INTECH 2017
In April, BRUDER-KELLER visited the INTECH 2017 trade show organized by Trumpf under the motto “Industry 4.0” and learned about innovative developments at Trumpf, as well as advances in connected manufacturing.
INTECH 2017
The annual visit to the INTECH in-house trade fair staged by the German machine tool manufacturer Trumpf is a pleasure rather than an obligation for BRUDER-KELLER’s management team. Since 1994, we have been making good use of TRUMPF laser technology in Sarre-Union. The then revolutionary TRUMATIC L 3030 was just the beginning, soon to be followed by the TRUMATIC 600, the first TruMatic 7000 in August 2009, and several others since. The laser really is the most flexible tool in existence. Welding, cutting, drilling, milling, bending, curing, fracturing, marking or generation – all these applications are carried out by lasers without the need to produce or modify either molds or tools. Good machines are essential if a company is to be successful. However, as others have good machines too, it is the ability to use them innovatively and economically that makes the difference. As the Managing Director of BRUDER-KELLER it is very important to me that our highly qualified employees work with machines that reflect their abilities and meet their growing needs, if possible tomorrow as well. As a supplier to many different branches of commerce, we are aware of the intensity of the competition faced by our customers. Products are becoming more complex and customized, often at the same time as batch sizes become more variable and smaller. To relieve these pressures on our customers, we are doing our homework and producing efficiency gains that they can benefit from – Key word Industry 4.0. At INTECH in Ditzingen, Trumpf clearly demonstrated what the in-house solution TruConnect and Industry 4.0 will look like in practice. At the entrance, every visitor to the trade fair was able to configure a small sheet metal shell on a Tablet-PC and provide it with a personal inscription. All in all, that made several thousand individual pieces, corresponding to the number of visitors to the fair. While at the fair, every visitor received information on the production status and delivery date of his shell via smartphone-app or mail. Almost effortlessly, it was possible to demonstrate on a small scale what Industry 4.0 means for the customer. And the in-house opportunities are even more impressive: the production manager of a fully-networked manufacturing process can access real-time information on the productivity of his machines on a tablet, while the machine operator controls them remotely using a mobile control app, and the intralogistics manager rebooks stock in the warehouse, while on the move. Furthermore, the maintenance technician can find out the condition of all the lasers in the network at one glance, identify savings potential and optimize the availability and productivity of laser systems. TruConnect isn’t the only network solution on the market, but it‘s certainly a convincing one for metal processing companies. I, for one, can’t wait to see future developments from Ditzingen and am already looking forward to INTECH 2018!