Sizing up
the opportunities
A 39 m plasma cutter; the UK’s biggest Trumpf press brake; and
a large machining centre for rail sector work are among recent big
investments that by Steed Webzell has turned up
PP Pro les (West Yorkshire) Ltd has
bought a plasma and ame cutting
machine from Kerf Developments
(https://is.gd/humoze) that measures 39 m
in length. To get a scale of work taking place
at the Batley-based heavy engineering
business, an average of 400 to 500 tonnes
of steel are being processed every month,
and almost 40% of this material is run
through the Kerf RUR4500. The level of
investment at PP Pro les (West Yorkshire)
now stands at more than £2 million in the
past two years.
Over the past four decades, the
40-employee subcontract manufacturer has
built a reputation for providing cutting
solutions for carbon steel, stainless steel
and a range of additional materials in the
nuclear, oil and gas, construction, rail, bulk
handling, storage tank and yellow goods
industries. The reason behind the
investment in the colossal Kerf RUR4500
was due to two older 12 by 2.5 m ame
cutting machines – and a 6 m plasma
machine – proving unreliable.
Commercial director Daniel Morley
explains: “We speci ed the Kerf RUR4500
with a single high de nition 400 A plasma
cutting head on a 12 by 4 m bed, and a twomachine
24 by 4 m bed that consists of
both a six-head and a four-head ame
cutting gantry – all in a single 39 by 4 m cell.
This con guration allows us to load much
larger jobs and opens up new markets, as
parts over 12 m long are not uncommon.”
The arrival of the Kerf RUR4500 machine
has reduced the required oor area and
improved ef ciency and work ow.
PROCESSING TIMES HALVED, AT LEAST
“Now, we have just four people running the
three machines within the Kerf RUR4500
cell, and our processing times have reduced
by at least 50%” says Morley. “The 50%
time saving is credit to the machine’s
pendulum loading ability, which means we
can cut steel plates on the large bed and,
while this process is ongoing, the crane
operator can load the next plate. As a result,
waiting time between plates is eliminated”
Typical lead times at PP Pro les are three
to ve days. However, the Kerf installation
has eradicated bottlenecks, improved
work ow and scheduling, and provided the
capability to react much faster to customer
demands. With this thought in mind, one of
the reasons for investing in the Kerf
machine was quality and consistency.
“We found with our old ame cutting
machines that dimensions were susceptible
to drifting during cutting, which could lead to
rework and scrap parts,” Morley adds.
“Although the new Kerf ame cutting heads
can process material beyond 300 mm thick,
we are generally cutting up to 150 mm plate
and, at these dimensions, drift was
previously possible in all axes. The Kerf
RUR4500 has eliminated this issue.
Precision is guaranteed and the cut quality
is far superior. Furthermore, 7.5 bar
pressure through the cutting nozzles is
making the machine 20% faster than our
previous resource.”
Endorsing operator friendliness and easeof
use, Morley refers to the Kerf plasma unit:
“The machine has an ingenious plate
alignment feature that identi es the corners
of the steel plate as datum points. These
points are used to automatically adjust the
cutting path via the Burny CNC platform. As
a result, our crane and machine operator no
46 March 2020 www.machinery.co.uk @MachineryTweets
/humoze)
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