...says Kishore A P, National Sales & Marketing Manager – India, ANCA Machine Tools Private Ltd, who believes cloud-based connectivity in the machine tools industry will continue to grow as the Industry 4.0 movement accelerates. In this interview, Kishore highlights the benefits of emerging technologies for CNC machining.

 

Kindly brief us about products & services offered by ANCA.

 

ANCA is a market leader of high quality CNC tool and cutter grinders. Our machines can meet the needs of large scale manufacturing through to entry level production and are renowned for the flexibility of our tool design software that can produce a wide variety of complex tools. These include grinding endmills, profile cutters, burrs and punches. ANCA's tool grinders are the perfect choice for the production and re-sharpening of all your HSS (high-speed steel) and carbide cutting tools. ANCA offers CNC tool and cutter grinding machine, software, service & application support in India.

 

How do you see the potential of Indian market? How is the demand for your products in India?

 

The growth in the automotive sector along with the global alliances of Indian companies with some of our international customers has had a positive impact on our business. This year alone we have seen a 30% increase in orders which is very encouraging. However, we are not new to the market and have been operating in India for over 30 years. Our decision to set up an office with local employees, together with our ongoing product innovations has been a successful move. Furthermore, our Thailand manufacturing facility has the capability to provide a total quality product at an acceptable price level for the Indian market which helped us to increase our share in this lucrative sector. This coupled with our local footprint have positioned us for growth. 

 

Do you have plans to expand your business in India?

 

As we recognised the importance of the Indian market to our business we invested in a state-of-the-art machine demonstration facility in Bangalore. Our products are very technical and it is important that our customers have access to live demonstrations of the new technology, training and even run trials to see if the machines will meet their requirements. 

 

Our mantra at ANCA is to be number one in lifetime customer experience and the local Indian facility also houses spare parts so that customer don’t need to wait to receive parts they need from our headquarters. In 2014, we decided to start a local software engineering team and this group has grown from four members to 18 working here today. The larger facility along with substantial investment in our software research and development team means we can respond to our customers needs immediately and better understand their day to day requirements to ensure we are developing a product that will enable their ongoing success.

 

What are the latest technological trends in CNC grinding machines? Are these trends same across the world?

 

In our segment, customers are looking to produce cutting tools in both mass production and small batch runs. For our machines to meet these two very different needs, we need to have the best possible technologies built into our products to enable total flexibility for our customers. Life span of the machine along with high accuracy is also critical from our customer’s point of view.

We were very impressed when we tested our LinX cylindrical linear motor recently as we found it can achieve a surface finish roughness average as low as 0.16 Ra. Our customers have been impressed with how the cylindrical linear motor ensures a high level of precision to deliver a significantly better finish on cutting tools. 

 

The future for the industry is the smart factory or Industry 4.0. It is about data collection and analytics and most of the industry is already developing solutions on how to harness this information. The potential benefits gained by understanding and analysing production trends such as robotics, networked machines and analytics are significant. This is something I am seeing is a priority for our customers as they look at how they can achieve greater efficiencies and improve the quality of their products.

 

Which end-user industries are the major demand drivers for CNC grinding machines?

 

The current market demand is driven by computers, consumer electronics and communication – or the smart phone market. The end user demand for elegance and function has meant products that have more complex tool requirements. The influx of robotics and automation and a rapid uptake of new materials and composites have triggered a shift in manufacturing techniques.

 

Another factor is that the industry we are in is cyclical. Fortunately, all machine tool builders have enjoyed tremendous growth over the last four to five years on the back of the huge demand of smart phones and ongoing demand from the automotive industry. 

This has been a major driving factor in machine tools growth but we are also targeting other segments such as automotive, woodworking, aerospace and medical to name a few. This ensures, we continue to develop products that are highly flexible to meet the needs of different markets so that when one segment is booming we can tap into that opportunity.

 

In general, are you seeing a rise in demand for automation in machine tools industry?

 

In CNC machining and other types of manufacturing, the adoption of cloud computing - collecting data from many devices at one point - will be transformative, allowing intelligent, autonomous decisions throughout supply chains. The cloud is one of the ‘nine pillars’ making up Industry 4.0, and critical for the Internet of Things (IoT) trend, which McKinsey predicts will create nearly $ 5 trillion in value in business-to-business (B2B) settings annually by 2025.

 

We have seen that since 2014 the number of our customers ordering CNC grinding machines with robot loaders has increased from 10% to 50% of all machines sold. Robotics now has greater capabilities and more flexible applications in the grinding process. With increased capability, simple automated loading applications have been followed by wheelpack changes and other possibilities.

 

We have also seen great success with the integration of high accuracy tool measurement using laser metrology that operates in cycle. The Laserplus allows setup times to be greatly reduced and the effects of wheel wear and thermal deformation to be measured and compensated during long unmanned production cycles. Basically, automation is not going away and will continue to provide our customers a competitive edge. 

 

What are the emerging trends in machine tools industry?

 

Along with automation comes networked production and this provides a number of benefits. A connected bank of CNC grinding machines, with real-time analytics presented through a browser, enables operators to see which machine is doing what and where there might be bottlenecks. 

 

Capacity can be optimised through floating work orders, enabling a company to get the most out of their investment and to juggle smartly.

With collected data we can use machine learning algorithms to analyse machine performance, learn when and how a machine will fail, and trigger preventive maintenance actions before failure occurs. Downtime can be minimised, with maintenance notification software (MNS) based alerts telling an operator when there’s a problem and allowing them to intervene early. Predictive rather than reactive maintenance brings obvious benefits.

 

Cloud-based communications can help alleviate the burden by eliminating maintenance, IT workload, and some of the costlier internal infrastructure, including servers and storage systems. Manufacturers don’t have to worry about data backup in case of system failure and power consumption can also be cut. The value of cloud-based connectivity on the factory floor will continue to grow as the Industry 4.0 movement accelerates. Right now, users can immediately gain from better planning, based on informed decisions, based on data.

 

News Snippet

 

Water Jet Sweden develops Micro machine

 

Water Jet Sweden AB has developed machine model Micro (NCM 10) especially for the FAWJ (Fine Abrasive Water Jet) process. It is used for manufacturing of micro components. Micro waterjet cutting machine is a popular alternative to Micro-EDM and laser. The Micro is a machine system based on Water Jet Sweden's patented Gantry design and has a number of unique features for cutting with tolerances less than ± 0.01 mm. The machine's positioning is determined by a micrometer scale from Renishaw, an invar scale that has a precision of 1 nm. The Micro machine is a high precision tool used in precision mechanics, electronics, biotechnology and similar industry sectors, and for jewelry design and processing of exclusive materials.

 

The FAWJ cutting process can cut as narrow as 0.2 mm, compared to traditional waterjet for which the incision normally is 0.8-1.0 mm. A growing number of customers around the world have seen new opportunities with the FAWJ cutting process, and there has been a growing demand for FAWJ-cutting in general.