Enhancing production capacities with laser technology

By OEM Update Editorial June 9, 2021 12:16 pm IST

The emphasis should be on identifying the best technological partner for machines and solutions that directly address the need for increased productivity and capacity enhancement.

Niranjan Manjrekar, GM – Operations, LVD India, elaborates on increasing efficiency by investing in and partnering with the right technology, as well as upskilling the workforce to ensure quality productivity.

Present market trends in sheet metal forming business

In every difficult scenario, you have to be best equipped with options and possibilities. This Pandemic has tested it again. The present market seems to be more thoughtful and systematic in its activities, investment and also optimising operating costs.

All the factors discussed are shaping up the sheet metal forming industry to be more flexible, adaptive and with better throughput. With an increase in precision level and critical parts designing, customers are looking for more flexible and precise solutions in manufacturing sheet metal parts. The approach towards buying equipment for producing parts has been changed to solution as an objective rather than configuration of machine tool. This opens the opportunity for them to explore global technologies and also provide the know-how of various benchmark worldwide installations.

How are the latest technologies like laser cutting and CAD/CAM in sheet metal forming being adopted by domestic manufacturers?

Laser cutting has now been in the market for quite a while and has evolved dynamically.  Year on year, new lasers added to the market are expected to grow by 17 – 20 percent. Having said so, CAD/CAM is the only medium by which the user can be more equipped to get the best output of the Laser machines at an optimised ownership cost. This tool has been extremely helpful in defining the overall efficiency of the machine as well as predicting the load factor, which can aid in making realistic projections for future business.

The government aims at increasing exports by boosting localised manufacturing. How can the sheet metal fabrication industry capitalise on the same?

When we talk about the export business in the sheet metal forming industry, one has to be swift, innovative and consistent in their approach and product quality.

Equipment used in EOU segments must be more productive, repeatable, and reliable, with the highest possible uptime. As a result, when selecting the right equipment, a good manufacturer with end-to-end solutions is very critical.

India still has a significant gap to fill as a global supplier for the sheet metal forming industry, and the establishment of world-class manufacturing facilities and quality resources is critical to success.

What kind of financial and regulatory assistance do sheet metal forming companies need to increase capacity and productivity? 

Major obstacles are banking financing as it is time consuming and many times the new establishment fails to be eligible with defined parameters on financial obligation. As a result, the NBFC is becoming an important partner in such a scenario, and self-funding from equipment manufacturers is also a possibility.

Once this barrier has been removed, the entire focus should be on selecting the right technological partner for machines and solutions that directly address the need for increased productivity and capacity enhancement.

What kind of technical training and technical assistance is required to create skilled manpower for this sector? 

The major need is to know the right capacity of the infrastructure (Man, Machines) and to optimise efficiency. The key to this is to have a tool that can effectively manage this parameter, and factory management software will do just that.

Once you understand the benchmarking, you will know what to do to improve and scale it.

Correct parameter driven data will align it all for you. Investment in such software is still low in many industries, so there needs to be more knowledge sharing sessions and Tech summits to reach out to aspiring users, and industrial magazine houses are doing this correctly alongside major trade shows.

What kind of skilled programmes do you provide to ensure clean and safe operations?

We have been engaged in facilitating training for our customers to know their machine and solutions invested to the best of capacity. We have various layers of modules for this and work at Operating level, Maintenance level, Planning level and Enterprise level.

The continuous feedback mechanism with customers allows us to fine-tune the training and tech sessions for the specific needs.

Most machine controllers are outfitted with troubleshooting data that allows users to intervene and resolve problems on their own class room sessions as well as on site sessions for Operation and Maintenance Training are scheduled as per the installation scope and level of prior knowledge of the user.