This machine builder is among the world's best, but visibility could go up a bit more

As Sales Representative of Amada GmbH, Marc Geurts is responsible for sales in the Netherlands. Despite the fact that this machine builder belongs to the top in the field of sheet-metal working machines worldwide, according to Geurts, Amada's visibility in the Netherlands can still be raised. Amada's Team-NL, consisting of eleven enthusiastic employees, is working hard on this.

Amada needs little introduction in the sheet metal world. This machine manufacturer, originally from Japan, is known worldwide for its laser cutting and laser welding machines, press brakes, punching machines, efficient combos and smart automation solutions. Worldwide, Amada has some 10,000 employees working at a total of ninety sales/service and production locations belonging to the group. Since 2011, Amada GmbH has been serving the Dutch market directly from Haan, near Düsseldorf. Here there is also an Amada Solution Center where the Amada house fair is also held several times a year. "A team of 11 Dutch employees is active on the Dutch market on a daily basis," Geurts says. "This team is made up of service and maintenance technicians, an IT and software specialist, a back-office employee, while I have sales in my portfolio. Behind our Team-NL in turn are dozens of product specialists who, each within their own field, provide support. For specific questions, we take customers to the Solution Center in Haan where we can also conduct practical tests to see how we can efficiently produce certain components suggested by the customer on our machines."

New 26 kW fiber laser

"Amada is one of the few machine builders that develops and produces its own fiber lasers," says Geurts. "At the last Euroblech, a new 26 kW high-power laser was launched in the REGIUS line. Until then, 12 kW was the upper limit. The new machine responds to the general trend toward higher laser powers that we see in the market. In-house developed software ensures very high cutting quality. Compared to a 12 kW laser, when cutting a 16 mm thick steel plate, the new laser is more than twice as fast, while cutting costs are some 50% lower!"

LBC technology

Unique to the VENTIS-AJ series of laser cutting machines is the so-called LBC technology. This stands for Locus Beam Control. This is an innovative system for controlling the movement of the laser beam during the cutting process without the laser head itself moving by the way. "The geometry of the movement pattern of the laser beam can therefore be accurately adjusted to the thickness and material type," Geurts says of this. "This allows you to create the ideal cutting gap and cut faster with higher cut quality. If it needs to be even faster, you can even switch from 'quality mode' to 'productivity mode'. Another advantage of LBC technology is that when cutting thicker materials, unloading is easier and sorting out is smoother and error-free. In this context, we also introduced at Euroblech a new TK II sorting machine".

Slogan: From Blank2Bend

"Amada is also very strong in automation solutions," continued Geurts. "For example, there is a program of warehouses that can be combined with all machines. With these, standalone solutions are possible but you can also use them to realize automated cells with, for example, a laser and a press brake combined, including robots to transfer the workpieces from one machine to another. That way you can create almost completely autonomous cutting-bending cells."

New press brakes

"Finally, Amada was also showing its new EGB series of press brakes at Euroblech," Geurts enthuses. "These are fully servo-controlled and feature integrated planetary drives. This allows the upper beam to be moved to the workpiece at a rapid rapid rapid traverse, after which the drive switches to the controlled and precise bending mode. This allows you to work much faster and more economically. Also new is the animated video support of the operator through an iPAD that shows how the workpiece to be bent should be positioned in relation to the lower and upper beam. This benefits not only the speed but also the final quality. In short, we continue to innovate and, partly with the Amada Service Europe founded this year, are ready with versatile and economical solutions for the sheet metal working sector."