P.P. Profi les (West Yorkshire) has
replaced three less accurate and
less effi cient machines with this
massive Kerf RUR4500 cell that
measures 39 by 4 m
running on a 12 m bed, compared to the
previous 6 m bed, the bene ts of pendulum
loading and unloading are particularly
pertinent on this station.”
BETTER WORKFLOW & SCHEDULING
Typical lead times at P.P. Pro les (West
Yorkshire) are three to ve days. However,
the Kerf installation has eliminated
bottlenecks, improved work ow and
scheduling, and given the company the
facility to react much faster to customer
demands. On top of this, the ability to
service sectors where rush jobs and
breakdowns are frequent is absolutely
crucial, so having machinery that hinders
this is not an option.
Previous experience with a Kerf waterjet
machine installed some 10 years ago was a
strong in uence in the purchase of the
RUR4500 cell. Reports Morley: “Machine
uptime and service are critical to our
business. We bought a Kerf waterjet
machine over 10 years ago and the support
has been outstanding. We have machines
from a number of suppliers and the service
from Kerf is something that any company
could learn from. If we ever have an issue,
Kerf will get an engineer out straight away
and the problem is always resolved in less
than 24 hours. What is equally impressive is
the customer care. Kerf will regularly call us
or pop-in to check everything is running
smoothly – it’s just excellent service and
customer care.”
PROFILING FLAME BURNS BRIGHT FOR KERF AT P.P. PROFILES
And he con rms: “The core reason for
selecting Kerf was not only down to the
machine capability, but also our positive
experiences of reliability, consumable supply
and of course the con dence in their service
support.”
Additional issues with the previous
machines, apart from their lack of reliability,
have also been eradicated. Continues the
commercial director: “We found with our old
ame cutting machines that dimensions
were susceptible to drifting during cutting
and this could lead to re-working and scrap
parts. Whilst the Kerf ame machines can
cut beyond 300 mm thick material, we are
generally cutting up to 150 mm plate and at
these dimensions, drift was possible in all
axes. The Kerf RUR4500 has eliminated this
issue. Precision is guaranteed, the cut
quality is far superior, and this is all driven
by the Burny 10LCD control, which is very
easy to use and program. Furthermore, the
7.5 bar pressure through the cutting nozzles
is making the machine 20% faster than its
predecessors.”
Each of the three cutting stations
features a Burny 10LCD Plus CNC control
unit to provide exibility and familiarity for
operators. However, with a Windowsembedded
operating system, ease of use
and familiarity with precise and repeatable
motion control are guaranteed. For the
plasma machine, the accuracy delivered
through the Lincoln Electric Spirit II 400 A
unit with UltraSharp cutting technology is
also praised.
Says Morley: “The whole machine has an
ingenious ‘plate alignment’ feature that
identi es the corners of the steel plate as
datum points and then uses these points to
automatically adjust the cutting path via the
Burny CNC platform to eliminate the need for
perfect alignment. What this means is that
our crane and machine operator no longer
have to perfectly align plates and sheets on
the machine bed prior to cutting. This gives
us another considerable saving with regards
to set-up times and the reduction of noncutting
time. We are cutting 12 m long
plates up to 40 mm thick on this machine,
so continuous re-alignment can be a very
time-consuming process.”
And in conclusion he says: “The Kerf
RUR4500 has delivered everything we
wanted and more. It has streamlined our
work ow, reduced labour requirements,
improved machine utilisation and uptime by
50% and it has improved productivity by over
20%. Additionally, we have a reliable, well
supported machine that is very accurate with
the UltraSharp cutting technology; and that
gives us con dence to take on any future
challenges.”
The Kerf plasma unit is powered
by the Lincoln Electric Spirit II
400 A unit with UltraSharp cutting
technology, delivering accuracy,
even in thickest materials
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