Good morning all,
I was hoping someone could give me some advice on the advantages of going from flat-table CNC to beam saw/point-to-point. I know there is lots of data on this for conventional cabinet parts, but what about more complex parts with more tool changes?
We currently have a conventional 5x10 flat table 3-axis router. We are making an unusual product that is comprised of about 19 sheets of laminate clad 3/4" and 1/2" plywood, about 110 cut plywood parts in all. The product is unusual in that maybe 80% of the parts are non-rectangular, and all of them require tool changes: About 20% of the parts only require one tool change (perimeter cut followed by a drilling operation, for example), but the remaining parts need as many as five different tools.
How does the relatively high complexity of this sort of task affect the choice of machinery and process for large scale production? Let's say 1,000 sheets per month scale. How about 5,000?
Right now, before refining the toolpathing to squeeze every bit of efficiency out of it, we are averaging 95 seconds per part to machine start to finish, including the time to load/offload the router. (based on 19 sheets and 110 finished parts) So this is from the moment the first sheet is loaded to the moment the 110th machined part comes off the cnc bed and is placed in a pile.
I can imagine the benefit of stack cutting on the beam saw all the rectangular parts that only have a single tool operation after it's perimeter cut. We would make a jig for the router table so you could load as many as 8 identical parts at a time and pendulum machine those parts. The router would work continuously until the pile is gone with the operator pulling drilled parts off and loading blanks at the same time. But if there are tool changes, then I bet the pendulum efficiency probably vanishes pretty quickly. For multiple changes, unless that tool change happens in the matter of a few seconds (which it doesn't), I'm guessing I might as well just do it from start to finish on the CNC.
I can simulate different scenarios and put hard numbers on it, but am wondering what process a very large scale manufacturer might apply to this task? Is there no better approach to scale up than adding more CNC routers and run them in parallel? Maybe tweak design to get as many parts as possible to simple rectangles and reduce tool changes to a bare minimum?
Thanks!