From hand hitting to engraving with indexable engraving tools
The automobile part's maker “has great insights”
…The engraving process at working sites in Japan. Although there are various types of needs for this type of work such as company name, product name, serial number, identification symbols… etc, the process itself is not considered to have sole value. In other words, the customers often do not think that this type of work is worthy of any costs just for itself.
In engraving processes that “are hard to find added values in”
“Works like deburring or engraving are not included in the fees. ‘So’ the effort put into this area…” says president Shuichi Kobayashi of Misuzu Factory. The company has changed from manual “hand engraving” to “machine engraving” in machining centers last year.
Misuzu Factory was founded in 1950. The main company is located in Kawasaki City, Kanagawa, but from 1970, its factory is located in Kyoda City, Saitama. The company produces many kinds of automobile parts, but among of them, over half are flywheels. Regarding size, the company deals with larger sized parts for automobiles, and president Kobayashi says that his company “sometimes acts the role like that of a handyman.”.....
President Kobayashi also pointed out that the company doesn’t deals with mass products but various things that are produced at small numbers.
In a plan starting last year and spanning to the start of this year, five mechanical equipments were installed. Among of them was the machining center which was the first in the northern Kantou area. Regarding these equipments, plant manager Takehana followed with the comment: “From the size and contents, we can be sure that we have more “insights” than other companies in our field.”
A part of this “insight” is the introduction of “indexable engraving tools” by Nine9 of Taiwan into the engraving processes.
It is a major trend to use machining centers to perform tasks up to engraving in Europe; however in Japan, it is still normal to perform engraving “by hand” with hammers. Processes like putting words, lines, numbers… into flywheels in Misuzu Factory was no exception, “it is ‘hand hit’, so it might be too deep or too shallow. As it is done by men, there might be burrs and lots of failures.”.....
Unloading a work piece weighs 40 kg from a machine center, carrying it, loading it onto the engraving stage, and engraving it with hammers… the past process which takes around “five minutes” can be performed with indexable engraving tools within “five seconds”, and it has absolute effect on increasing production.
“The depth and width of words or lines being engraved are balanced and has no burrs no matter the size or surface of the work piece, besides that, if you think about the time and effort it takes to carry the work piece, our decision can be made just like that. Also, the inserts are more durable than imagined.”
Furthermore, “afterwards, we only need to check if the engravings were performed. Before this, we had to also check the depth and width of the words, so the inspection job has also become considerably easier.”
~ Excerpt from User’s Newsletter in JAPAN.
