Consistently high quality, faster turnaround and minimal handling costs

Automation is becoming more important in the metal sector due to the growing shortage of technicians, rising wages and high quality requirements. "We listen to the questions and wishes from the market, and then develop solutions to give the best answer to them" states Patrick van Scherpenseel, account manager Benelux of Q-Fin.

"Q-Fin develops, builds and supplies solutions for deburring, rounding and finishing metal sheet metal parts," Van Scherpenseel begins. "From that base, we continued to look at the need in the market. With a growing shortage of technicians, companies want maximum output with minimum effort and personnel. This is possible by having machine operations automated and speeding up the handling around it. The latter has recently been a growing demand from the market. Q-Fin offers an answer to this."

User-friendly, fast and reliable

Van Scherpenseel explains, "At Q-Fin, three factors play an important role in development: easy operation, fast machines, and a consistently reliable finish on the products. Whereas five years ago we used rotary knobs, these have given way to a touch screen that allows the operator to easily set the desired operation by the machine: from automatically calibrating the abrasives to determining the speed, pressure and type of abrasive. As a result, machines can essentially be operated by anyone. With this time savings, operators keep time for performing other tasks."

Full automation

But you can go one step further. "We have developed this type of setting because we also want to give our customers the ability to be fully automated. We can link our machines with ERP systems. For example, in our most extensive line, with two finishing machines, reversing station and a loading and unloading robot. The ERP system communicates to the machine and robot what product the customer wants and what material and processing is needed for it. An AGV delivers a pallet, a robot uses vision technology to recognize the product and places it on the infeed conveyor of the finishing machine. This then receives all the required input and performs the machining. After this, the product will be fed through a reversing unit to a second finishing machine, performing double-sided machining. Finally, an unmanned robot places the finished product back on a pallet. This so-called Q-Fin TwinLine set-up offers several advantages. The repetitive work no longer needs to be done manually, leading to consistently high quality, faster turnaround time and minimal handling costs."

Futures 

For many companies, this setup is still far in the future. "At the Advanced Manufacturing Antwerp trade fair, we therefore showed both an entry-level model (Topgrinder) and our latest development (F250). The Topgrinder is a mobile deburring machine that comes standard with an infinitely adjustable brush speed and a vacuum system, so that workpieces are clamped firmly on the work table and the operator always works safely by means of a two-hand control. A great deal of time is saved with this over manual deburring. It is a model without set-up time, making it easy for us to demonstrate its capabilities. For many companies, this is a first introduction to a different way of deburring and machining than they currently do."

Prime

In addition, Q-Fin also showed a first at the fair: the fully automatic compact finishing machine F250. This machine is specifically designed for machining (very) small sheet metal parts. "It is a successor to the F200, equipped with the latest machine innovations. For example, it is 50 mm wider, has an improved vacuum system, a motor-controlled sanding belt, automatic calibration of the brushes, a 10-inch touch screen, and interfacing with an ERP system is possible. This gives the user the ability to have fully programmed operations, making the machine very suitable for serial work."