Tool train

How Bombardier Transportation uses tool management to keep production on track.

The heart of rail technology beats in Germany, where the Bombardier Transportation division of the Canadian conglomerate is headquartered in Berlin. Its plant in Netphen, Germany, annually produces 2,500 to 3,000 carriage bodies and bogies (a chassis or framework with wheels that is attached to a railway vehicle). This equipment is used in vehicles ranging from trams to high-speed trains. Despite the European economic crisis, order volumes have risen over the last few years, to the point where the plant, which has a workforce of 700, is nearly at full capacity.

Courtesy of Bombardier Transportation

Bombardier Transportation is the world’s largest manufacturer of rail transport vehicles.

To meet growing demand, the company realized it needed to improve productivity and reduce the downtime required to tool and retool its machine tools and load new NC programs. As a result, it installed a Zoller Tool Management Solutions (TMS) system to access actual cutting tool data during 3-D CAM programming.

Stopping the Errors

Prior to incorporating TMS, CAM programmers were producing NC programs for machining bogies using a 2½-D CAM system, which was time-consuming and error-prone, according to Michael Kringe, the company’s applications specialist. “We programmed from 2-D drawings, which meant we never really knew what the chassis looked like and if we had properly taken into account how to machine all of the interference edges,” he said.

In addition, the CAM programmers could only specify tools to a certain extent in advance because they had no direct access to the information in the old Microsoft Access tool database. That meant additional work for toolsetting personnel, who had to compile complete tools (cutting tools and holders) based on an approximate tool list and drawings. In many instances, tools were found to be slightly too short or too long only when the NC programs were initially run, requiring further retooling.

Courtesy of Michael Wendenburg/Zoller

Michael Kringe (left), applications specialist, and Damian Sakwerda, CAM programmer, access tool data during CAM programming at Bombardier Transportation via the integrated Zoller tool management system.

A new tool management system not only had to support CAM programming, it also needed to assist with the administration of tool inventory and storage locations, as well as the ordering system. And it had to be able to communicate with the tool measuring equipment.

“We wanted a solution from a single source,” said Damian Sakwerda, a CAM programmer. “Because we had already been working with a Zoller presetter, we decided to purchase a new Zoller smile 600/CNC and invest in the Zoller Tool Management Solutions system.”

Single Source

According to Zoller Inc., Ann Arbor, Mich., the main advantage of TMS is it enables users to have one source for all tool data instead of several databases. Also, because the presetter is integrated into TMS, users can record actual tool measurements. This is beneficial primarily because diameters and lengths can vary as tools are reground, and since tools are measured again after being reground, the database contains all the information it needs to support accurate machining. This saves times and minimizes errors when selecting tools.

The Netphen plant has about 2,500 complete tools in circulation, with 1,200 of those just for its four Bimatec Soraluce drill/mill centers. Those tools can be moved from inventory to presetting, into buffer storage and magazines and then to the machine tools—and may get swapped out several times in between. Because TMS is aware of the tools’ respective storage locations, time-consuming searches for tools are eliminated, leading to enhanced availability and reduced inventory requirements. Kringe estimates that the Zoller TMS reduces annual tool costs by 25 percent, a savings of about $64,000.

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