A leading Australasian supplier of some of the world’s most advanced engineering plastics has staged a precision installation of advanced machining facilities used to produce top-quality light and strong engineering components and finished products.
Without missing a day’s production, Cut To Size Plastics brought the new 3500kg Morbidelli Author M100F heavy duty CNC router and machining centre from delivery truck tray to factory floor production readiness over two days at its Sydney headquarters.
The new high-speed, vibration-free Italian technology – which offers unmatched finishing quality and rapid production turnaround for the company’s Asia-Pacific markets – was eased into place by truck and crane. With careful planning, it threaded its way among the ongoing production processes, coming to rest besides the machine it replaced, which was still working at full capacity until the switchover.
“This was a real team effort to ensure that the high capacity new machine – which is about 6.5m long installed – could be efficiently threaded though busy factory floorspace among other high-tech machinery, then introduced into production without a hitch,” said Cut To Size Managing Director Laurie Green.
The new machine moved smoothly into production in March, to produce high-precision, light and durable machinery parts and complete products engineered from the materials of international leaders in plastics technology for whom Cut To Size is national distributor, including Licharz, Gehr and Beck-Wefapress. The new machine’s advanced capability is directed at industries such as manufacturing, forestry, food & beverage, timber, mining and mineral processing, transport and process, production engineering and automation applications.
Cut To Size’s latest investment in Morbidelli machining technology complements its comprehensive CNC machining facility at its Yennora headquarters, where it is coupled with GibbsCAM and SolidWorks software to optimise the company’s ability to produce high-quality products from customer specifications and design briefs for local application or export.
According to Green, the performance and flexibility offered by the new M100F has resulted in a 60% time saving in machining cycles compared with older technology. Morbidelli (part of the SCM Group) has a history of nearly 50 years of innovation in machining technology.
Customer benefits
Benefits to Cut To Size customers of the new machining technology include cost-efficiency, quick changeover flexibility and consistently excellent attainment of global quality standards. The machinery’s rapid working cycle times and reduction of idle times also enhance Cut To Size’s ability to cost-effectively supply high precision components from versatile engineering plastics including Nylon, Acetal, Teflon, UHMWPE, HDPE, PVC and Polypropylene. These materials are widely used to substitute metals in applications requiring light weight, ease and speed of handling for maintenance and parts replacement, low wear, and product contact applications, which also involve resistance to chemicals in the processing operations.
“This new machine is part of our ongoing investment in technology and skills to ensure we have the right people with the right tools to do a comprehensive job for our customers,” says Green.
Cut To Size has been supplying engineering plastics to Australian and international customers for more than 40 years. The company is committed to meeting Australian and international quality standards and to working within the guidelines issued by State WorkCover safety authorities. This includes producing durable products that are clean, easy to handle and enhance occupational health & safety (OH&S) conditions in applications such as maintenance and installation of machinery components for industries ranging from food & beverage manufacturing to mining, mineral processing and bulk handling.