BODYCOTE BETS ON FAGOR AUTOMATION FOR RETROFITTING THEIR MACHINES WITH CNC

BODYCOTE, world leader in thermal processing services has been CNC retrofitting their machines at their facilities in Billy-Berclau – France for three years. (Business volume of € 800 M, 6,000 people, 190 factories worldwide, including 27 inFrance).

This plant is equipped with several machines that are experiencing recurrent failures due to their old age and have become a problem for their activity.

When Mr. DELETRE, the new general manager, came on board, he set forth a plan to renew the machines and improve the business activity.

He contacted HD AUTOMATISME, company specialized in maintenance and optimization of industrial equipment, mainly in digitizing and mechanical adjustments of machine tool-equipment to set up a first machine that would serve as a model for his plan.

HD AUTOMATISME has been in close relationship with Fagor Automation for 10 years, it is Fagor’s Authorized Technical Service Center (CTAF) for northern France and proposed to adapt their machines with a combination of Fagor CNC 8055 and Fagor motors.

The CNC offers specific features like modifying the tool path with a handwheel during an automatic cycle o creating a program from a part machined for the first time using several manual operations by validating the tool paths and the functions as you go.

After the success obtained in this initial retrofit, BODYCOTE launched a project to retrofit one by one all their machines that were equipped with an older generation CNC (NUM, SIEMENS, ROCKWELL or B & R).

So far, they have successfully retrofitted another eight machines and the remaining three will be retrofitted in a few months. This way, Bodycote will upgrade their facilities with more efficient machines and with more uniform automation thus considerably improving productivity of this factory that is specialized in thermal treatment, specially of pinions.