At the Goma job shop a LiftMaster Compact links the TruLaser 3030 with automated storage system. Jan Oortgiesen thinks that’s the perfect combination.

Jan Oortgiesen makes sure the automation equipment at his sheet metal operations matches current trends: “The batches are getting smaller and smaller. Typical are orders for 25 to 300 items,” says the owner of Goma B.V. in the Netherlands. But automation still pays off, since many jobs involve repeated operations in bending, punching and laser cutting. That makes a fully automated Stopa storage system the heart of manufacturing. It provides storage space for some 400 mild steel, aluminum and stainless steel sheets. Connected at twelve points are laser cutting machines, press brakes, punching machines and guillotine shears. Among them is the latest laser cutting unit: a TruLaser 3030. The most important reason for making this investment was that the automation unit – the LiftMaster Compact – both loads and removes the sheets. “We don’t have much space in the shop and that makes a compact design essential. No other supplier has a machine that comes close to this small footprint,” says Oortgiesen. Vapor venting, the controls, and cooling for the laser cutting machine are located on a platform above the TruLaser 3030. That saves even more space. “Compared with our old system, today’s machine requires only half the floor area.”

Speed is another factor in favor of the new automation solution. “With the LiftMaster Compact we were able to reduce loading and unloading time to just 65 seconds. In the past we had worked with a solution we’d put together ourselves. It took more than two minutes just to load the machine,” Oortgiesen points out. “A quick change is important, as otherwise the TruLaser 3030 would be idling while it waited on the loading and unloading cycles.” To make sure that doesn’t happen, the LiftMaster Compact unloads and loads simultaneously. A tined frame removes the cut parts from the laser cutting machine while a vacuum frame equipped with suction cups retrieves a new sheet of metal from storage and moves it to the pallet changer. When positioning the sheet metal, the tined frame simultaneously places the finished sheets on the top surface of the vacuum frame, which then moves the sheet to storage. Goma puts about ninety percent of the parts in intermediate storage at the Stopa unit before machining resumes. That is another reason why the time needed for loading and unloading is of particular importance.