With the introduction of dynamic nesting each sheet thickness is only ordered in one size, simplifying the nesting process and making significant savings in labour and work in progress costs.

Finlay Hydrascreens was formed in the late 1950s with the aim of producing mobile screening equipment. Now the company is part of the Terex Group and specialises in screening, washing and recycling machines. Due to the harsh operating environment the design and manufacture of high quality, robust machines is of crucial importance to the company, which has a range of 22 main models.

The Trommel machines are designed to separate a wide range of materials including topsoil, compost, demolition waste and wood chips, while the Reclaimer machines, designed for the recycling industry, can also be used in the quarry industry for prescreening rock prior to crushing in the company's Jaw Crusher machines.

For washing applications, Finlay produces a range of machines for applications such as the washing of sand and gravel, crushed rock, quarry dust and recycled concrete.

The company carries out the design and build of these machines at its factory in Omagh, Northern Ireland and they are manufactured from a range of material including sheet metal ranging in thickness from 2mm to 25mm.

Brian Forbes, plasma programmer, said, 'All our production goes through our six Messer Griesheim plasma machines, which have bed sizes up to 12m long.' Finlay Hydrascreens decided to review its programming methods for the plasma machines, and chose SigmaNest from SigmaTEK Europe because of the power of its nesting package.

Forbes continued, 'SigmaNEST produced the best nest with the optimum material utilisation and was easier and quicker to use.' The design of the machines is carried out in Pro/ENGINEER, then DXF files of the component geometry are loaded into SigmaNEST ready for processing.

Initially, the company had created a series of fixed nests to meet demand for its products.

However, due to fluctuating order levels and customer's special requirements, this method of production resulted in shortages of some components and over supply of others.

Brian Forbes said, 'To solve the problem we moved to dynamic nesting, installing SigmaTek's SimTrans software to communicate with our MRP system.' Each week the plasma cut part requirements at Finlay Hydrascreens can be for 6000 different plasma parts, each of which can be required in various quantities, cutting up to 22000 parts per week.

'With SimTrans, we automatically get a list of parts for the week from our MRP system.

We can then, for example, nest all the 5mm thick parts for customer A, and then create another nest for customer B and so on.

The SigmaTEK software keeps track of the nested parts, only showing us the ones yet to be processed.

By the end of the week all the components are finished and we are ready for the next week's production.' Since its introduction, production has risen from 220 to 430 tonnes per week which requires approximately 600 different nests and is set to rise further in the coming months.

Forbes added, 'It would have been impossible to raise production to these levels without SimTrans.' SigmaNEST and SimTrans have also enabled the company to rationalise its sheet metal purchasing.

Fixed nests required sheet material in multiple sizes for each thickness.

The result was high stock levels and storage and handling problems in the factory.

With the introduction of dynamic nesting each sheet thickness is only ordered in one size, simplifying the nesting process and making significant savings in labour and work in progress costs.

The software helps in the identification of parts.

Each nest automatically generates part labels and sketches for each component.

The machine operator can then easily sort the parts and correctly label them ready for subsequent operations.

Forbes said, 'This is a simple and effective way of keeping track of our components.

Our next aim is to have colour coded labels so that we can easily identify the customer too.' Flexibility is provided by the ability to manually intervene in the automatic nesting process.

Parts can be added to fill up partially used sheets for maximum material utilisaton.

Finlay Hydrascreens has recently benefited from an upgrade to version 7, which gives faster nesting and easier retrieval of parts in SimTrans.

Forbes concluded, 'Nesting in SigmaNEST version 7 is at least twice as fast.

The processing of five sheets can be completed in 20 to 30 seconds.

The quality and speed of nesting which we can achieve with the software is very important to us.' * About the SigmaTEK Corporation - formed in 1992, with offices in Cincinnati, Ohio, Seattle, Washington - USA; international offices in Europe, Japan and Australia, and a worldwide distribution network, over 4000 SigmaNEST systems are now in use round the globe.

SigmaNEST software maintains its technological leadership in sheet metal nesting and cutting by a relentless commitment to research and development, providing customers with tools to maximise material utilisation and increase machine throughput while minimising programming time and effort.

Authorised training centres around the world provide after sales technical support and education to optimise productivity for users.