Festool manufactures die casting, injection molding and thermoset tools for the Festool Group at its Neidlingen plant. The company does not receive its orders directly from the Group's plants, but from system suppliers who have been commissioned by the parent company to develop and manufacture new products. Neidlinger Werkzeugbau has to win the contract from these companies in a direct price and performance comparison with the free market. On the other hand, the department itself can obtain orders on the free market in order to utilize its capacities. Until a few years ago, the tools were manufactured in a machine park with one wire-cutting and one die-sinking EDM machine as well as three milling machining centers, only one of which had five axes. These machines were supervised by employees who, in addition to monitoring the machining processes, performed tasks such as clamping and unclamping workpieces, loading and unloading the machines, setting up and changing tools. The supervisors were also responsible for quality assurance. The capacity utilization of the machines was therefore unsatisfactory. In order to remain competitive, the company decided to bring this up to the current state of the art.

Goal: fully automated cell

The goal was an automated production cell in which technologies such as 5-axis milling, die-sinking EDM, coordinate measuring and professional wet cleaning are fully integrated in order to be able to operate all key technologies in an automated and linked manner. Storage for milling tools and electrodes as well as for workpieces clamped on Erowa pallets were also added. Transport tasks are performed by a handling robot running on a linear rail. All processes within this cell are completely unmanned. The employees' task is to supply the cell with the workpieces to be processed and the tools required. They are also responsible for creating the NC programs for all integrated production processes. The cell is controlled centrally via the RMSMain job manager from Röders. This is linked upwards in the company's IT hierarchy to the IK Office ERP system.

Röders was responsible for the implementation of the fully automated production cell. The company can draw on experience from the installation of complete solutions for fully automated production cells, including the integration of third-party products from different manufacturers. Following completion of the installation, a total of four Röders systems - two five-axis milling machining centers from the RXP series, a handling robot and an RMSMain job manager - now form the backbone of production at Festool. In addition, there is storage for 110 palletized workpieces and 258 tools. This is supplemented by the capacity of the tool changers in the milling machines themselves. The RXP 601 DSH is mainly used for machining graphite electrodes, while the larger RXP 950 DSH is primarily used for hard machining. The materials used are predominantly the hot-work tool steel 1.2343 and, in some cases, the cold-work tool steel 1.2379. The blanks are rough machined from the solid in an already hardened state (54 - 60 HRC) and then finished. Compared to the previous procedure - roughing in a soft state, then hardening and finally finishing - this reduces throughput times and costs. The latter, in particular, as the number of manual operations could be significantly reduced.

In addition to the two milling machines, the cell also includes a coordinate measuring machine from Hexagon, a die-sinking EDM machine from Exeron and an automatic washing system from Mafac. Material and workpieces are supplied to and removed from the cell via an airlock: this is where the blanks are clamped on pallets and finished mold components are discharged. All other processes within the cell take place automatically, coordinated by the RMSMain job manager.