A
UT
O
M
AT
IO
N
S
E
RVIC
E
EVERYONE
FINALLY A BRAKE FOR
VISIT US AT Fabtech
BOOTH S1719
November 2013 The FABRICATOR 49
was placed, and the operator is able
to move on to the next set of visual
instructions on the touchscreen. The
instructions are always in sync with
the hardware insertion operation,
and the operator can’t advance to
the next step until all the pieces are
inserted into the correct positions for
that particular step.
“Right away our internal and ex-
ternal rejects from that department
started to decrease immediately,”
said Ryan Zimmermann, who is the
grandson of the company’s founder
and who was involved in the software
implementation. “We were able to
show them the sequence and which
one goes where. It helps to guaran-
tee that we’re getting them all in all
the time. Previously they were just
looking at a drawing, and it was a lot
easier to forget. Now it’s a visual trig-
ger for them.”
Today CMP has rolled out its Visual
Knowledge Share (VKS) platform to
other departments, such as its assem-
bly, finishing, and welding areas. It has
even prepared visual work instruc-
tions for its joint-venture fabricating
operation in Guadalajara, Mexico.
Buoyed by its own internal successes, VKS is now being marketed
to the manufacturing industry. It was
unveiled at the American Society
for Quality Conference in May. “We
want to help other North American
manufacturing companies to attain
what CMP was able to attain,” said
Kyle O’Reilly, VKS sales and marketing manager.
That’s a big statement considering
that CMP has a goal of being a zero-defect manufacturer in 2013. “It’s a
really hard goal to achieve, but we’re
on track to coming very close to that.
It’s exciting,” said Zimmermann, who
is now acting as operations manager
for VKS.
He is quick to point out that VKS
is different from other software products on the market that display visual
work instructions for manufacturing
and other work processes that are dependent on correctly followed step-by-step instructions. He said that VKS
is a dynamic system that always ensures that the most recent revision is
the only version of work instructions
that an employee can access (see Figure 2).
“If we decide that a guy has a better
process, we can update it instantly,”
Zimmermann said. “The second the process gets changed,
the guy on the shop floor—because he’s on the Internet—
gets an automatic pop-up saying ‘The visual aid that you
were working on has been updated. You will automatically
be redirected to the newest version.”
Figure 2
Bar code scanning is probably the most efficient way for operators to access work instructions. A simple scan of the bar code on
the job traveler initiates a project search and the work instructions
appear on the screen. Companies also have the option of simply
having the employee type in a project identification code, project
name, or company name to find the right work instructions.