AIDA Featured Customer : NAVA Hermanos S.A.
NAVA HERMANOS, S.A. USES AIDA’S SERVOFORMING TECHNOLOGY TO TARGET NEW MARKETS
Able to provide hourly customer inventory and short lead times for engineering changes and new product development, Nava Hermanos, S.A. depends on advanced metalforming equipment to provide its customers with high quality stampings. When Nava decided to expand its flexibility and look at capturing new markets, the manufacturer chose an AIDA NC1 150 ton Gap Frame press equipped with the press builder’s ServoPro® servoforming technology.
Nava currently ships about 40 percent of its stampings to the HVAC industry. A first and second tier supplier, Nava employs lean manufacturing techniques, a kanban system to monitor its supply chain and other quality control methods to pursue zero defects, support short lot size deliveries and improve cost reductions. Recently, the Carrier Corporation awarded Nava for 100 percent on time delivery and a rating of just 21 Parts Per Million (PPM).
Headquartered in Monterrey, Mexico, the ISO certified stamper has plans to diversify to the automotive, appliance and electronics markets. In addition to maintaining their tight quality tolerances and fast response times, Nava needed press equipment versatile enough to efficiently stamp a wide variety of parts in different size batch runs. Nava also needed a press that could form complex parts from exotic materials. AIDA’s servo-driven gap press gave the manufacturer a flexible production solution.
With high strength materials, parts can be difficult to form. ServoPro eliminates this challenge with its ability to control the slide position of the press - within microns - something that can’t be done on hydraulic or conventional press equipment. ServoPro, built with the original direct drive design, houses a high torque, low RPM motor mounted directly to the driveshaft of a mechanical press and requires no torque amplification.
ServoPro’s direct drive offers the same maximum stroke length and torque rating as a conventional mechanical press while allowing full torque to be used at as little as five strokes per minute. Full torque at very low speeds gives stampers like Nava the ability to perform forming operations at slide velocities that cannot be achieved with conventional press drives. The result is higher speeds, higher working energy, better control, precise accuracy, reduced power consumption and less maintenance. In addition, ServoPro’s fully programmable slide motion and adjustable stroke length mean the number of ways stampers can program in and combine stroke, velocity and dwell profiles is unlimited.
Operating as an individual work station, Nava expects to use the ServoPro equipped gap press to produce cut and formed parts from galvanized and stainless steel as well as aluminum. NAVA’s need to maintain part consistency yet respond to customer schedule changes means the stamper must be able to provide low to high part volumes in low to medium runs.
ServoPro’s direct drive technology supports these requirements by allowing the press to be operated closer to its rated capacity by controlling slide velocity and dramatically reducing reverse tonnage. The capability of setting minimum stroke length to match the work also allows a shorter working cycle time. The added feature of hand crank motion allows an operator to manually progress through the slide motion to ensure that die setup and synchronization of ancillary equipment is accurate prior to a production run. In addition to protecting expensive tooling, the hand crank motion reduces the potential for production of bad parts.
Once Nava ramps up production with the AIDA servo-driven gap press, operation is expected to run six days a week, eight hours a day. "ServoPro’s performance advantages will help us accommodate the timing and speed variables required for certain jobs and allow us to manufacture special parts we could not previously produce," said a NAVA representative. "Flexibility is a key to remaining competitive, particularly in today’s market of expanding niche products and part makes and models."
For more information about AIDA:
AIDA-America Corp.
7660 Center Point 70 Blvd.
Dayton, Ohio 45424-6380
Phone: 937-237-2382
FAX: 937-237-1995
Email: comments@aida-america.com
Internet Address: www.aida-america.com
For more information about Nava:
Nava Hermanos, S.A.
San Nicolas de los Garza (Monterrey) Mexico
Phone; +52 (81) 8313-8333
FAX: +52 (81) 8313-8002
Email: nava@nh.com.mx
Internet Address: www.nh.com.mx