Two advanced sheet metalworking facilities are nearing completion at the Springvale and Monkstown factories of FG Wilson, featuring six Finn-Power Shear Genius turret punch press cells.

Two advanced sheet metalworking facilities are nearing completion at the Springvale and Monkstown factories of FG Wilson, both sites being located within a few miles of Belfast city centre and a short drive from the company's diesel generator assembly plant in Larne, the largest in Europe. Among the latest equipment to be installed are six Finn-Power Shear Genius turret punch press cells. Valued at a total of £3.5 million, the Finnish hydraulic presses were supplied by sole UK agent Press and Shear Machinery, Tamworth.

In trials, they proved to be 20 per cent more productive for FG Wilson's type of work than the next best turret punch press or system, according to Martin Ross, CNC Production Manager at Monkstown.

Nearly all this advantage is directly attributable to the Finn-Power's built-in shear, which executes straight cuts in a fraction of the time it takes to nibble the edges conventionally with a tool in one of the turret stations.

One Shear Genius is installed in Monkstown whilst the other five are at the new Springvale plant.

The former is operated as a stand-alone cell whose materials handling requirements are met by lift trucks.

The latter machines, however, are linked to a Remmert automated material storage system, delivering blanks to the presses and punched sheets to press brakes and folding machines.

Driven by a kanban production system in Larne, a host computer generates work lists which the press operators pull down to their controls.

Such a high level of investment in a flexible sheet metalworking system was essential to keep pace with worldwide demand for emergency power.

The rebuilding of Kosovo and power rationing in Chile have led to additional orders.

Demand is also growing as the Caribbean prepares for this year's hurricane season and due to widespread fear of power loss at the turn of the Millennium.

Each Finn-Power SG6 cell is virtually identical, comprising an automated sheet loading station fed from the computer-controlled material store and a gantry-type feed mechanism which sequentially transfers sheets measuring up to 1,500 mm x 3,000 mm into the punching, forming and shearing machine.

On the opposite side is a sorting conveyor which automatically allows small punched components to drop selectively into various bins underneath.

Larger items are allowed to continue into a stacking system where similar parts are arranged together onto pallets ready for removal by lift truck.

Meanwhile, the shear cuts up the skeleton for removal by another conveyor to a scrap bin at the side of the machine, eliminating time-consuming handling and cutting of the scrap by the operator.

Smaller pieces of waste material punched from the sheet are routed to a separate bin.

The difference between the Shear Genius and other machines is explained by Martin Ross.

'Sheet metal components for many of our generators are typically the size of a table yet often have corner notches and just a few punched holes in addition to four long straight edges.

One part, for example, requires 50 hits to produce the features and conventionally needed 100 nibbling strokes to cut out the remainder of the periphery, which invariably had scallops and pinch marks.

Overall, I should say around 60 per cent of punch press time in our factories used to be taken up profiling straight lines.

'Using the 800 mm x 1,500 mm shearing blades mounted at 90 degrees to each other in a separate station on the SG6, this latter operation is carried out in just a few strokes and there is no material wastage.

Automatic blade gap adjustment ensures efficient shearing irrespective of the thickness of material being cut.

Another advantage is that all nested components have the punched features completed before the shear separates them, so they leave the working area together and continue their journey automatically by conveyor.

With other punch presses each part has to be removed by hand, extending the overall cycle time.

After that the skeleton needs to be cut up and discarded, adding further to the labour content of the operation.' Three years ago Mr Ross used the 'Sheet Metal Industries' annual punch press review to research more than 30 suppliers on the market, shortlisting three for production trials on a selection of more difficult generator components.

At that time, only one machine other than the Finn-Power had an integral right angle shear but the 2 mm capacity in steel was not high enough.

However the 4 mm capacity of the Shear Genius was ideal as up to 3 mm galvanised and uncoated mild steels account for 95 per cent of FG Wilson's punching work and there is spare power to ensure that the machines do not have to work to their full rated capacity.

Larger generator fuel tanks and bases, canopies and other components are machined from heavier gauge steel on existing punch presses, laser cutters and plasma machines at the Monkstown plant, which is also serviced by an automated storage and retrieval system.

Apart from the speed of cutting straight lines, another major issue at the time of machine evaluation was to ensure that the presses could deploy sufficient tools to produce all FG Wilson's parts without repeatedly having to exchange tools in the turret.

This has been achieved by maximising the use of multi-tools carrying either six medium size tools or 10 smaller tools and buying a sufficient number of machines so that each may be dedicated to one gauge of sheet.

This policy will be fully implemented when the other Finn-Power cells are installed, which incidentally will have the new, larger Finn-Power turret.

At the same time, a certain amount of presently subcontracted sheet metalwork for canopies will be brought in-house, helping to amortise the investment quickly.

Meanwhile, one of the Springvale presses is changed over periodically, a process which takes about half a day, to meet demand for generator bases and heavier gauge canopies made from 2.5 mm and 3.0 mm galvanised steel.

The other two machines are already dedicated to 1.2 mm, 1.6 mm, and 2.0 mm gauge material, producing guards, control boxes, cover plates and, on one machine, canopies as well.

An interesting comment made by Martin Ross was that, as FG Wilson is an OEM, its production department is able to, and does, influence generator designs to rationalise the number of punch press tools needed.

In contrast, subcontractors do not have that luxury as they are normally required to produce exactly what their customers ask for.

Joe Hanna, Production Manager at Springvale, commented: 'All our presses work hard, 24 hours a day, five days a week and at the weekends as well.

During one week at the end of June we punched 25,500 parts.

The higher level of business means that batch sizes are increasing; it is not unusual for us to produce 180 canopies in a week and even more of other parts.

It can sometimes take a whole shift to complete two jobs.' Cycle times vary from two to 15 minutes, according to component complexity, but in some cases cluster tooling is required to achieve these times.

Five of the eight auto indexing stations in each machine are equipped with multi-tools whilst the other three have tools for producing corner notches and radiused features.

Wilson turret tooling accounts for 90 per cent in use in Monkstown and Springvale.

Special tools are used to upform louvres and countersinks in many of the components, helped by the ability on all Finn-Power machines to program infinitely variable stroke lengths and speeds for each tool.

Product development is carried out in Larne and designs are networked from the Autocad system directly to the sheet metal factories where they are translated into DXF format.

This is recognised by Finn-Power's JETCAM SG system running on a PC which assists in program preparation including punching and forming operations, automatic nesting of parts to maximise sheet utilisation and operation of the right angle shear.

Up to 432 components (locking tabs) are punched from a single sheet although at the other end of the scale just one part, a canopy roof, may be produced.

Programs, of which there is currently a library of 2,500 at Springvale (increasing all the time as work is transferred from Monkstown) are downloaded to the machines by DNC link.

Power Link MMC is a further Finn-Power option which FG Wilson has adopted.

It is a high-speed data connection to the CNC system designed to simplify monitoring and identification of a machine fault.

If an error occurs, a unique code appears automatically on the screen of the CNC with full textual explanation of what the problem is and how it should be solved.

In addition, a schematic image is displayed of the relevant area of the machine.

Additionally, a full user manual for the punch press is included, so not only is the service manual on-line but also the operating instructions for machine, control and accessories.

A third function is NC file management.

As a result of these Shear Genius installations and a number of other Finn-Power machines operating across the Province, Press and Shear has now employed a resident engineer for Northern Ireland who lives 15 miles from Belfast.

FG Wilson was established in 1966 in an old textile mill in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

In the early 70s the company started to focus on the design and manufacture of diesel-powered generating sets, since which time the company has experienced spectacular growth.

A small, family run, general engineering firm has grown into a large, internationally renowned exporter with subsidiaries and dealers on every continent.

In June 1999, Caterpillar acquired 100 per cent equity in FG Wilson.

Caterpillar reports annual sales of over US$ 20 billion, with engines and generating sets accounting for over 20 per cent of turnover.

Today, FG Wilson is the largest diesel generating set manufacturer in Europe and third largest in the world, with annual sales of more than œ250 million.

It is one of the largest employers and exporters in Northern Ireland with 90 per cent of generating sets exported to over 170 countries.

The company lies comfortably within the UK's top 100 exporters and has won the prestigious Queen's Award for Export Achievement three times in the last decade.

FG Wilson manufacturing plants boast state of the art facilities and are among the most advanced in the world.

Since 1993, the group headquarters has been located in Larne, shipping in excess of 30,000 generating sets per year.

The high export volume is supported by two other plants in Northern Ireland, at Springvale and Monkstown, with extensive facilities for metal fabrication and the manufacture of control systems.