Ulti-Form: the press brake that does it all by itself
The trend towards more complex parts and smaller batches has a profound impact on sheet metal bending operations, which is consequently evolving into a more specialized industrial activity. Nevertheless, margins remain tight, meaning that manufacturers need to ensure increasingly high throughput levels if they want to remain competitive.
In the face of the growing shortage of skilled labor, automation of the entire process seems an obvious choice. However, it’s even more difficult to hire people with appropriate robot skills, let alone specialists who are able to correctly program a fully automated press brake. How to address this Catch-22?
Generating the most efficient manufacturing process
LVD’s Ulti-Form robotised press brake takes the challenges in stride. Ulti-Form consists of an integrated ToolCell press brake with automated tool changer with tooling warehouse, a high-performance Kuka industrial robot with auto-adaptive universal gripper, and LVD’s market-leading Easy-Form® in-process adapted bending system, which in real-time measures and a corrects the bend angle. The crux is in the way these components are programmed to seamlessly and efficiently work together. Programming is easy and is handled completely offline using LVD’s CADMAN software. Using the part’s 3D drawing as the starting point. With just a few clicks by the CADMAN operator, LVD’s CADMAN® software then automatic calculates the most efficient Bending and Robot program, including the bending sequence, the tools to be installed, the robot program with all gripper positions and a complete collision-free robot path. The operator can check the process using a full 3D simulation environment before sending the program to the Ulti-Form job list.
Just a few clicks and instructions are needed to let Ulti-Form do the job automatically
