Choosing a sawjet

[SbergeronMG]

Hi,

Most of you already know who I am and my question for you today is pretty simple but somewhat really complicated for me.
Although I think there's not one good/best system for any company, there's a lot of question to be ask.

What type of job you are doing?
What are you looking for the future of the company?
What is you rate of production and your growth rate?
Expected return on investement?
etc etc etc.

Our current set up doing 2300 sqft/week up to 3000 sqft/week (hoping to push that number to 4000 with new set up)
-Smatcut 800 (fabmaster inventory and all)
-Luna 740
-Breton k23 robocup
-breton k37 robocup
-Brembana concept 2.84
-Park industries sierra
-Radial arm from Noma


What we are looking for:

-Breton combicut dual table
-Cms brembana sprinjet dual table
-Northwood robo sawjet (fanuc)
-Baca systems robo sawjet
(look into tnd robotic, I-cubed robot, prussiani)

While they all have up and down and I pushed my research as far as I can go, I believe that the fastest return on investement would be the Baca systems. While being cheaper and smaller footprint than anything else that I've mention it would cover about 90% of the type of job that we are doing. And I have to keep in mind that the other 10% could easily be cover with our current smartcut. The thing is Northwood would cover 95% and brembana and breton would cover 100%. But I don't know if the price difference would be cover over the years, because the only difference is really the miter jobs and internal corner for miter.

I believe they all have their up and down breton probably the most reliable and we would keep the same system. Brembana easystone is probably the easiest program on the market and the manipulator free up waterjet usage. Northwood got a good system, can miter (while I don't know if it's viable), repeatability of the robot got me scared a bit (0.5mm that's a lot to clip a miter edge). Baca system cheaper to buy, smaller footprint, can miter small piece (while they say it's not really viable) looks to be reliable and from what I did gather way cheaper to maintain then any gantry saw(same goes for the fanuc robot) because there's a lot more robot on the market then any gantry saw.

I'm pretty sure salesman will get on that post and I certainly hope so. Fabricator what would be your choice and why? Salesman what would make the difference for your machine?

[Ger Vanderbas]

Hi Sebastien,

Thanks as usual for the kind words about our equipment.

So, without making any comparisons, I only offer these questions and these are ones which I think the manufacturers all have to consider in their designs. I think of machines like houses and understand a buyer and their satisfaction/preference is about a concert of factors, and then always eventually budget. The budget though IMHO should be looked at always for total cost of ownership. (of course)

So forgive these basic questions as only food for thought, however I think with ones senses most men who understand some basics of physics and mechanics such as most fabricators can really well analyze a machine. The rest is about the rest of the relationship. Always first to be clear on the expectations...

Forgive me if I'm mastering the obvious...

1. Considering that a jet costs more to operate then a blade, does your shop have volume or specific profitable works to offset the higher cost of operation over function of a cnc bridgesaw? Can you save enough time on downstream operations to achieve more deliverables as a result of operations now finished upstream?

2. Is it useful that the waterjet can also cut while inclined. (how might you use it for difficult materials, or particular applications such as inside miters?)

2. Is the machine a built machine or a bought machine and why might a company buy instead of build?

3. Are there advantages to traditional constructed bridge construction vs. others?

4. Are there accompanying costs to these disadvantages? What might they be?

5. Reliability. What does reliability mean to you? Less downtime or a combination of performance and less downtime?
How does eventual machine wear play into this? What does less performance or more downtime cost you? Does performance include the things that can be done well with one vs. the other which may not?


6. How much downstream work do I leave for myself. (how much manual or secondary machine work later.) How might that change over time? (mechanically speaking it will probably not improve right?)

Hope this helped. I always prefer to talk straight up and go over things top to bottom but always starting with the goals and expectations. It's the only way for me and how I'm moving our team.

Cheers to you. A couple more days before over the pond again.

[dcicchini]

Hello Sébastien.

It looks like you have done quite a bit of legwork, and as a result, you have brought up several items that are great topics for further discussion.

The first thing that stands out to me is your goal to fabricate 4,000 square feet per week. Assuming that this would be during a single shift, having a dual table sawjet will have a huge impact on your shop, allowing several of the operations that you likely process on your CNC machines to be completed on the sawjet (cutting sink openings, arcs, faucet holes, etc.). A sawjet solution allows you to get more done in a single station, with higher material yield, and at a reduced cycle time as compared to handling the material multiple times through several machines. Having both a sawjet and line polisher can be a very effective combination to dramatically increase a shop’s production.

As you have pointed out, the BACA Systems Robo SawJet is very effective for floor space, having the smallest footprint of any dual table machine in the market. In addition, the system uses a KUKA Robot, which is the preferred robot industry wide in applications that require tight tolerances. Boeing, Mercedes, and BMW are just a few of the demanding customers that choose KUKA over the other robot manufacturers, as they have found them to be far more accurate and have the ability to hold a very tight tolerance for path based applications (i.e., actual path versus commanded path). The KUKA Robot is a very rigid design, both in construction of the arm as well as the drive train. This results in a tolerance that is over 8x tighter than the other robot based sawjet that you described (.06mm versus .5mm). You might want to check out this video – it shows a great deal of technology in an application that requires precision placement for the assembly process. http://www.boeing.com/features/2014/07/ ... 14-14.page

Regarding the subject of miter cutting, the BACA Systems Robo SawJet system has the ability to do miter cuts, and in fact, the area covered for mitering is about the same as the big yellow robot that the other guys are using. I know, the first reaction is “how can that be, that arm is very long?”. It has to do with the “slice” across the robot work envelope at the working height of the table. The longer arm can’t work as close to the robot base as it can further away, so the effective area that it can miter is pushed out as compared to the robot that we use. We can show you more detail on this, as we had compared the robots extensively, both several years ago when BACA began to engineer our current system, and we reviewed this again recently when the other guys introduced their robot based sawjet. We chose the KUKA robot used on our system to gain the best combination of working range, performance, and footprint. When we evaluated the yellow robot, we found that it fell short in many areas that were needed to achieve the best overall value and performance needed for the application.

We do have customers that have used the Robo SawJet for miter cutting, and in those cases, we have an upgrade package that integrates additional high pressure coils to route the high pressure waterjet, which provides the flexibility for each axis to have the appropriate motion needed for this process. From what we have seen, the other robot based sawjet system uses a high pressure whip when cutting miters, which in our opinion, will result in premature fatigue on the high pressure line and result in excessive failures and downtime.

So based on the above, why do we not spend a lot of time promoting miter cutting on our sawjet system? There are several reasons, the first being throughput. Most people buy a sawjet system to get a great deal more throughput from their sawing process. Miter cuts tend to be carried out at a much slower travel speed during the sawing operation, and often times, a fabricator might use a different saw blade to get a better edge quality as opposed to the blade that would be used for standard cutting. In some cases, this can mean slowing down the saw cutting process 3-4 times or more, and adding downtime to change out the blade for the miter cuts. Reducing the throughput in the sawjet station might make it harder to get to that 4,000 sq. ft. a week mark as a result.

Also, due to the waterjet cutting that is performed on the table, the table surface tends to be irregular and not ideal for high quality miter cut. People tend to try to adjust to this by probing the material, to compensate for both the table irregularities as well as the slab thickness and any bowing of the stone. Additional time is needed to complete the probing, slowing down the cycle further. You also have to worry about smaller pieces moving during the cutting process, especially on a table that has been chewed up during the waterjet cutting process.

With all of this in mind, most of our customers have tended to lean towards that “80/20 rule” philosophy, meaning take advantage of the real benefits of the machine capability to cut a great deal of stone at a high rate, and cut the blank shapes that require miter cuts on the sawjet and then process the miter cutting in a separate station. We sell a single axis saw that allows the material to be clamped with the polished side down and allowing the saw cut to be in the correct place each and every time. This operation is carried out concurrently with the sawjet cycle running the next job, so the same operator that loads and unloads the sawjet can often times also take care of the miter cuts in this separate station. We understand that each fabricator has their own needs and way of doing things, and this may not be the approach that everyone might choose to take. That said, some of our customers that initially bought their Robo SawJet system with the intent of doing miter cuts with it have added the separate miter saw right next to the system and have gained more production and better quality of miter cuts as a result of this change.

As for reliability and low cost operation, you are correct that a robot based solution will be far more reliable and less costly to run as compare to the bridge/gantry based CNC sawjets. Think about the maintenance required on a conventional bridge based saw with the cleaning and greasing of the rails, replacement of components, etc. All this is for a standard sawing operation, without adding the abrasive garnet from the waterjet process to the equation. Compare this maintenance to robots that run 24/7 operations in high production in automotive plants in very demanding environments without any daily, weekly, or monthly maintenance required, and it’s easy to see the benefits that come with a technology where 25,000 robots are manufactured in a year by a single manufacturer. The robot used with our Robo SawJet system has two grease fittings that require a couple of shots of grease once a year, and the scheduled next maintenance event is an oil change at 10,000 hours or five (5) years. The oil change is similar to how you would change the oil in a car – remove vent plug, remove lower plug, drain, plug it, add new oil. The KUKA Robot we use is also waterproof, and dust proof. We can dunk the sealed wrist in abrasive water all day, every day – you can see this here https://vimeo.com/161460995 . You wouldn’t want to try that with a conventional bridge based motion solution.

There are many other advantages that we can discuss to give you background on why the BACA Systems Robo SawJet system is the lowest cost sawjet solution in the industry, not only from the initial price to purchase, but also the cost to operate the system. We have selected and partnered with manufacturers that provide the most reliable, capable machinery for our system, to provide our customers with the most value of any sawJet system available. Feel free to contact me with questions or to discuss your needs further. Or if you just want to talk more about robots – myself and the BACA team have been implementing robots in cutting applications since the mid 1980’s, and we have over 3,500 robots that we’ve installed in production facilities here in North America with our previous company.

Thank you for opening up this discussion!

Doug Cicchini
BACA Systems
(248) 892-9902
dougc@bacasystems.com

[Steven DeGrasse]

Sébastien,

I was recently made aware of your post, and would first say that you came to a good place to ask that question. The leadership and members here are helpful and have a ton of knowledge; especially when it comes to modern manufacturing and the "digital shop".

Why Northwood?

Northwood Machine has been in the industrial machine business for 30 years, and has manufactured CNC machining centers since 1990 that are still running today. We have multiple manufacturing facilities in Louisville, Kentucky, USA: including an 80,000 square-foot fabrication, machining, and paint facility; two assembly facilities, including our Engineering and Service Headquarters at 11610 commonwealth Drive; a training center in Phil Campbell, Alabama, and regional sales and technician support throughout the Americas. We have thousands of machines in the field, both large and small; in aerospace, architectural stone and millwork, wood and composites, countertop fabrication, and machining centers cutting aluminum and iron.

Northwood pioneered the SawJet process, equipment, and software over a decade ago, and introduced the first low-table, mono-block CNC for milling countertops 5 years before that - a machine that has since become the standard in the industry, the SW138. Since then, we have taken this dual-side ballscrew-driven, machining center to another level with the addition of a servo-tilt saw, and the industry-leading servo-driven spindle; a machine dubbed the “FABCENTER”, the ‘Swiss-army knife’ of the countertop industry.

Why a NORTHWOOD Robotic SawJet?

The Northwood Robotic SawJet is a 6-Axis, servo-driven solution that combines the world leader in industrial robotics and motion control, FANUC; the leader in waterjet technology, KMT; and the industry-standard for CAM software for routing and cutting, AlphaCAM, into one seamless solution for your shop. But the real difference is in the engineering, fabrication, and software that results in a feature-rich system that dwarfs the competition.

The RSJ is available in two models: the 400L, and the 280L. Need the biggest, most powerful Robotic SawJet on the market? Go with the RSJ-400L, and you have a 400 kilogram payload, long-reach system with the ability to cut underwater for harder stones, saw-miter to avoid having to do the same cut twice, and dynamic force-feedback allowing the system to speed up or slow down depending on the cut! Is having the ability to miter not a concern? Or, need the lowest cost, smallest footprint SawJet out there? Then you will want to look into the RSJ-280L. Even though it is much shorter, don’t underestimate its power. The 280L may be Northwood’s “small” SawJet, but it still boasts a greater payload than other robotic SawJets on the market! Both models are available in dual-table or single-table configurations, with the ability to add the second table down the road.

We have been around for 30 years, and will be there for you 30 more.

At Northwood, we strive to be the best in North America when it comes shaping Iron, an that's why we are intentional about long term partnerships with the best component suppliers in the world. Choosing FANUC for both robotic arms AND motion control was an easy choice to make, and has been a fruitful relationship for decades:

https://northwoodstoneworks.com/stone/w ... uc-robots/

In fact, there is even a really cool series of FANUC Robotic installs in Ontario, at the Ford Oakville Plant:

https://youtu.be/pxLpsSkEtuY

I am following this post up by express mailing you more information, including some brochures, and business cards for the Stone Division Sales Manager, Robbie Tidwell (robbie@northwoodmachine.com) and the North Central Sales Rep, Bob Hilts (bobh@northwoodmachine.com). They will be contacting you shortly, and can not only answer your questions, but provide a ton of additional resources, including other equipment, layout, process expertise, and financing options.