Tobias Farr, Export Sales Manager for LANG Technik, was over in Melbourne in November 2018, visiting the workholding and automation specialist’s agents for Australia and New Zealand, Dimac Tooling, and catching up with clients here.
LANG Technik was founded by Josef Lang in 1982 in the German town of Neuhazen, initially operating as a sub-contractor for the mould-making industry and a manufacturer of general mechanical components. After Josef passed away, his son Guenter Lang stepped in as CEO in 1985. Taking the reins at the age of just 23, it was Guenter who would come to set Lang’s long-term direction, overseeing the company’s transition from contract manufacturing to developing its own products, beginning with the Vario-Tec pin-jaw clamping system in 1997. And Guenter remains very much at the heart of the company’s operations today.
“My boss is a typical German inventor,” says Tobias Farr. “He always has some idea of how to optimise processes and manufacturing cycles, and he came up with more and more ideas.”
Guenter also took a keen interest in the people side of the business. When Farr joined LANG as a driver in 2003, he was planning to join the German Army. However, Guenter found out about this, and he was quick to intervene, making Farr an alternative offer.
“He said: ‘No don’t do that. We have a job here,’” Farr recalls. “And that was my career. I did my apprenticeship at LANG, and then my Bachelor’s degree study. Now I’m looking for sales partners.”
Farr was in Melbourne for four days, running training sessions on LANG’s products at Dimac’s offices in Dandenong, as well as getting out and visiting some of LANG’s Australian customers. This followed a stop-off for the METALEX exhibition in Thailand, with Taiwan next on the itinerary before heading back home to Germany. It’s a lot of travel, but LANG – like Farr – has come a long way.
“When I joined in 2003 we were 15 employees,” says Farr. “Now 15 years later we are 115 people. There’s been enormous growth.”
Today LANG specialises in two areas: workholding, and automation. Its automated loading systems employ existing industrial robots from the likes of Fanuc as part of an integrated solution for the handling of vices, pallets and fixtures, and can be retrofitted to almost all machine tools. Meanwhile, LANG has acquired a well-earned reputation as a global leader in workholding, specialising in particular in products for milling machines. Its core growth areas are in high-end applications in advanced manufacturing sectors such as aerospace or medical.
“Our products are especially important everywhere you process expensive material,” says Farr. “That’s the case with medical or aerospace (titanium, aluminium, stainless steel). The purpose of our products is that it can save expensive material and guarantees the utmost process reliability for sophisticated machining tasks.”
Traditionally the workholding segment has not been especially innovative, with the fundamental design for many vices relatively unchanged in 100 years or more. However, the last 20 years or so have seen considerable change, and LANG has been a key player in this. As Farr puts it: “We want to be an innovation driver in this industry.”
One example of this is Quick Point, LANG’s patented zero-point workholding technology. Zero-point systems are not unique these days, with many suppliers offering products in this area. What distinguishes Quick Point is the way it combines impressive flexibility with high levels of rigidity.
“In Germany we have a saying: ‘Nothing is as expensive as a machine tool standing still,’” says Farr. “So the main target is always to keep the machine tool running. If you change from one job to another, the set-up time should be as short as possible. With zero-point clamping systems a one-time installation is required. Once the base plate is mounted and aligned to the machine tool table and the zero-point is defined, you can build up anything – workpieces, flanges, vices, fixture – quickly and accurately. The changeover time is reduced to maybe five minutes maximum. In the past, if you had aligned everything, it took up to one or two hours to change the job.”
Five-axis machining is currently the most significant trend in CNC milling in terms of defining how LANG is directing its ongoing research & development (R&D) efforts. The growth in five-axis machining is driving demand for workholding products that are much smaller and more compact.
“In Germany and Europe, I think there is not one company that does not have a five-axis machine tool, even the one-man job shop,” Farr says. “For five-axis machining it only makes sense if you can finish the part in one or a maximum of two set-ups. Therefore we have to have small, lightweight vices to have the access from all around, all five faces, the top side and four lateral faces.”
LANG’s innovation strategy is built on a constant focus on R&D. It releases a new catalogue every two years, and always strives to include new products each time. The company also maintains an active policy of co-operation with its clients in driving the evolution of its products.
“For us it’s very important to be in constant communication with our customers,” says Farr. “They are very inventive when it comes to application possibilities, which often initates a product development process at LANG. We get feedback from customers what can be done better and we continuously apply modifications, improvements.
This approach also serves as a way for LANG to strengthen its customer relationships and bolster brand loyalty.
“Since we collaborate so closely with our customers, they are quite loyal to us because we are facing them on the same level. We really have a good relationship with our customers.”
Germany remains LANG’s biggest market, accounting for 40% of its turnover, followed by the USA, France, the UK and Italy. Japan is its biggest market in Asia, while Farr is also quietly impressed with what he has seen of manufacturing in Australia.
“It’s the first year we are co-operating with Dimac in the Australian market,” he notes. “Compared to other markets, it’s picking up quite quickly here. In other markets in South-East Asia for example, it took much longer until we had good results. But even though the market here is quite limited, it has developed quite quickly.”
Clean-Tec – Automatic cleaning of workpieces
One of the most unique products LANG Technik developed in its early years was the Clean-Tec Cleaning Fan. Clean-Tec automatically cleans the machine table, pallet and/or workpieces after the machining process is complete.
The fan can be stored like a common tool and selected automatically via a CNC program. It can be clamped in every common shank with a diameter of 20mm. The fan is activated by the revolving of the machine spindle, whereupon the wings will unfold to commence the cleaning task. The fan is available in different diameter sizes of 160mm, 260mm, and 330mm.
“Clean-Tec is the practical time saving solution for removing chips and coolant from the machine table, fixtures and workpieces prior to unloading,” says Dimac Managing Director Paul Fowler. “Because all LANG Technik’s extensive products come from the one place, they are perfectly matched and interfacing problems with other systems do not exist. The modular building system and the multitude of combinations and capabilities are the reason that their workholding systems can be used in almost any machining centre.
“Like all the products we sell, Clean-Tec along with the rest of the LANG Technik range will have the full back up and support of Dimac technical personnel to ensure the products are installed correctly and operate at optimum performance.”