Posted to News on 24th Nov 2014, 15:13
All-electric injection presses form part of £7m investment
Owen Mumford, a UK supplier and manufacturer of specialist medical devices, has invested in all-electric injection moulding presses for its "Phase 5' manufacturing facility, now close to completion, at the firm's Chipping Norton site. The all-electric moulding presses include five FANUC ROBOSHOT moulding machines and four FANUC 6 axes robots.
The presses form part of a 7million investment by Owen Mumford and represents its vision of future needs for medical device manufacturing excellence. Comprising a 1000m2 clean room area, in a purpose-built facility, Owen Mumford's Manufacturing team has maximised on this "ground-up' opportunity to project design and implement the latest technology and thinking for clean room manufacturing facility design.
Group Operations Director, Modestino Graziano, comments: "Best in class manufacturing facilities, along with a clear focus on manufacturing excellence are minimum requirements for our industry. We based "Phase 5' on the high standards our clients expect, on the requirements to meet future industry regulations and our team's extensive experience of manufacturing for this sector.
"For example, the facility has been developed with energy savings in mind; and from our past experience of FANUC ROBOSHOT all-electric injection moulding machines, we know the total cost profile of electric machines is lower than that of hydraulic machines".
FANUC ROBOSHOT injection moulders were the first all-electric moulding machines available when they were introduced to the market in the early 1980s, and to date it is believed they remain the only moulders available that are designed from the ground up as all-electric machines; other electric machines are based on hydraulic platform designs. Since their introduction, precision, monitoring, control and energy saving ability have been FANUC's continual development driving force for their injection moulding machine range.
The five ROBOSHOT S-2000 i250B injection moulding machines are well suited for the precise nature of medical device delivery systems where thin wall and ultra precision moulding is required. Incorporating its newly developed high-power servo motor into the injection unit allows injection speeds of up to 1000mm/s to be acheived together with accurately monitored high clamping pressure.
Precise backflow monitoring
High-quality and stable moulding is maintained by precise backflow monitoring, metering and the rigid construction of the machines. Overall machine control is provided by FANUC's control technology based on its CNC control platform used across all FANUC product lines.
Flexibility of integration of equipment, within the project, has been critical for the Owen Mumford team to achieve their ultimate goals. Graziano explains: "Throughout the project, FANUC has been happy to help which is crucial to smooth the project implementation process. The integration of the hot runner systems to each machine was made straightforward by FANUC's support, combined with the flexible and open nature of the FANUC control system."
Adding to the "Future View' capability of "Phase 5' will be the new FANUC M-20iA robots which have the six axes flexibilty to undertake load and unload tasks from the moulding machines together with second operation assembly tasks if required. Using the same control platform as the ROBOSHOT moulding machines, the M-20iA robots have a payload capacity of 20kgs providing adequate scope for future end of arm tooling requirements.
To learn more about all-electric injection moulding presses from FANUC, please go to www.fanuc.eu.
