E-Sharp News February 2024

Energy-efficient production extends beyond considerations of sustainability and environmental impact. While universally acknowledged as a commendable practice, its value also lies in financial savings. Energy efficiency forms the cornerstone of cost reduction, providing a controllable means to achieve tangible benefits.

Kaine Mulder, ANCA Product Manager, shares seven insightful tips, serving as a valuable starting point for business owners seeking to enhance production efficiency.


1. Temperatures
This is commonly overlooked, and usually “set and forget” in many factories. Chilling the coolant is important in maintaining stability and accuracy in production. Using a chiller that can maintain temperatures to 1 C will help with consistency and quality while mitigating waste.
 
Please note that this is the minimum, in many cases your application may require tighter tolerances on the chiller, 0.5 C or even 0.2 C. Tighter tolerances on coolant temperature is usually reflected in production consistency.
 
When setting your coolant system chiller, it is recommended to set the chiller to the same as the ambient temperature, particularly when operating in a temperature-controlled environment. We should not be fighting the coolant but trying to equalise the machine with its environment.
 
If you have A/C cooling for the machine electrical cabinet, this is only required when operating in environments reach ambient temperatures over 35C, in which case check that the setting is no less than 35C (regardless of ambient temperature).
 


2. Coolant system
Newer coolant systems are typically smarter and more energy efficient, and generally you will get what you pay for. High quality systems include higher quality components; most importantly, high quality pumps which will operate at greater efficiency with less heat output.
 
Do not oversize your system. Pumps are one of the most energy intensive components of your system. If the pumps are oversized, you will be using more energy than you need.
 
You should also consider running pumps to provide only the pressure required by the application. Installing a Variable Frequency Drive (VFD) on your pump allows you to control the speed of the pump to reduce the pressure. A VFD also significantly reduces the energy required by the pump when reducing the speed.
 
A VFD is relatively low cost but will enable you to configure the output of the pump to use only the pressure that is required by the application. Throttling or diverting coolant flow to reduce pressure in these cases, is wasted energy.


3. Grinding wheels
The spindle load is the most energy intensive component of the tool making process after the coolant system. Worn wheels work harder and increase spindle load. Keeping wheels in good, clean condition by dressing when required and regular conditioning with sticking, will ensure high productivity is maintained.


4. Air supply
Air is often taken for granted and overlooked but is such a core component of any manufacturing energy usage.
 
Routinely check for leaks and pressure drop through the system and ensure thread tape is used on all threaded connections. Consider the use of high-quality blower guns as cheap ones often leak. The use of more appropriate blower gun designs and nozzles should be considered as this can also reduce air consumption.


5. Make use of idle shutdown
All ANCA machines include an Idle shutdown feature that can be found in the machine control menu on the main machine GUI. Idle shutdown can be used to control the power policy of the machine so that it can be shut down after a user set period of Idle time; for example, overnight or following a second shift.


6. Make use of the digital twin
CIM3D enables the complete design and simulation of not only the tool itself, but the entire tool production in the respective machine.
 
CIM3D can simulate the full configuration of the machine itself, enabling the detection of collisions due to inadequate tool insertion lengths, collets or workholding configurations. You can even include qualified wheel packs in your simulation to get a complete simulation of the exact final tool geometry.
 
Having the tool fully designed and produced on the digital twin can save expensive machine time and eliminate waste.


7. Data is your friend
Consider integrating ANCA’s machine monitoring tool, RedaX to begin monitoring your machines during production. Data can be collected in real-time, enabling analysis of the whole production environment - for example, how many tools, time taken per tool, machine state, machine activity and utilisation, spindle loads and temperatures, etc.
 
This data could be used to determine efficiencies in production setups when linked to tool types, work orders and even wheel types; allowing management to improve productivity by machine, or even tool by tool basis.
 

18 January 2024