“Ongoing ‘cost down’ pressures from customers mean that manufacturing accuracy and fast throughput are crucial to our continued success,” says the company’s managing director, Mark Brazier.

“We operate a range of presses up to 500 tonnes capacity, as well as both 5-axis and 2-axis laser cutting equipment. We purchased our first 2-axis laser machine in 2004, but as business continued to grow, it simply could not keep pace with our requirements.

“Around 80% of our work is produced from up to 3 mm steel raw material, so 2D laser cutting is central to our operations. Repeated equipment breakdowns started to have a negative impact on our own ability to meet customers’ demands. It therefore became essential to find a replacement machine that could deliver speed and accuracy with low unit part costs.”

Brazier and his laser systems manager, John Laud looked at the market and decided that Prima UK’s Platino model – equipped with an automatic work handling system – provided the most cost-effective solution.

Capable of achieving cutting speeds of 140 m/min and head  acceleration of 12 m/s², the selected Prima machine has a 3 metre by 1.5 metre bed and is equipped with a 4 kW laser suitable for cutting mild steel components up to 25 mm thick.

Featuring a 30 tonne capacity 10-storey work handling tower unit, PAB’s installation is equipped for full ‘lights out’ operation.

“We normally run two shifts per day, with unattended operation overnight and at weekends. Typically, we’d expect the machine to process around 100 off 2 metre x 1.25 metre sheets per night,” says Laud.

“The Platino’s speed and versatility have helped us to offset steady increases in raw material costs over recent months,” notes Brazier. “It provides significant cycle time reductions across the 500 different laser cut components we currently produce on site. It also uses around 30% less power than the machine it superseded, even though it is equipped with a 4 kW laser compared to the original’s 2.5 kW unit.”

www.pabgroup.co.uk