The Nagano district is often called the Switzerland of Japan. Not just because of the high mountains but also because of the district’s long tradition, characterised by precision and quality. The horological industry, the optical industry, and nowadays medical technology as well, are widely associated with Nagano.
The fixture plate with its fixtures is lifted in
One of many successful companies in precision production in Nagano is the TBM Corporation of Kamiina. High precision, high quality and added value are features of TBM. About 70 percent of the company’s production is in the form of turbine blades for high-pressure turbines for the power and aircraft industries.
Turbine blades are milled from a block of stainless steel (13Cr). The first operation is milling of the turbine blade attachment in a vertical multi-operation machine. TBM has allocated three OKK VM5s for this specific machining operation, which takes about 1.5 hours to complete. After this, the workpiece moves to a five-axis machine for further machining of the turbine blade. Typical production runs are 80-100 parts.
Mr. Yamaguchi, production manager – “Set-ups used to be a headache”
Depending on the size of the turbine blade, the machine table can take three, four or five fixtures. Production manager Mr. Yamaguchi explains – “Changing the machine table from three to five fixtures used to take one to two hours per fixture. So the re-setting operation could take ten hours altogether. And we might have to do this eight times a month.”
The plate with three Delphin chucks for permanent attachment to the machine table.
During 2004, TBM began to assess what the market had to offer to reduce setting-up times. It quickly became clear that the Delphin system offered what they were looking for. In fact, TBM was the first company in Japan to use Delphin.
The machine tables on the three OKK VM5s were fitted with a permanent plate with three built-in Delphin chucks. A fixture plate with three, four or five fixtures is then lifted on to the chucks.
Department manager Mr. Hirai – “There’s no doubt about it, Delphin has increased our production capacity”
Department manger Mr. Hirai concludes – “Today we change the fixture plate in ten minutes, including cleaning. So – from 10 hours to 10 minutes! There’s no need for me to explain what this means. Admittedly it didn’t always take ten hours, but there’s no doubt that Delphin gives us one week’s extra spindle time every month.
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