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Steel Service Center Purchases 3700 ATC To Help Fabricators Who Need a Second Resource
Mile Dimic devised a clever arrangement to get out of Yugoslavia. He applied for and received a visa to the World Expo in Brussels. He spent three years in Germany and then immigrated to the United States, arriving in New York. His first job in his new country was at Commercial Sheet Metal in Los Angeles. He learned the sheet metal trade well, becoming a craftsman at his trade. After nearly ten years with the company, Mile decided to purchase some farm land in Fontana, California. He spent four years working his 12,000-chicken farm. But it was tough making a living from farming, so he started to fabricate sheet metal parts between chicken tending. From his first contract, making metal legs for desks, he saved and put a down payment on his current building and home in Upland, California. "The key to success and building a good name is discipline," said Mile. "When I came to this beautiful continent, I realized I could achieve anything in the world if I wanted to work hard." Today, his years of hard work are evident at Dimic Sheet Metal, Inc. (DSM), a sophisticated, high-tech fabricating shop dedicated to bridging the gap between state-of-the-art technology and a tradition of European craftsmanship. The company has always pursued high standards of excellence, while never losing sight of the need for improvements in productivity and operating efficiency. As new methods, concepts and equipment are developed and introduced, DSM searches out and acquires the most efficient of these in order to continue to provide its customers with the highest product quality, lowest price and on-time delivery. As part of a recent major capital expansion plan, DSM management began to look into up-grading its fabricating centers which included a turret-style punch and a Whitney 3600 ATC. The initial plan was to upgrade the turret machine and add a laser machine to the mix. "I was pleased with the Whitney machine," said Mile. "Once you have a Whitney machine on your shop floor, you can't do without one. I wouldn't be in business without a Whitney machine. It is a comfort having a machine with speed and the capacity to handle large steel plates. But I was seriously looking at lasers because I thought it would give us a little more precision and more options for our fabricating center." Mile looked into both the laser and Whitney's new 3700 ATC with Punch/Plasma System. "I was impressed with the new type of cutting, the rotary ram and attachment head for tapping on the new Whitney machine," he said. "After considering laser, I decided on the new 3700 ATC." DSM's new Model 3700 ATC 42 Fabricating Center, with TRUECut® Oxygen-Plasma Cutting System, was ordered fully loaded with every option available: a vacuum lift feeder capable of handling 60- by 120-inch material; conveyors that remove punching slugs and plasma-cutting slag; an 18- by 24-inch trap door for part removal to a conveyor that brings the finished part to the side of the machine; a rotary ram for automatic indexing of all tooling; a rotary ram part-marking punch; and a self-contained tapping head for tapping pre-punched holes. This machine has helped DSM to have a more competitive edge in the marketplace-so much so that nobody really competes with them in heavy steel fabricating, according to Mile The TRUECut system is a state-of-the-art cutting technology. Its monitoring capability monitors for arc-time and number of starts. DSM has had 1100 starts on TRUECut tips, over 50 percent better than on the IC 300 system on the 3600 ATC. This totally integrated oxygen-plasma cutting system guarantees high quality and maximum productivity to lower operating costs. The TRUECut system gives as good of an edge as laser, plus it can get a quality cut in thicker material. And lasers are not as fast. "The TRUECut system makes a smoother cut even if you use higher speeds," said Mile. "If you really want to have a real beauty of a cut, just slow down a little bit. You'll get a precise, quality cut with no secondary operations needed." The new cutting system enables DSM to cut 1/8-inch stock at up to 240 inches/minute; 1/4-inch plate at 160 inches/minute; and 3/4-inch plate at 55 inches/minute. According to Mile, part dimensional accuracy has been reduced from about 0.035 inch to as little as 0.020 inch. It's this quality and faster cutting speed that has enabled DSM to meet the demands from its customers for optimum part fitup. The rotary ram increases tool and machine utilization, and reduces setup time and secondary finishing operations. Any size tool can be used to fit in any station, which is a big advantage when programming the machine. The system can punch a 5-inch hole in 1/4-inch stock; however, DSM's largest punch requirement is for 49/16-inch holes. The fully automated indexing of all tooling has all tools rotatable so no special tooling is needed. Its full 40 tons of hydraulic punching works with the plasma cutting system for efficient, flexible fabricating of materials. Regardless of how capable a machine is of processing a job, it still has to be loaded with the raw material. If that job is labor intensive, valuable time is lost to non-productive work. That's why the company included a vacuum lift material handling system capable of handling the 4- by 10-foot steel plates it normally uses. With 25-second cycle time, loading is completed quickly by one operator. Variety of Jobs DSM has a solid customer base. About 30 percent of it's work is repeat jobs. The rest are on a job-by-job basis, requiring many different shapes and sizes of parts out of aluminum, mild steel and stainless steel. The average lot sizes run on the 3700 ATC are 50 to 600 pieces per run. As in most job shops, there are times when it's necessary to interrupt a large-run job to run a smaller job. That's no problem for DSM because the 3700 setups are short, so little time is wasted to break into a run. Nesting plays an important role for DSM programmers. Using SmartCam software, they can load the specified number of parts that are required, prepare the nesting program to mix all the parts and various numbers on any given material thickness and produce them to schedule. Everything that is programmed is downloaded via a direct line to the 3700 ATC. Some tools are allocated which are already in place, cutting tool changes to a minimum. The other CNC machines in the plant also are programmed and downloaded the same way. DSM produces a myriad of products from small piece parts to major subassemblies. The company prides itself in its track record of near-perfect, on-time delivery with a customer base of more than 200 companies. These companies range in size from less than $500,000 to multi-billion dollar corporations. "We don't consider any job too big, nor too small, nor too specialized," said Dimic. A recent challenge for DSM was a contract to manufacture 75 bus bodies for a company in Texas. The bus body's superior strength is provided by combining preformed, welded 304 stainless steel framing with light-weight, aerospace-developed composite body panels. Built of 14-gauge stainless steel, 90 percent of the stainless framing parts are being fabricated on the 3700 ATC. The majority of parts go directly from the fabricating machine to a 12,000 square foot assembly building housing 10 welding booths for subassembly welding. Some of the parts go to the power break center before going to the welding station. A demanding part of the bus contract was that DSM had to deliver three bus bodies per week. The speed and accuracy of the 3700 enables DSM to meet these deliveries because it eliminates secondary operations and provides precise fitups for the welding operation. Never-Ending Improvements It has been said that contentment doesn't make us want to go anywhere; it makes us want to stay where we are. You can't accuse Mile Dimic of being content when it comes to serving his customers. He and the DSM team are committed to the concept of constant and never-ending improvement. New equipment is regularly acquired while existing equipment is constantly upgraded. The purchase of the third generation Whitney machine is an example of how Dimic Sheet Metal takes pride in offering its customers the most complete and up-to-date manufacturing capabilities possible. (Used with permission from Metal Fabricating News, Jul - Sep, 1996)
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