Manufacturer reduces both costs and scrap—and stays on the forefront of innovation—by installing a coil-fed laser.
Above: The RDI Laser Blanking System continuously makes parts—unwinding coils, correcting defects and laser cutting blanks.
December 2022- Almost 70 years ago, a man worked his normal shift and then headed to the track to break an invisible barrier. Since that day in sports history, when Roger Bannister ran a mile in 3:59.4, runners following in his footsteps have beat that record countless times. They’re constantly pushing the limits of what’s possible and striving to become faster at the mile and the marathon, a distance that, in 2019, Eliud Kipchoge posted an unofficial sub-two-hour result—a time that was considered insurmountable.
Custom manufacturer Tie Down, based in Atlanta, has been in business 50-plus years. Like the times for the mile or marathon, laser technology has sped up significantly over the decades, from maximum powers around 6 kW in 2016 to 40 kW today. Fast lasers can plow through part orders, but they have to be loaded with material and unloaded just as quickly, whether through automation or manually.
Tie Down cuts a lot of “large, border style parts that don’t have a lot of hole features,” says Sloan Mackarvich, the company’s chief business officer. “On our traditional sheet lasers, even though they’re all very high-powered machines served by automation, we’d still be waiting on the sheet to get unloaded because they were cutting so fast.”
The company originally thought it could solve the problem by adding equipment, but it found “lead times, especially on laser cutting machines, to be absolutely outrageous,” recalls Mackarvich. “We could get a laser cutter or laser bed, but not the automation to supply the laser machine, which is generally how we’ve always processed our material. We were also looking at ways to minimize our material costs and reduce scrap.”
IN THE LEAD
Tie Down’s motto is “engineering first,” focusing on product design, custom manufacturing and streamlining assembly. So, the company decided to look into coil-fed lasers, a technology that’s been more popular in Europe than in the United States but beginning to take hold in the North American market.
Tie Down cuts parts for a diverse range of customers, including safety applications.
“We came across RDI Laser Blanking Systems,” says Mackarvich. “They had a showroom demo coil laser that fit the bill for everything we needed.” It was ready to go, and because it uses coils as feedstock, “we didn’t need to worry about automation bringing individual sheets because you’re running a 50,000-pound coil versus 6,000 pounds worth of pallets.”
Tie Down wanted the flexibility that a coil-fed laser cutting system can provide, as well as the reduced scrap and decreased changeover time that comes with continuous production of parts from a coil, says Shank Shanmugabaskaran, senior vice president of sales for RDI Laser Blanking Systems, Itasca, Illinois.
RDI’s coil-fed laser blanking lines consist of an uncoiler, strip correction, precision laser module, finished part handling and an automation control system, as well as auxiliary equipment to assist with loading, feeding and powering the line. They can handle coils up to 78 inches wide, 1/8 inch thick and 65,000 pounds.
MIX IT UP
When Tie Down first opened its doors, it was making ground anchors and foundation systems that secure manufactured houses during high wind storms and hurricanes. “That’s where the name Tie Down came from,” Mackarvich says. “From there, we branched off and grew into the 10 facilities we have in the Atlanta area with 850,000 square feet of manufacturing, seven different divisions, and over 8,000 unique products.”
Those products can be headed anywhere from agriculture and farm implements to manufactured housing, marine or trailer. “We also do a good amount of contract manufacturing,” adds Mackarvich.
The coil-fed laser is ideal for Tie Down’s wide product mix because there’s no resetting to produce multiple parts and configurations. “You can quickly go from part file to part cutting in the same day. Multiple parts can be further nested in kits to optimize the material and reduce scrap. Our HMI software has a flexible queue system that handles the daily production workflow and allows you to quickly prioritize immediate hot jobs or orders,” says Shanmugabaskaran.
“We don’t have to shuttle in multiple different materials—we just keep on processing. It’s just in continuous, constant motion,” Mackarvich adds.
An additional benefit is that, at the end of the line, the operator is unloading parts and palletizing them, rather than taking stacks of sheets over to a part-knockout area. “They’re able to take the skeletons and easily fold them over and dispose of them right there at the end of the line.”
Parts coming off the coil-fed laser also are high-quality. “Coil-fed lasers can cut parts that are for surface-critical applications, with no flashback, scratching, marring or blemishes,” Shanmugabaskaran says. “They can be sent right on to the next operation with no risk of microfractures.”
FITTING IN
RDI partners with customers to determine their goals and then provides justification with live production run times on their parts. One of the biggest considerations, though, when transitioning from flat sheet to coil-fed laser cutting is “managing coils, taking them to the system and loading them,” says Shanmugabaskaran, whether by forklift, crane or using a coil storage solution. “We have helped customers who work with coils and no laser experience, as well as those running sheet table lasers but no coil handling experience.”
Mackarvich agrees, saying the first thing Tie Down did was find a space that had the capacity to handle the massive coils. “We acquired a facility that used to be an aluminum service center with a high tonnage crane bay, and that’s where we located the machine.” Training flat laser operators to load coils and monitor flatness was the next step. “You’ve got to pull the tension out, monitoring it,” Mackarvich notes. “If you don’t watch it, the material can coil up or down and cause a laser head crash. We have a camera that’s looking directly at the material as it leaves the flattener and there’s an extra monitor where the operators are loading parts. If the material starts to coil up or down, the operator can quickly make adjustments at the control panel to take care of the coil set.”
Coil-fed laser cutting eliminates laborious, time-consuming steps.
RDI is also always available for questions, either via remote support or a next-day in-person visit. “There can be challenges with any installation,” says Shanmugabaskaran. “It’s how you handle it that speaks to your commitment to the partnership and who you are as a partner.”
“Our operation is extremely diverse,” says Mackarvich. “We’re not afraid to dip our toe into new technologies that will ultimately make us better and more efficient. It’s proven to be a strong growth point for us.” With the coil-fed laser, Tie Down is able to offer another material processing solution in its comprehensive portfolio. “We’re really happy with this new asset at our disposal.” -MM
