Steel production in Germany is at an all-time low. Although the high price phase of 2022 seems to have been overcome, prices are currently rising again somewhat. Companies that want to remain competitive in sheet metal production in the long term are well advised to optimize their material usage now – and can no longer avoid digitalization. For more than 30 years, Lantek has been providing software solutions to the sheet metal manufacturing industry and, with more than 30,000 customers worldwide, is a technology leader in the digitalization of the industry.
“Software can have a significant impact on manufacturing costs by helping manufacturers get the maximum amount of manufactured, high-quality components from each sheet and optimize their processes,” says Christoph Lenhard, head of the German Lantek office for 27 years. Lantek’s software tools have been developed in cooperation with customers and OEM partners and are continuously developed according to the needs of the market and the available technologies and machines. Companies can use them individually or with other components of Lantek’s modularly structured software suite to reduce their production costs and become more productive at the same time.
Optimal nesting
Intelligent material utilization in sheet metal production keeps the amount of waste as low as possible and also the amount of work involved in managing offcuts. Nesting is the key to optimizing the use of raw materials: clever arrangement on the sheet or tube material positions workpieces as close together as possible – and as many as possible. With intelligent production planning, any remainder can be used in the same work step for the pre-production of standard pieces. This saves a lot of time for handling offcuts – removing them from the machine, transporting them to the warehouse, managing the offcuts and transporting them back to the machine for reuse. Apart from possible search effort, with poor documentation and logistics.
However, the nesting process and the intelligent management of parts to be cut require experience in the use of CAD/CAM tools and knowledge of the properties of cutting machines. All this can be found in Lantek’s special programs for automated machine programming: Lantek Expert for sheet metal cutting machines and Lantek Flex3d for tube and profile cutting machines. Both software tools are machine and manufacturer independent; that is, they can control machines from any manufacturer.
The software enables users to create optimal nesting. This also includes the option of placing small parts within the opening of larger ones or combining parts from different customers and orders on one and the same panel or for a specific pipe or profile material – without losing the overview.
Although the primary goal is to make the best use of material so that only small pieces of scrap remain, Lantek’s software can also capture the remnants of reusable material and manage them for later use on all cutting machines in the workshop. According to the supplier, Lantek’s software tools enable customers to achieve annual savings of up to 70 percent in residual sheet metal stock and more than 8 percent in raw material consumption – including the associated, not inconsiderable savings in material management.
Intelligent production planning
Precise production planning can contribute considerably to the effective use of materials and machines, further reduce the costs of raw materials and energy and also significantly increase quality. The most important prerequisites for this are the availability of information and its use to increase the plant’s production capacity through optimal interaction between machinery, materials and personnel. Modern, cross-industry production systems (MES, Manufacturing Execution System) are available for this purpose. The Lantek MES software tool is designed precisely for the special requirements of sheet metal production.
It has been designed in such a way that for optimum nesting on a sheet or for a pipe blank, it is possible to select from the pool of all parts currently to be produced according to parameters such as material type, thickness and delivery date in order to have them processed by the next available machine – regardless of which order they belong to. And without losing the overview, so that all parts of a job come together again at the end.
This part-related view and working method of Lantek’s software tools, instead of order-related production, offers the potential to efficiently nest many parts of different sizes. This optimizes the use of materials, reduces the amount of waste and reduces the storage of unprocessed material and offcuts. What’s more, the optimal use of materials and machinery can significantly reduce delivery times and increase the plant’s production capacity – without the need to invest in new equipment.
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