User-friendly and rapid production with Xcelerate

G.A.B. Metaal is based in Bergeijk and is geared towards the manufacture of both series production work as well as individual items and prototypes. G.A.B. Metaal specialises in making complex products for the aviation, medical and energy industries, amongst others. In 2011 it set about the task of automation by adopting an approach to first acquire the necessary experience. G.A.B. Metaal now has several processing centres, two of which are operated by Xcelerates.

Opting for automation

When G.A.B. Metaal was set up in 2007, the approach was to automate immediately. The founders quickly decided to opt for a user-friendly automation solution. They then ended up opting for Cellro. Xcelerate best suited their situation to continue manufacturing both series production and individual items. With Xcelerate, the set-up time for the process is just ten minutes, whereas previously this took about an hour and a half. This represents an enormous saving in time and therefore money.

Automating with Xcelerate

To make the most suitable choice, G.A.B. Metaal viewed several robot cells. One important requirement for G.A.B. was that the robot must have a small footprint. After having looked at various automation solutions, the company opted for Xcelerate by Cellro. G.A.B. Metaal is now able to load workpieces made of stainless steel, aluminium and titanium weighing up to ten kilograms. To do so, however, they only need a small area of floor space to achieve this. Xcelerate at G.A.B. Metaal consists of four drawers from which the robot can pack products.

Drastically increased productivity

Because of the complex production undertaken by G.A.B. Metaal, it is often also a requirement to produce individual items. In addition to producing individual items, they often complete series production runs too. This combination ensures that they are able to recoup the investment made in the automation robot. Of course, a maximum amount of machining time must be achieved. G.A.B. Metaal’s aim is to ensure that the machine can operate for twenty hours a day, while all products run together. One requirement for this is flexibility. Moreover, the robot must make production easier. This has been achieved with Xcelerate. Another advantage of Xcelerate is that the robot cell retains enough free space to access the machine easily.

Effective deployment of experts

The most important thing for G.A.B. Metaal is that its experts are able to undertake challenging work. Van Poppel, co-founder of G.A.B. Metaal, says: “People don’t sit around waiting to carry out series production runs. We employ experts and we want to continue to challenge them and give them high-quality work. In addition to the efficiency, which the automation robot demonstrates when completing series production work, it also has the advantage that our people can continue to be engaged in tasks for which expertise is required. Because however you automate, machining continues to be a specialist activity.”

Are you also interested in automating your production process?

Curious about the possibilities for automating your production process? Or would you like to know more about automation with Xcelerate or one of our other loading robots? Please feel free to contact one of our experts.