Edumar Metaalbewerking of Someren in the Netherlands is a young company, with only ten years behind it. Brothers Eduard and Marius Wijlaars began producing built-in kitchens as a sideline, in a disused henhouse! It wasn’t long before they switched to precision engineering. This was quite natural, since their sound professional experience was in that area.
In the late 1990s, ‘outsourcing’ became a buzzword in the European manufacturing industry. Not least at ‘The Big Company’ in Eindhoven. Work was farmed out and whole departments were made redundant. At a stroke, the brothers’ operation was transformed from being a fun sideline to serious component production as a subcontractor. And the old henhouse has been replaced by a modern 400 m2 workshop which will be extended to 1000 m2 later this year.
The first cell – an odd combination which boosted spindle-hours by 400%
Lots of hard work, but today Edumar has 12 employees and a good name as a supplier of quality components in short runs with close tolerances. In the milling machines, the runs are often less than 100 units, and in the lathes seldom more than 1000. Occasionally they even undertake one-piece production.
Most of their customers are in the foodstuffs and semiconductor industries, but their biggest customer produces industrial gluing machines. The majority of their customers are in the Netherlands and Germany.
Eduard Wijlaars tells the story: “Both of us tend to be ‘firebrands’. If we see an opportunity we grab it before it can get away. Two years ago we heard about DMU50U, which is not a production machine in the usual meaning of the term. But the price was good and it could be delivered quickly, so we did a deal. And it has served us well.”
A typical Edumar job
“But if you’ve invested in a machine you need to keep it running. There were many evenings and weekends when we went down to the workshop to run the machine for a while. The ‘while’ became hours, which turned into whole evenings and nights. And the wife was sitting at home with three small children. It’s fair to say that home life wasn’t optimal.”
“I began to wonder whether there was some kind of robot that could replace my hands. And last year we upgraded the machine with a WorkPal Compact Servo with 12 MacroMagnum pallets in the magazine. The machine has no air connection through the machine table, so a special solution was needed. And what a success this automatic production cell turned out to be! Spindle-hours have increased by 400% and the investment was repaid in four months.”
A few months ago, Edumar installed the second automatic production cell – a DMU50 Linear Evolution and a WorkPartner with 30 positions for MacroMagnum in the magazine. Vices of two sizes are mounted on the pallets.
“An outstanding cell”, says Eduard. “The control system for pallet handling gives fantastic flexibility. It’s easy to interrupt for urgent jobs. Just complete the urgent job and then resume the interrupted one.”
Jobs that we could never have taken on a few years ago are no trouble today, thanks to the automatic cells producing overnight and at weekends. Edumar’s future focus is quite clear – more automation.
The second cell with the workpiece in a vice on the MacroMagnum pallet
“And my family life has changed greatly. I can now spend more time with my family, safe in the knowledge that the automatic cells are producing. Last Saturday I was out shopping with the family and received a text message telling me that the batch was complete. The eldest boy told me I would have to hurry down to the workshop and reload!”
“The family used to think I spent too much time at the workshop; now they are telling me when I should go there”, concludes Eduard with a laugh.
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Related links:
MacroMagnum
WorkPartner
WorkPal Compact Servo