Via our ‘shopfloor’ software, jobs are read in, nested and then distributed to our fibre laser machines. This software communicates in a digital ecosystem with our machines and our in-house designed ERP system. This allows our machines to ‘talk’ to each other and call up missions and material themselves. We can therefore work armless across this department and with five-shift deployment, we are working 24/7.
Facts:
- Sheet warehouse consists of two rows, 73m long and 9,5m high
- 2 transport towers
- Automatic product sorting on three levels
- Full software integration
Many of the parts we make, both mono parts and parts in assemblies, pass through our ‘press department’. Perhaps the department and the process that made VD Leegte Metaal great: deep drawing. For this, we have a wide range of deep drawing presses with a maximum capacity of 800 tonnes, as well as various eccentric presses with a maximum capacity of 450 tonnes.
In our own tool shop, VD Leegte Metaal can develop, produce, modify and maintain dies and moulds in-house. This ensures shorter lead times in development and an excellent state of the dies which benefits our quality!
In this department, we have also realised our first Industry 4.0 set-up. The supply and removal of parts is done by AMRs (autonomously mobile robots) and production is done by robots and cobots.
In all our production processes, quality plays an important role. That is why our employees are certified and our company holds several quality certificates. To ensure that this remains at a high level, we are constantly looking for improvement. We maintain this high level by investing in our people, robots and further automation. Our quality control extends from process control to final inspection, using state-of-the-art resources by specialised professionals.
To the products processed by VD Leegte Metaal are controlled through all process steps. From the quality control on the incoming goods to the final inspections on the welding assemblies it all has to be right. Only then will you receive the composition as agreed!
All the actions and processes we perform generate data. The useful use of this information has changed enormously for VD Leegte Metaal; from Information ‘we did something with’ until a few years ago, to complete focus now.
In our new factory, we let our machines communicate by sharing the available data in an ecosystem. This real-time switching provides that commands van be given in this ecosystem to other machines in the system. These underlable circuits can be tracked in our ERP system and make it more and more possible to realise the step towards industry 4.0. Put differently: VD Leegte Metaal is busy building the world of tomorrow!
