Experienced operators are crucial in delivering good quality roll forming work. The challenge is that not a lot of plants have field experts specifically for roll forming. That’s why in a lot of plants, this job is left to press brake workers or operators from other departments. There isn’t unknown also, the practice of circulating plate roll bending experts in several local workshops.
On the other, to put a stop to this, training takes time and may cost a lot for the position you are at. Fortunately, there is a solution that can greatly help shop floor professionals create complex tasks and flawless works without many years of rolling experience under their belt. The alternative is CNC plate rolling. In this article, we are going to discuss the benefits and advantages of new technologies in plate rolling production performance.
Since CNC and NC controllers were introduced in the manufacturing world almost four decades ago, every single process started shapeshifting, creating a more sophisticated industry. Metal fabrication experienced the first wave of digitalization and automation, fuelled by continuous inventions that would take us to the great Industry 4.0 revolution. Robotics, safety, material managing and many other processes have benefited from this, causing every link of the production chain to power up.
Even though plate rolling has not witnessed many advancements technology-wise in comparison with laser cutting machines or other manufacturing machinery, plants notice obvious results in output speed and performance. Plate rolling machines can now produce a series of one variety of pieces in minutes, with the utmost precision. This is a great achievement considering that roll forming operators had to do the measuring, handling, positioning and other tasks manually.
Two-roll plate bending machines are the obvious choice for quick deadlines, low variety, and light metal forming. Most two-roll bending machines have an NC incorporated as a software operator. Why is that? Because two-roll plate bending machines can perform just fine with it. Investing for a CNC in a plate rolling machine of the sort is almost not needed.
The same thing goes for three-roll plate bending. Their design makes the CNC and single/double pinch roller combination, not a good one. This happens because they are not ideal for every application that CNC controllers are best at. So the best pair is a four-roll plate bending machine with CNC technology.
CNC controllers help with the way a material must move in the machine through the rolling process. For example, pre-bending in a three-roll bending machine works with the machine clamping, releasing, and clamping the material once again. When the plate moves, there is the risk to change its position. A four-roll bending machine pinches the material during the entire forming process, making the CNC easier to control and improve the process. Before starting, operators implement the right program developed for a certain process, add the required information (material length, thickness, type, file importation, etc), and the machine begins work.
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