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New York state machining facility goes lean, increases productivity but keeps metal chips, curls and fines under control with combination crusher/briquetting system
Although far removed from metropolitan New York City, many of the commuter train lines from that area make it a point to stop in Eagle Bridge, N.Y., located about 150 miles north of the city. All of the trains don’t really travel there, but thanks to Eagle Bridge Machine & Tool Inc. (EBM), a number of large and complex castings for rail cars are machined there. In addition to the mass transit sector, Eagle captured a considerable reputation for its accomplishments machining castings for the heavy machinery industry, a reputation that resulted in increased business and long-term contracts.
That’s the good news.
On the flip side is making sure EBM has the ability to get the work done profitably yet competitively as it relates to delivery, cost and quality. To that end, in the last three years the shop replaced more than half of its existing, stand-alone machine tools with a pair of two-machine automated cells.
For a small, 30-employee shop in business for more than 40 years, it was quite an investment.
“While making the shop lean by going from 23 machine tools to just 12, the cells have actually helped to increase production by approximately 40 percent," said production manager Tony Farrara.
“Thanks to these two cells we’ve made considerable gains in our productivity and cost savings due to faster machining cycle times, reduced setup and loading times, and our ability to run unmanned operations overnight. But, with our jump in production of machining large cast steel, cast iron and stainless steel components, we were concerned with the increased volume of metal chips. Although our part production went up 40 percent, our chip volume increased by nearly 50 percent," he said.
With more than 1.5 tons of chips and cuttings created each day, EBM needed an efficient system for handling the scrap or much of its productivity gains could have been quickly offset. EBM found the answer in a Mayfran chip compaction system that reducedits chip volume by up to a 4:1 ratio.”
The FastPac Briquetter along with a vertical chip crusher and two conveyor units, all from Mayfran International of Cleveland, transforms metalworking chips, strings, nests, fines, sludge, and space-wasting air into dense, dry and compact briquettes.
The briquetter eliminates cutting fluid and coolant spill-liability risks during transport and increases the amount of fluids reclaimed. It also eliminates the need to have large areas for scrap storage providing a cleaner, safer, more efficient work environment, all adding to the value of the scrap material.
For EBM, it has resulted in an efficient system for handling chips.
“Previously, we gave away the scrap just to get rid of it, but now we are paid for the compacted chips by our local recycling center,” said Farrara. “Before the system was installed we had a 30-yard dumpster that held about one week’s worth of loose chips. Now, a 12-yard container holds up to 20,000 pounds of briquettes."
It comes down to this: EBM feeds the system four containers filled with loose chips, each containing about 300 pounds, and it returns one container weighing 1,200 pounds. EBM even loads it up with four containers at night and, like the machining cells, it runs unmanned.
“We’ve yet to fully calculate our payback. Part of the reason for that is trying to monetarily quantify having additional storage room, cleaner machining operations and a clean storage area. It’s hard to put a dollar amount on what these improvements contribute to our overall efficiency,” said Farrara.
In addition to the FastPac Briquetting Systems, Mayfran also produces a wide variety of chip handling and coolant recovery/cleaning/filtration systems for machine tools and machining operations. For additional information about Mayfran International and products, visit www.mayfran.com.
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