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The end of bottlenecks – fast laser cutting, skilful sorting

The family company Rolf Lasertechnik with its headquarters in Lotte in North Rhine-Westphalia has become a successful contract service provider since it was founded in 2005. In a production area spanning 3,500 square meters with state-of-the-art machines, 40 employees process over 1,100 customer orders every month in 3-shift operation. And there is a lot to do: Rolf Lasertechnik stocks 516 different metal types and produces 2,500 various laser cuts per week on average. In order to save material, five programmers nest up to 20 different customer orders with up to 60 varying components on one sheet. The operators work up a real sweat during sorting. The new camera-based Sorting Guide assistance system from TRUMPF provides real support.

Rolf Lasertechnik GmbH & Co. KG

www.rolf-lasertechnik.de

The family company Rolf Lasertechnik with its headquarters in Lotte in North Rhine-Westphalia has become a successful contract service provider since it was founded in 2005. For its CEO, Tobias Rolf, the emphasis is on a solution-oriented partnership with their customers. He is always looking for new and suitable solutions for even more efficient processes in order to provide fast delivery times and optimum quality.

Industry
Metal processing
Number of employees
40
Site
Lotte-Wersen (Germany)
TRUMPF products
  • TruLaser 5030 fiber
  • TruLaser 5040 fiber
  • Sorting Guide
Applications
  • Laser cutting

Challenges

Rolf Lasertechnik focuses on speed and efficiency. Speed is guaranteed with state-of-the-art laser cutting machines from TRUMPF. However, the previously extensive sorting of laser-cut parts was a bottleneck that really slowed processes down. Sheets containing up to 20 different nested customer orders with up to 60 various components presented a real challenge for operators. Up to now, programmers made part removal easier by printing the views from the nesting program and marking all the parts from the same order with colored highlighters. "This preparation took up so much time and yet we still had to reckon with a certain error rate," explains Rolf and adds with a grin, "after all, to err is human, and humans were doing the work."

The Sorting Guide is easy to operate, makes work easier for our staff and greatly minimizes the error rate.

Tobias Rolf
CEO of Rolf Lasertechnik GmbH & Co. KG

Solutions

The camera-based Sorting Guide assistance system provides the perfect solution. It consists of a high resolution camera, a large screen as well as software for image detection. The operator sees an image of the sheet on the screen. All parts which belong together are marked in the same colour. As soon as the first part has been removed, the camera detects which part was removed and the Sorting Guide only displays the parts in colour which belong to the removed part. The operator is given a sorting recommendation. Furthermore, the information concerning the removed parts is passed on to TruTops Fab, where it is noted for booking until the end of the sorting procedure.

 

Implementation

At Rolf Lasertechnik GmbH, the Sorting Guide is initially used in a test mode on a TruLaser 5040 fiber. Everyone is impressed by the solution within a very short space of time. Tobias Rolf purchases an additional TruLaser 5030 fiber – once again with a Sorting Guide, of course. Tobias Rolf explains why, "The Sorting Guide is easy to operate, makes work easier for our staff and greatly minimizes the error rate. If you take a sheet on which several customer orders are positioned, we save about an hour a day in working time, from programming to removal preparation to sorting."

Forecast

Not every solution can pass Tobias Rolf's test. It has to be suitable and prove its benefits for the company. At the moment, the entrepreneur is concentrating on the intelligent programming software from TRUMPF. "Not to cut back on staff," he explains. "It is more important to me to give my employees space for further training and development."

Find out more about our products

Sorting Guide
Sorting Guide

The Sorting Guide is a camera-based, AI-supported assistance system which helps workers during manual sorting: this means that you save time, prevent errors and increase the efficiency of your machines without a great deal of effort. Find out how our smart helper can optimize your sheet metal processing.

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