„Ready for tomorrow’s market...” is the slogan of the Vauth-Sagel group whose headquarters are located in Brakel/Erkeln near Paderborn (North Rhine-Westphalia) in Germany. Founded in 1962 by Heinrich Sagel and Hermann Vauth, the group currently employs over 650 persons in different fields: furniture, engineering, plastics technology and logistics. Thanks to Thomas Sagel, one of the three managers of the firm, production within the group has been automated to the maximum, which has enabled the company to keep the jobs in Germany.
At the beginning of 2004, the company Mauser Office which manufactures quality modular furniture made of wood and steel for offices, warehouses and archival storage premises, was taken over by Vauth-Sagel. This operation aimed at meeting the more and more stringent demands of the furniture market. An audit conducted after the takeover of this traditional firm based in Korbach near Kassel (Hessen) indicated that the quality of the machine fleet was good but concluded that it was necessary to integrate new software to optimize the equipment. After the restructuring phase, the company also decided to implement new subcontracting activities notably to reinforce its presence in the car industry. This new activity is currently supported by a Kuka robotized cell aimed at plasma cutting.
After having thoroughly reviewed the performances of all CAM software suppliers, the Mauser Office plant chose and installed the Alma solution in Korbach at the beginning of this year.The capacity of the robotized cell together with the capacity of the solution to adapt to the specificities of different Trumpf (TC 240, TC 260) and Amada (Octo, Arcade) punch presses, combined with the possibility of programming all these machines with unique software solution, were determining factors in choosing Alma.
The robotized cell that operates with a Kjellberg plasma power source and whose integration was implemented by the company Kaslon based in Löhne is now programmed off-line with the act/cut 3d software. Even small series can be quickly and easily programmed, which enables the company to reduce the down time of the robotized cell and so the costs.
The automatic loading and unloading of the Trumpf punch press needed to be specifically taken into account by the act/cut software. “The loading and unloading systems are not mass produced, and the manufacturer already had to implement some modifications during the first installation”, explains Christof Biederbick, Director of the Mauser plant.
The data processing also played a major role in choosing Alma’s programming system. The 2D and 3D parts are designed with the ProEngineer CAD system. Alma integrated a direct interface with ProEngineer to its solution in order to import the part data towards act/cut. Thanks to this interface, saving in another format is no longer required, the data being directly transferred to prt. format. And so, geometrical information cannot be erroneous and the user gains precious programming time. At the end of the year, the Alma solution will be further integrated to Vauth-Sagel’s information system, with an act/cut connection to the ERP SAP R3 system via the act/manager module, and the installation of a direct interface with Catia V4 and V5.
© 2005 Alma
> Visit Vauth Sagel's corporate website: www.vauth-sagel.de
> Learn more about the act/cut solution for 2D cutting and punching
> Learn more about the act/cut 3d solution for 3D cutting
