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Bespoke Twin Pallet Horizontal Machining Centre - Alfa Laval

Story added 12 October 2010.

Gustaf de Laval, original founder of the Alfa Laval Company known globally today, was a technical genius whose inventions include the centrifugal separator and the first functional steam turbine. During his lifetime he registered 92 patents and started 37 companies. In 1883, he and his partner, Oscar Lamm Jr., established the company AB Separator, the forerunner of today’s Alfa Laval.

Alfa Laval’s operations are based on leading global positions in the three key technologies of heat transfer, separation and fluid handling. Continuous product development is a central company ethos and theme, strengthening their competitiveness and growth year on year, even throughout the current global recession. About 2.7% of total sales are invested annually in R&D, resulting in 25–30 new product launches a year.

The company currently has about 11,500 employees worldwide & has 20 large production units (twelve in Europe, six in Asia and two in the USA), and 70 service centres. Core market orientation has been strengthened over recent years by the establishment of ten customer segments within the business. To promote a clear customer focus, these segments are divided into two divisions – Process Technology and Equipment – which market and sell Alfa Laval products to specific customer groups.

Alfa Laval’s products are sold in over 100 countries, 50 of which have their own sales organisations.

In early 2009 Engineering Manager Andy Short and Senior Production Engineer Steve Tidey began the process of researching the UK machine tool market place for the first in a series of replacement investments for their aging horizontal machining centres; linked into an FMS system, at their impressive Eastbourne facility. Eastbourne is the technology & manufacturing centre for rotary lobe pumps within the Alfa Laval Group.

The exacting specification of the machine & the large amount of bespoke added engineering that would be essential on any new horizontal to meet the Alfa Laval’s stringent requirements led them to Matsuura Machinery PLC & their H.Plus-630 horizontal.

Matsuura UK have a large technical engineering facility & showroom in Leicestershire where machines from Japan are regularly re-engineered & upgraded to meet highly tailored & individual customer demands. Successfully delivering specialised engineering turnkey projects, some spanning several years, have built Matsuura’s UK reputation over the past 19 years supplying some of the world’s largest manufacturers & OEM producers with individualised machine tools & tailored production processes.

Andy Short, speaking on the process that led to Alfa Laval choosing Matsuura, said: “We have a Technology Development Plan for the Eastbourne site in order to constantly review our needs for the business & future production requirements – we knew that the current machine tool stock at the site were due for replacement under the TDP. An integral part of the TDP process is to start by reviewing new available technologies and establish the best method for manufacturing the components in terms of machinery, work holding and cutting tools”

We started work with Seco Tools (Alfa Laval’s tooling partner) & explored some concepts on how we could approach these components to gain maximum productivity without compromising on quality. From that work we concluded that the solution had to be a horizontally aligned spindle configuration - & probably going back from the current FMS to a twin pallet machine. The route from there was the traditional tender put out to the UK machine tool market, choosing ten companies to move forward with, one of which was Matsuura - & ended the tender process talking to just two who could possibly commit to providing the right process & machine”

The machine chosen – the Matsuura H.Plus-630 twin pallet horizontal machining centre is a state of the art horizontal. The investment imperatives for Alfa Laval did not change even at the start of the recession, nor did their choice of the UK as a place to invest in manufacturing. Alfa Laval demonstrates a clear & positive long term strategy across their entire global business & product development portfolio.

Commenting on the drivers for the Eastbourne investment, Andy continued: “There are 20 production sites within Alfa Laval’s global group - & here in Eastbourne we are responsible for the complete manufacture of rotary lobe pumps, so our strategic core competence is the manufacture of stainless steel components. We predominantly work in stainless steel because the majority of our products are for use in sanitary environments – from food & drink processing to pharmaceuticals. We basically produce 5 critical components in house & the rest we purchase”

Alfa Laval Rotary Lobe Pumps

Widely accepted as setting the benchmark for rotary lobe pump technology, Alfa Laval’s market position reflects the constant investment made in their product development & understanding of their customer’s future requirements. Suitable for all differing viscosity of media, Alfa Laval rotary lobe pumps are the result of 5 decades of commitment to the development of this genre of pump technology. Their rotary lobe pump portfolio covers all known media in a myriad of industrial, sanitary and pharmaceutical applications. Main industries served are Bio Fuels, Beverages, Bio-Tech, Pharmaceuticals, Chemicals, Food, HVAC, Oil & Gas & Waste Treatment amongst many other applications for their class leading technology.

The H.Plus-630 was highly modified & tailored to Alfa Laval’s requirements in the UK by Matsuura Engineers, asked if Matsuura’s turnkey experience & reputation had much bearing on their eventual selection & order placement Andy said: “ Yes, definitely – we have always found Matsuura’s response very prompt & professional - & from an engineering point of view their knowledge & proven expertise in their field is very re-assuring. We had a number of meetings prior to the order at Matsuura’s HQ in Leicestershire with their core engineering team – each time we were very impressed with the realistic engineering solutions that were put forward for the extra engineered features - & the professionalism with which these were later integrated into the machine to meet our requirements – these were some of the major factors as to why we chose Matsuura”

Bespoke Modifications

Matsuura’s UK engineering team undertake a vast amount of modification work on standard machines every year, tailoring exclusive solutions to maximise a customer’s production process. The Alfa Laval H.Plus-630 offered some unique challenges to the team. The list below consists of some of the more standard items fitted to the machining centre:

• 70 Bar programmable through spindle coolant
• Through spindle air
• FSE Swarf Management
• Balluf tool ID system
• Absolent mist extraction
• APC operator load platform
• Renishaw NC4 & OMP60

From FMS to Twin Pallet?

The trend in the market place for horizontals in recent years in the UK has been geared towards unmanned running & large pallet pools held in FMS systems. Alfa Laval appear to be bucking the trend on FMS systems, indeed reverting to stand alone twin pallet machines with a dedicated operator.

Andy explains: ”At the moment we have three horizontal machines within an FMS system, & I would say our core volume components were only loaded onto 5 -6 pallets, the rest of the pallets were there to help us with the low volume items requiring machining – so it gave us flexibility. However, we did struggle with the manning arrangements on those machines & the management of the FMS was always problematic for us. The efficiency for us is much better with one man dedicated to & operating one machine on a Rohm zero point quick change pallet system – loading pallets very quickly in a matter of minutes. The Matsuura twin pallet allows pallet changing off the machine whilst machining is still going on utilising an active pallet inside the enclosure. The existing FMS solution also has maintenance & uptime issues – particularly with the RGV (Rail Guided Vehicle) within the FMS & gave us some major headaches when it failed & we had to undertake the manual loading of heavy items. When the RGV on any FMS goes down, it is a show stopper in terms of production”.

Andy continued: “The twin pallet from Matsuura is part of a long term investment strategy we have for the Eastbourne facility. Our Technology Plan is part of an on going cycle to keep us at the forefront of production technology for our core components. With the new Matsuura I would say that we have set our technology platform for manufacturing our rotary lobe cases. The twin pallet method is now set for the next 5 – 10 years. The Technology Plan is ongoing regarding the other core components – so we are now looking for new optimised solutions for other areas of our production. Eastbourne had a lot of investment over a 3 year period around a decade ago, & we are now at the point in the cycle where we are looking again at our processes & production here.

Matsuura UK OEM Scheduling Software

As part of the turnkey project Alfa Laval invested in Matsuura TPS Software, a unique Tools & Pallets scheduling software package designed in the UK to be utilised alongside Matsuura multi pallet products. Alfa Laval uses this software to predict tool life cycles & monitor the productivity & efficiency of the H.Plus-630. Matsuura TPS has seen dramatic expansion of the number of UK customers using this dynamic software to maximise their machines performance & to cost effectively monitor the many varied aspects of their production.

Cycle Times up to 40% Faster

Andy concludes: “The Matsuura has so far performed very well – no major issues at all – teething issues yes, but Matsuura have been very pro-active in resolving these issues quickly. We make the call & next day Matsuura engineers are here to solve the problem. In terms of support & response they have been very professional – certainly one of the best machine tool supply companies I have worked with. We are now ramping up to full production on the Matsuura - & because of the productivity gains we are transferring more products across than originally planned to be processed by the H.Plus-630. Our cycle times are 30 – 40% quicker than previously achieved due to the speed of machine, tooling innovations and revised method of fixturing – this is obviously a major plus for us.

When we are fully operational we expect to be running the H.Plus-630 on a two shift system with the spindle cutting for at least 74 hours per week”.


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