Background
At one of the world's largest automotive manufacturers, this was on one of the customer's stamping lines (# 6). The automotive aluminum stamping line was running a cross-bar press picking up and placing inner hatch and outer hatch parts. The customer was using competitive suction cups, along with some other units. The competitive cups were dropping sections of the stamped aluminum sheets as they go down the stamping line reducing strokes-per-minute (SPM) output. The customer was looking to retrofit a press (# 6) which is currently running about 10 SPM and customer needed at least 11 SPM. The cross bar press is capable of 13 SPM.
Solution
A meeting was set with process engineers to understand how to address the problems of parts being dropped on the #6 stamping line. Select Piab friction cups were identified and delivered to the customer using the Piab automotive stamping friction cup program giving the customer free suction cups for the initial trial.
Result
After the initial trial was run, the customer reported that they were able to increase their presses on line #6 to over 11 SPM resulting in 82 parts over their hourly target. All cups were delivered with 3/8" NPT female fittings except for the oval cups which were provided with male G3/8", with a swivel function prior to the locking operation for easy positioning of the oval cup. The Piab friction cups provide a strong grip on oily surfaces and can withstand high shear forces resulting in parts no longer dropped and savings in damaged parts. The excellent grip allowed for faster picks, meaning greater SPM and increased revenue for the customer. Less money is spent on cups over time with the longer-lasting suction cup material. For the customer, 82 parts per hour improvement X 24 hours (currently running 3 shifts) X 345 days in work year = additional 678,960 parts produced just on line #6.
