Sun protection in a completely automated bending process

Aluminium specialist TS Altotec relies on folding machine from Schröder for sunshade products

Customer

Window manufacturers looking for high-quality aluminium solutions get in contact with the company G.S. Georg Stemeseder GmbH. The family-owned company offers high-quality woodaluminium and plastic-aluminium window systems, front doors and facade systems – as individual solutions for any architecture. Since 2018, the company has been developing new sun and insect protection products and since the beginning of 2020, the subsidiary TS Altotec GmbH has been in production. In the new plant, about 300 sun protection systems are manufactured daily in two shifts. The focus is on both the project business with individual solutions and classic sun and insect protection (www.stemeseder.com)

Success

In terms of equipment for folding the large boxes for the external venetian blinds, the decision was quickly clear: „The Schröder machine is quite unique in terms of length and height. Precise processing of up to 3 mm thick aluminum sheets on up to 4,000 mm was one requirement. Clearance under the clamping beam was the other – and that in addition to the high tools“, Johannes Maultasch explains the requirements. At the Blechexpo show in 2019 Maultasch and his team saw the EVO Center for the first time.

For the acceptance test of the EVO Center Johannes Maultasch came to the headquarters of Hans Schröder Maschinenbau GmbH in Wessobrunn, Bavaria. The set up and installation of the machine in Pinkafeld at the beginning of 2020 worked out very well, although the Covid-19-pandemic did present one or two obstacles during the set-up. „You can feel the experience in sheet metal working. Schröder has good technicians and the support was excellent and fast.“ This praise also refers to an improvement on the suction plate, which was immediately implemented by Schröder. When processing particularly large sheets, a slight slippage was evident under certain conditions. A new suction plate with more and smaller suction cups now reliably fixes even the largest sheets.

Only one more step

Currently, the operator at the machine places the sheet against the gauge fingers of the EVO-CENTER and starts the bending program. The so-called Advanced Handling System (AHS) – the described turntable with suction plates – fixes the sheet pneumatically and moves it to the bending edge. The clamping beam fixes the sheet for bending. All these processes are monitored and extremely precisely controlled by an
optical measurement system. Once all bends on one side have been done, the turntable takes over again and positions the other side of the sheet for bending. After having finished all folding steps, the pneumatic manipulator pushes the finished workpiece onto the automatic destacking device at the back of the machine.

For Maultasch and his team, manual handling at the start of the bending process always carries the risk of scratching sheet metal. Despite subsequent powder coating, the boxes, which can be up to four meters long, are visible surfaces of the final product. In future, a robot will also automate the mounting and feeding of the sheet metal. The space for the robot between the punching line and the folding center is already
provided in the plant. Only this one step is still missing, then the production of the external venetian blind boxes can run through automatically. The sheets already come from the punching line with a barcode label, which is then used to call up the corresponding bending program.

Bereit für Stückzahlen

Mit Raffstores und anderen Sonnenschutzsystemen als Aufsatz oder zur Integration in die Fenster rundet TS Altotec das Portfolio von Stemeseder ab. „Schlussendlich wollen wir unseren Kunden komplette ‚Maueröffnungslösungen‘ bieten“, umschreibt Maultasch die Strategie des innovativen Mittelständlers. „Mit unserer Schröder-EVO Center-Fertigungsstraße sind wir auf Einzelstücke wie auch Serien bestens vorbereitet.“ Das derzeit 80-köpfige Team am Standort Pinkafeld konnte trotz Corona einen guten Start hinlegen. Nächstes Jahr sollen hier über 200 Mitarbeiterinnen und Mitarbeiter hochwertige Sonnenschutzlösungen produzieren.

Machine in operation

EVO Center

Folding machine up to 3 mm sheet thickness (400 N/mm²)
4040 mm working length
Clamping beam stroke 850 mm
Automatic bending process with unique Advanced Handling System (AHS)
Tool changing portal with hydraulic tool clamping
Graphic control POS 3000

Published in:
BLECH 02/2021