A Perfect Union - 07 Oct 2010

In an effort to stay ahead of low cost manufacturing sites around the world, the management team of AstralPool, one of Australia's largest manufacturers and distributors of swimming pool and spa equipement, made a conscious decision to invest in technology and automation to say ahead of the pack.

The project entailed a multimillion dollar investment on behalf of Astral and involved Chiron Werke Asia Pacific, Amada Oceania who were contracted to supply complete turnkey solutions and TaeguTec who conducted tooling trials.

Chiron was responsible for the supply of a fully automated system for the turning 14 variants of heat exchanger components. The existing machinery was an ageing special purpose machine with quality, OH&S and environmental issues.

Chiron together with Tongtai, their principle supplier from Taiwan, designed and integrated slant bed lathe (TNL -130), with a programmable tailstock, Fanuc control and robot gantry loader, with a Mitsubishi control. The parts loader is serviced by a 50 position parts stacker (raw and finished parts) fully enclosed and interlocked, complying with all Australian health and safety requirements.

“Cycle times were improved by 30%” enthused Brendan Butler, AstralPool’s Production Manager. “The improved quality means tolerances could practically be halved, thereby reducing assembly times and providing a much better engineered product, with virtually no chance of returned product,” he adds.

The tooling trials conducted by TaeguTec Australia resulted in optimum grade and geometry selection, with a tool change frequency of 1400 parts. “This gave us optimised speeds and feeds. The trials also resulted in 12 sister tools and a tool grouping program - a complete insert change is only required once per month now.”

 “I was Impressed with the professionalism of Chiron  throughout this project, right from the initial sales negotiations, through the pre-acceptance meeting for which I travelled to Taiwan to view my components actually being machined, to the final installation and sign off at our plant in Noble Park”, continues Butler.

Amada Oceania provided a fully integrated automated solution to produce all 350 Astral Pool sheet metal components. This replaced three manual brake presses with increasing service and reliability issues. The Amada Astro 100NT is an automatic robotic bending system integrated with a 110-ton hydraulic press brake, designed for high-precision part productivity and reduced cycle times. An additional Automatic Tool Changer (ATC) and vacuum gripper was used to pick up the stacked material and pass it to the robotic bending arm - ideal for totally unmanned press brake work.

The robot utilises the entire length of the beam, maximising flexible multiple stage bending and therefore increasing productivity and profitability without increasing labor costs.

Both Chiron and Amada were under very tight timelines as the nature of Astral’s business is seasonal, with the months of August and September traditionally dedicated to stocking pool/spa equipment for the upcoming summer season. All equipment had to be installed by early August.

 Published in Australian Manufacturing Technology October 2010