The demands on quality and productivity are constantly rising. Being able to produce competitively while meeting the quality standards requires outstanding expertise. Intelligent solutions that warrant safe processes are much in demand. With its Measuring Machines business division and in cooperation with the young manufacturer of turning machines, Inventhor, Blum-Novotest offers its customers individual manufacturing and measuring solutions.
Inventhor is a manufacturer of 4-axis vertical turning machines and a system supplier of serial turned parts in medium-sized to large batches. Due to the lack of available alternatives, Ralf Prahler, owner of WZT Wendland-Zerspanungs-Technik GmbH, had developed and built a special turning machine for the production of his own serial turned parts. One of his customers for serial turned parts liked the machine called “IRIDIUM” so much that he ordered a turning machine like this also for his own production. So the trained turner and master mechanical engineer, Ralf Prahler, founded Inventhor GmbH in 2004 and began to produce turning machines.
Today, the two companies, WZT and Inventhor, are located in the town of Hitzacker and employ about 100 associates and trainees. As many as 74 turning machines are on the market, most of which in the automotive industry. The machines, which are geared to the daily manufacturing routine, combine design and proven technology in an intelligent manner. A reduction of machining time, the increase of primary processing time and the decrease of idle time resulted in a significant improvement of output.
The BMK 5 measuring and automation concept of Blum-Novotest GmbH consists of a modularly extendable measuring cell with integrated workpiece handling. Unlike in-process measurement, the BMK 5 automatic measuring machine allows cycle-time-neutral post-process tests outside of the machine. The applications of the BMK 5 cover a broad spectrum: From a flexible stand-alone device to an inline measuring and testing cell for fully integrated, highly productive serial production. Employed immediately after the maching centre, the advantages of the closed loop including correction interface with the machining centre become evident. Workpiece handling and automatic calibration of the measuring system are realised by an integrated 6-axis robot. When the corresponding modules are integrated, the BMK 5 can also assume such tasks as sorting, labelling or the transfer to packaging in addition to workpiece testing.
Holger Schöller, sales engineer in the Measuring Machines division of Blum-Novotest explains, “The BMK 5 automatic measuring machine is especially geared to and optimised according to end-customer specifications. Here the workpieces are safety-relevant components for cars for which 100 % testing and documentation of the results is mandatory.”