Progressive Mexican Stamper
cuts downtime big time
with Coe Servo Press Feeds

Switching from less efficient air and mechanical press feeds to precise electronic Coe servo feed lines has boosted production rates and cut setup time by up to 85 percent.

Manufacturas Estampadas (Manesa), Chihuahua, Mexico, is a privately owned stamping facility, which was founded in 1989 to supply metal parts to local export industries. About 30 percent of production now is used by automotive industry suppliers. The balance is used for industrial products, such as light fixtures, motor housings and similar items.

"Although our customer base is largely local, including a number of different plants here in the Chihuahua area, we also have customers in Reynosa, Monterey, and one or two other cities in Mexico," explains Guy Vleugels, Plant Director for Manesa. As is often the case with successful stamping operations, Manesa is an offshoot of a tool & die shop, in this instance, CEMyT. Both were founded by Willie Kerckaert. Kerckaert spent time working in Chile and Argentina before starting the Mexican operations. And, although Kerckaert and Vleugels are of Belgian decent, neither CEMyT or Manesa have Belgian roots.

"We started with some simple machinery," Vleugels recalls. "Then we brought in some Mexican and U.S. tool designers and jumped into tool design and tool fabrication. Next we moved into production stamping, starting with work for customers such as IBM and Siemens. Now, our biggest customer is Lightolier Genlight. We also produce parts for General Electric, Visteon, Robert Bosch and Bront."

Focus on Stamping

Vleugels points out that Manesa is known as a quality stamper and progressive die stamper. "We do some secondary operations, but this is only 5 to 10 percent of our business. Our main focus is stamping and progressive die stamping."

The smallest part made by Manesa is a paper isolator/electronic component for Honeywell. It is used in control systems for residential and commercial heating and cooling equipment. In addition, Manesa stamps a 1/4-inch by 1/4-inch part from 0.001 to 0.0015-inch thick material for Honeywell. The heaviest stampings use material that is almost a quarter-inch thick, reports Vleugels. These are structural parts used in automotive suspension applications. Overall, materials used in the stamping operation range from mild steel, to galvanized steel, to prepainted aluminite, as well as aluminum, stainless steel and bronze.

"We now have ten presses that can handle progressive dies," says Vleugels. "These range from 100 to 400 tons. We also have a powder coating line and an e-coat line that we use for HVAC electric motor shell fabrications and parts for automotive underbody applications. Between Manesa and CEMyT, we employ about 115 persons--95 in Manesa." Manesa reports annual sales of about $8.5 million, but expects that to grow to $12.5 million in three years and about $15 million in five years. Part of its strategy is to invest in up-to-date, high-technology equipment that will produce accurate parts, in high volumes, with minimum press downtime for setup and changeover.

Boosting Productivity

"During the last five or six years, we have upgraded six or seven press lines by installing AC servo drive digital roll feeds from Coe Press Equipment Corporation," Vleugels reports. "This has helped us to greatly improve productivity in our stamping facility.

"When we started buying new equipment, we pretty much standardized on Coe Press Equipment," Vleugels continues. "We like the simplicity of Coe feeding systems, the quality apparent in its operation and the productivity of the lines.

Also, we now have the availability of local service and the Coe people are very knowledgeable. "When we talk about productivity improvements in our stamping facility," says Vleugels, "setup time and press line speed are the two major issues we work on. After we adopted the philosophy of reworking our equipment, and changed over to electronic press controls and servo feed units, there was a dramatic improvement, not only in setting up equipment--accuracy of setup as well as repeatability--but also in fine-tuning.

Coil Feed Lines

The newer press feed lines at Manesa consist of a Coe Press Equipment Corporation model CPRF-324 AC servo drive digital roll feed, a CPPS-PO-300-24 free-standing power straightener and a model CPR-DE-PO-4024 double ended coil reel for pulloff operations.

The servo drive roll feed is designed to handle pre-straightened mild cold rolled steel (MCRS), up to 24 inches wide, and 0.093 inches thick. This unit can handle 0.125-inch stock in widths up to 18 inches. Performance specifications include a feed angle of 180 to 240 degrees, maximum feed rate of 312 fpm (feet per minute), acceleration of 36 fpm, and feed accuracy of +-0.003 inches.

The model CPRF-324 features a maximum feed length of 999.999 inches, inch or metric programming and manual feed advance for setup. It also has serial communication capability with major press control systems, and on-the-fly length adjustment.

The model CPPS-PO-300-24 uses a 7 roll, 3-inch diameter design. It can handle a maximum coil width of 24 inches in material thicknesses corresponding to the digital roll feed. This unit has a payoff rate up to 80 fpm. The model CPR-DE-PO-4024 double ended coil reel can handle a maximum coil weight of 4,000 lbs. per mandrel. Maximum coil width is 24 inches. Maximum coil O.D. is 60 inches, and mandrel expansion range is 16 to 21 inches. An air disc drag brake prevents coil over run.

Major Downtime Reductions

"With our former air feeds and mechanical feeding equipment, we had an average downtime between 1.5 and 2 hours including setup and fine-tuning to adjust for fluctuations in material and the die itself. Now, we can change a die and be back up and running in 30 minutes or less. In fact, under the best conditions, we can be back on-line and stamping parts in 10 to 15 minutes."

Besides productivity on the shop floor Vleugels talks about the line of supply--what they wind up with in their warehouse, finished goods, raw material, and finally how it meets the needs of its customers. "Because of higher reliability in our setup, we have been able to reduce our inventory. We used to stock two week's worth of raw material. Now we can get by with a three to four day supply. The reliability of machine uptime means somebody programs the machine and the machine runs the correct amount of material, Our reliability is up from 55 or 60 percent of available time to almost 85 or 90 percent.

"Generally speaking," Vleugels says, "everybody, including the final customer, is working on reducing cycle time. "We have been supplying the automotive industry successfully for about five years now," Vleugels reports. "During that time, we have developed our manufacturing system to supply parts at a QS-9000 quality level. Our most recent investments, in which Coe Press Equipment was one of the major players, reflected our focus on providing quality parts on a timely basis. That means controlling deflection on the press. That means feeding the correct amount of material. That means eliminating slippage in the straightening section. Controlling these factors provides us with the means to make a quality part.

nstead of having a month's worth of stock, they now are talking about one week of stock, or two weeks maximum. Automation is a major factor in that reduction. So in order to shorten cycle time, we needed to go to automated equipment, not just the press, but also the complete feeding line."

QS-9000 Certification

"One of the things we did was to meet with Coe Press Equipment representatives about establishing a preventive and predictive maintenance program. In the long term, this plays a very important role in producing quality parts. If we are satisfied with a mediocre approach to maintenance, we will have mediocre equipment that will provide us with a mediocre part. Because we want to supply a world market, we have to have worldclass equipment."

Shipping on Demand

Manesa typically produces between four and five million parts in an average month. "A QS-9000 certified plant like ours can supply worldclass products and services to meet the needs of our local customers," says Vleugels. "We can ship on demand because we inventory a 1 to 1.5 week supply of customer parts. Manesa attributes its success to the fact that it embraced a high level of technology well ahead of many competitors. "We have tool designers in-house," Vleugels points out. "Because we have the knowledge, experience and equipment, we participate at a higher technology level than our competitors. We build our own tools. We do aluminum stamping. We do deep draw.

"Now, as part of a joint venture, we are producing motor housings for an HVAC application, including drawing, forming, welding, and e-coating. Very often, we can supply quality parts at higher speeds using less material. For example, we run some jobs at 60 to 70 hpm (hits per minute), where the former vendor could do it only at 40 hpm. This is the type of advantage we bring to the marketplace."

Adding Extra Value

One example of the extra value Manesa can supply to its customers can be found in a motor housing supplied to General Electric for an HVAC application. The part is punched, formed into a cylindrical shape and welded on a special purpose forming and welding line furnished by Newcor Bay City, Michigan. Next, mounting tabs are welded to the frame of the motor housing on a second Newcor machine prior to e-coating Manesa installed the e-coating line to apply a thin coating of paint on the motor housing. This process provides a thinner layer of coating material, yet enables the part to pass a 600-hour salt spray test for rust protection. Although the motor housing is coated with gray paint, Vleugels notes that all black automotive parts are e-coated.

Technology is Key

"I believe the survival of Mexican manufacturing depends on how quickly companies can adapt to state-of-the-art technology and how quickly they can implement that technology," Vleugels stresses. "We have had a positive effect on a lot of assembly companies, international companies making a finished product. That's one of the reasons why we are critical to the continued development of this area, and to the future development of Mexico."

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