From 0 to 22.000 with PUMA-System from CAMäleon GmbH for Emmegi Planet Aluminium profile machining centre.

Stadler Bussnang AG is the competence centre for FLIRT (Fast Light Innovative Regional Train), articulated railcars (GTW), rack railways as well as the diesel electric locomotives. Stadler Rail Group offers complete vehicle concepts on the market.

Everything is consolidated: from body- to bogie construction up to final assembly. Goal-oriented technologies, lightweight construction and construction easier to maintain are helpful to keep the running-, energy- and maintenance costs low. Modular concepts cover special demands of railway companies and are one of the reasons forthe success of Stadler Rail Group.

In June 2005 the Emmegi Planet was mounted for in-plant production of aluminium parts for raw waggon bodies.Therefore we installed the clamps as well as the vacuum table for parts of 950mm width. The mounting incl. laser measurement took 3 days. Already on the 4th day the machine produced real parts.

The period between order and supply was a benefit for Walter Stamm, he already prepared 80 NC programs as responsable programmer. It worked excellently, as the PUMA-System was supplied with a machine simulation, simulating the NC code according to the postprocessor run.

Already the first part ran without any collision on the multiaxial profile machining centre.

The profile machining centre has a length of 10m and Stadler Bussnang machines parts with a length from 0.8 up to 17.0m and a weight up to 400kg on it.

Approximately 22.000 parts will be machined annually. The percentage of 5axial saw operations with a diameter of 450mm is 30% and more. Not any collision happened with the 12 clamps.

One programming workplace with the PUMA-System was sufficiant up to now to operate the machine at full capacity in three-shift-operation. The shifts start on Sunday at 8.00 p.m. and end on Friday at 10.15 p.m. Further staff members will be trained and a second workplace was established for the training.

Walter Stamm compliments especially the cooperation with the technicians of CAMäleon Produktionsautomatisierung GmbH, he was already acquainted with in the previous company.

PUMA-System supports the programmers and enables them to use the saw blade for complex notchings. As the waggons will be weld together from the produced parts, nearly all parts should be provided with welding-seam preparations.PUMA-System helps through the simple saw dialogues, also enabling undercuts and in the simulation the result is visiblebefore running on the machine.

As the long extruded profiles with the 12 existing profiles should be clamped possibly production-related, the work with the vacuum clamp tables has to function without the clamp management. Therefore it is possible to switch on or off individual zones in PUMA-System.

The general manager of CAMäleonProduktionsautomatisierung GmbH shows a typical part for a vacuum clamping, while a 15m long frame rail will be heldin the clamps on the machine.