The new Okuma 'Space Centre' horizontal machining centre, now installed at Spirax Sarco, will be the key to increasing capacity, reducing scrap and ultimately making the organisation more competitive by delivering to customer demand. It is the only one of its kind in South Africa.
The machine bed and pallet system are capable of accommodating a number of components, including globe valve body castings and transfer cases, at one time and returning complete machined components ready for cleaning and assembly.
Sophisticated computer controlled programs allow the machine not only to perform the usual cylindrical turning, drilling, tapping and milling operations; but using the interpolation programs embedded in the machine's software, it is possible to 'turn' flats on shafts.
Now that intensive staff training is complete, programming and machine trials have begun in earnest. If a problem does occur, then the twenty-first century comes into full swing as the machine centre has its own communication system that allows intervention and remote fault analysis by the technicians in Japan.
With the programming also comes the 'tooling up', the identification and purchase of all the many and various machine tools that are an integral part of the system. The post tool magazine that is part of the automatic tool change-over system has been installed. This, together with an extensive tool inventory, will be managed by the 'Smart Drawer' machine tool system - another improvement that will contribute to the overall success of the machine.
The Space Centre, costing over R4-million, is the centrepiece in the continuing investment by Spirax Sarco South Africa in the future of the organisation.
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